Read Online The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy: And Other Tales From Home-Front America in World War II by William B. Breuer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William B. Breuer
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saboteurs.
The people’s suspicions would have been reinforced had they known the government investigations had either failed to report on the role played by the Oceanic Service Corporation or else had chosen to keep silent about it. Oceanic had handled the hiring of many of the guards and workers on the Normandie.
Oceanic had been founded by William Dreschel, who had formerly been a superintendent of the North German Lloyd Steamship Line. A few years earlier he had admitted to a House committee that he had supplied $125,000 bail (equivalent to $1.5 million in 2002) for Nazi agents who had been arrested in the United States. In 1938, during the trial of eleven men and women who had been charged with conducting anti-Nazi demonstrations on the deck of the German ocean liner Bremen when it was at a New York City pier, Dreschel was asked by the defense counsel: “Do you owe allegiance to Adolf Hitler?” The answer was a loud: “Yes!”
After Hitler declared war on the United States, the ownership and the identity of the officials of the Oceanic Service Corporation had not been investigated by U.S. officials. So the firm had been placing its people on the Normandie at the pier without question.
Ten days after the Normandie capsized and lay on its side like a huge beached whale, Congressman Samuel Dickstein took to the House floor and stridently charged that William Dreschel had put Nazi guards on the liner.
Calling Dreschel “the nation’s number one spy,” the congressman thundered: “He organized the Oceanic Service Corporation and through that agency was supplying guards to ships, piers, and warehouses in New York City. He placed more than thirty Nazi agents on the Normandie!” 7
The Battle of Los Angeles
A T A PRESS CONFERENCE in the Oval Office of the White House on February 17, 1942, President Roosevelt dropped a blockbuster in an offhand manner. He declared that it was possible that an American city could be shelled and bombed without warning. Did he have any particular cities in mind? Yes, New York and Detroit. Curiously, by omission Roosevelt seemed to indicate that Washington was not a target for any enemy force.
Six days after Roosevelt’s pronouncement, as if to dramatize his viewpoint, a Japanese submarine surfaced at night off Goleta, California, eight miles north of Santa Barbara, and pumped twelve to fifteen shells from a deck gun into a large oil complex. A derrick was blown apart, but little other damage was done.
However, it was a psychological victory for the people of Japan. A Tokyo newspaper headline screamed: “Our Submarines Destroy Large U.S. City.”
American intelligence officers concluded that the Japanese submarine had been tuned in to California commercial radio broadcasts because the shelling erupted at the precise time that President Roosevelt was giving one of his folksy fireside chats.
A night after the oil field shelling, three million people in the Los Angeles region were rousted from sleep when sirens began blaring throughout the sprawling complex. Minutes later, scores of powerful searchlights began stabbing long fingers of white into the black sky. Army antiaircraft guns barked and fired more than fifteen hundred rounds at the phantom enemy bomber forces.
Citizens were terrified. Many fled to basements. Others crawled under beds. Adding to the raucous din, police cars dashed about with sirens screeching. An hour after lookouts had spotted the nonexistent bombers, an eerie silence descended upon Los Angeles. 8
“We Poison Rats and Japs”
A NGER AND NEAR-HYSTERIA continued to saturate the U.S. home front weeks after the Japanese treachery. These deep emotions intensified after what turned
“We Poison Rats and Japs” 43
A “dangerous subversive” looks in bewilderment at an armed guard. No incident of betrayal by Japanese Americans ever occurred. (U.S. Army)
out to be false rumors seeped out that Japanese civilians in the Hawaiian Islands had pinpointed targets
The people’s suspicions would have been reinforced had they known the government investigations had either failed to report on the role played by the Oceanic Service Corporation or else had chosen to keep silent about it. Oceanic had handled the hiring of many of the guards and workers on the Normandie.
Oceanic had been founded by William Dreschel, who had formerly been a superintendent of the North German Lloyd Steamship Line. A few years earlier he had admitted to a House committee that he had supplied $125,000 bail (equivalent to $1.5 million in 2002) for Nazi agents who had been arrested in the United States. In 1938, during the trial of eleven men and women who had been charged with conducting anti-Nazi demonstrations on the deck of the German ocean liner Bremen when it was at a New York City pier, Dreschel was asked by the defense counsel: “Do you owe allegiance to Adolf Hitler?” The answer was a loud: “Yes!”
After Hitler declared war on the United States, the ownership and the identity of the officials of the Oceanic Service Corporation had not been investigated by U.S. officials. So the firm had been placing its people on the Normandie at the pier without question.
Ten days after the Normandie capsized and lay on its side like a huge beached whale, Congressman Samuel Dickstein took to the House floor and stridently charged that William Dreschel had put Nazi guards on the liner.
Calling Dreschel “the nation’s number one spy,” the congressman thundered: “He organized the Oceanic Service Corporation and through that agency was supplying guards to ships, piers, and warehouses in New York City. He placed more than thirty Nazi agents on the Normandie!” 7
The Battle of Los Angeles
A T A PRESS CONFERENCE in the Oval Office of the White House on February 17, 1942, President Roosevelt dropped a blockbuster in an offhand manner. He declared that it was possible that an American city could be shelled and bombed without warning. Did he have any particular cities in mind? Yes, New York and Detroit. Curiously, by omission Roosevelt seemed to indicate that Washington was not a target for any enemy force.
Six days after Roosevelt’s pronouncement, as if to dramatize his viewpoint, a Japanese submarine surfaced at night off Goleta, California, eight miles north of Santa Barbara, and pumped twelve to fifteen shells from a deck gun into a large oil complex. A derrick was blown apart, but little other damage was done.
However, it was a psychological victory for the people of Japan. A Tokyo newspaper headline screamed: “Our Submarines Destroy Large U.S. City.”
American intelligence officers concluded that the Japanese submarine had been tuned in to California commercial radio broadcasts because the shelling erupted at the precise time that President Roosevelt was giving one of his folksy fireside chats.
A night after the oil field shelling, three million people in the Los Angeles region were rousted from sleep when sirens began blaring throughout the sprawling complex. Minutes later, scores of powerful searchlights began stabbing long fingers of white into the black sky. Army antiaircraft guns barked and fired more than fifteen hundred rounds at the phantom enemy bomber forces.
Citizens were terrified. Many fled to basements. Others crawled under beds. Adding to the raucous din, police cars dashed about with sirens screeching. An hour after lookouts had spotted the nonexistent bombers, an eerie silence descended upon Los Angeles. 8
“We Poison Rats and Japs”
A NGER AND NEAR-HYSTERIA continued to saturate the U.S. home front weeks after the Japanese treachery. These deep emotions intensified after what turned
“We Poison Rats and Japs” 43
A “dangerous subversive” looks in bewilderment at an armed guard. No incident of betrayal by Japanese Americans ever occurred. (U.S. Army)
out to be false rumors seeped out that Japanese civilians in the Hawaiian Islands had pinpointed targets
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