Chapter 6: “’A Vast War Establishment:’” Remakingthe San Pedro/Long Beach Harbor During World War

II”

Strategic Long Beach

Foreign wars drove the processes by which the armedservices of the United States came to occupy, shapeand reshape the community of Long Beach, Californiabeginning with World War One, accelerating during World War II and the Cold War, and retreating in the Post Cold War period. It remains to be seen how much the global war on terrorism will impact the city, but we can be certain it is having some impact. In this paper I will examine the relationship between war and the transformation of urban geographical space, looking at the Navy.

The reshaping of the San Pedro harbor could not have unfolded in a more appropriate locale, for Long Beach had made itself and been made into a triple strategic center with a remarkable set of strategic assets: oil, aircraft production and ferrying airport, and naval harbor and shipyard servicing the Pacific Fleet, as well as a major west coast port of embarkation for the army and supplies for the Pacific theater, all located within a less than 50 square mile radius. For thissection, the focus will be upon the Roosevelt NavalBase. This major west coast military project created a naval facility that was a central nub forPacific Theater operations.

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Long Beach’s strategic importance had been well established prior to the actual shooting war in 1941. For aviation it was the events of early 1938 that set in motion the physical transformation of the city’s municipal airport and aviation manufacturing base. The combination of an agreement in Munich giving Germany the Sudetenland and a briefing by Major General Hap Arnold to FDR on the tremendous gap between the American and British air forces and Germany’s aviation preparedness, set the President rethinking the strategic picture, especially the danger of long-range bombers. Straight away FDR sent Harry Hopkins on a closely guarded mission to the West Coast to tour aircraft factories. The visit would inaugurate a dramatic expansion of the aviation industry in the region as the federal government moved to subsidize the training of skilled aircraftlabor and place orders for a staggering number of advanced fighter, transport, and bomber aircraft.i

Aviation was the last major pillar in the construction of a strategic city. Douglas AircraftCorporation broke ground for a new aircraft production facility in 1940.ii The federal government played a key role in bringing Douglas’ proposed new factory to Long Beach. The Roosevelt administration used the Reconstruction Finance Corporation through one of its subsidiaries, the Defense Plant Corporation, to select the site and provide the funding for construction, which came inat $28.8 million. The area consisted of 142 acres next to the Long Beach Municipal Airport. Douglas had purchased the land from Clark Bonner, the heir

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to the Montana Land Company in 1939. Later the site was expanded to 242 acres to accommodate new aircraft production plans.iii

Acting on President Roosevelt’s mandate there followed in rapid succession a series of actions bythe Long Beach City Council to lease the Long BeachMunicipal Airport to the War Department. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Navy entered into a dozen lease arrangements with the city and with local property owners and businesses to obtain control over the airfield and outlying areas. In total, the Army Corps of Engineers purchased a dozen acres of land and leased nearly 1000 acres from citizens and the city. The lease agreements with the city authorized the “construction and or improvement and enlargement of shops, hangars, runways, taxiways, parking and warming up aprons, gasoline and oil storage systems, night lighting and blind landing systems, in locations thereon mutually agreed upon.” The airport that emerged from the federal takeover served the Army Air Forceand the civilian contractors who churned out aircraft at the Douglas facility next door to the site. Over the course of the war the Long Beach Army Air Force base became a major facility, with hundreds of support buildings, base housing, a hospital, and recreational facilities. Hundreds ofservicemen and their families lived on the base, and the airfield itself assumed its first modern shape.iv

Transforming the Long Beach/San Pedro Harbor, 1939-1948

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Roosevelt also eyed the expansion of American navalforces, requesting a billion dollar for a two-oceannavy in his 1938-1939 budget. In fact, the transformation of the airport followed an earlier takeover of the Harbor beginning in 1939, producinga massive construction of naval facilities on Terminal Island and in San Pedro as a war preparedness measure.

The city’s strategic naval foundations lay in the growing antagonism between the imperial government of Japan and the American government going back to World War One. In 1919 President Wilson had designated San Pedro harbor as the home of the 11th fleet. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 heightened the importance of the pacific fleet. AsJapanese expansion gathered force in the 1930s, Mr.Roosevelt kept upping the concentration of naval force in Long Beach. Naval officers spoke openly of the likelihood of a surprise attack on the fleetas early as 1932.v

Prior to fall of 1939, the Navy had established 15 different units in the Long Beach-Los Angeles district. These facilities were scattered around the harbor but were woefully underdeveloped. According to the historian Harvey Beigel, “the San Pedro/Long Beach anchorage . . . lacked the traditional prerequisites for remaining the home ofthe navy’s largest warships.” (p. 46). Indeed, one of the striking contrasts in the Long Beach-Navy story is that for two decades the American government managed this relationship on the cheap,

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exhibiting little energy to construct a world-classnaval base to accompany the formidable floating military force it deployed there. Why was that?

Probably the most important reason lay in the arrayof opponents to turning San Pedro/Long Beach into apermanent base. The Navy’s recognition that the harbor was exposed to the open sea and therefore subject to attack dimmed the sites appeal. Fort MacArthur added heavy guns during World War 1 to bolster defensive forces, but these were hardly adequate. Throughout the 1930s, navy leaders such as Admiral William D. Leahy saw San Francisco as the best locale for a permanent base. Though a 2.1mile breakwater was in place, it created a less than adequate anchorage space and eventually was added to in the 1930s.

It might be argued that the extension of the breakwater demonstrates a strong willingness of both the Los Angeles and Long Beach authorities to support heavy infrastructure investment in a naval presence. In fact, the story of the breakwater extension supports a different and more nuanced conclusion. As demonstrated in chapter 7, the extension of the breakwater was an idea proposed bythe Greater Harbor Committee of 200 in the mid 1920s. However, one of the impediments to winning Army Corps of Engineers support was the fact that the original contour targeted for the location of the breakwater cut directly through the navy anchorage area. It was only when the Los Angeles Chief Harbor Engineer, Nicholson, proposed moving the contour seaward and cheapening the cost of

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construction through the use of a clay core, that the funding was approved.vi

In any event, for two decades the Navy resisted heavy investment in the area. This meant there were no land facilities to speak of initially, and fleet administration and ship repairs were done on and by ships. Other political opponents in the form of Senators Hiram Johnson and Samuel Shortridge, both from northern California, and the San Diego Congressional contingent, added further political opposition to investment in naval facilities.

The Los Angeles city administration also proved inept at fostering a building environment for the navy. The Los Angeles Harbor Commission conceived of an ambitious naval expansion plan in 1933, one that included fleet landings, a target repair base and storage area, a navy supply wharf, road improvements, a fleet post office, and a Pacific Electric Transit Company line to a navy landing, aswell as a dry dock. But voters defeated the $14 million bond to pay for it in November 1935. All that the city was able to accomplish was refurbish the Trona sports field on the beach below Fort MacArthur and add a basketball stadium and pool. And these were the work of the San Pedro Chamber ofCommerce and the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department.

Nor was the City of Long Beach an advocate for naval building, although it did engage in some limited building aimed at helping bring sailors

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into the city for shore leave. For example, in 1932the city spent $80,000 on a new navy landing and $10,000 for an athletic field. What really appealed to the city was the fact that the San Pedro/Long Beach area became a major bedroom community for the crews of the fleets larger units.As the number of battleships, carriers, and cruise ships mounted, naval personnel swelled, reaching over 30,000 men by late 1934. By 1939, navy families had grown to more than nine thousand in Long Beach as both officers and enlisted men moved into the area. As early as 1934, the Press-Telegram would chortle over the $2.8 million monthly navy payroll being spent ashore, 75% of it in Long Beach. The “navy is this city’s largest industry,” crowed the newspaper. In the absence ofpublic housing, it was alleged navy families becamethe prey of local landlords practicing price gouging. The problem became so pronounced that theLong Beach Chamber of Commerce had to request the Long Beach Apartment Owners Association stop their discriminatory practices. It was only after 1939 that the government addressed public housing for naval personnel with the construction of the Carmelitos and Harbor Hills projects. Later othersfollowed.

Beginning with the 1938 Naval Defense Act the Federal government began a dramatic increase in funding for naval yards and other installations. This had an immediate impact on a municipal airfield belonging to the city of Los Angeles at Terminal Island. This small landmass resting just south of the Cerritos Channel straddled the two

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municipalities. Terminal Island was jointly controlled by both the City of Los Angeles and the City of Long Beach. Los Angeles had designated a public airfield, “Allen Airport” in 1928. In 1935,the Navy had taken over the facility under a 30-year lease from the Los Angeles Harbor Department. It’s intent in doing so was the service aircraft from the Aircraft carriers Lexington and Saratoga. The field was renamed “Reeves Field” after the 11th districts much admired naval commander. Over the next two years WPA and Harbor funds were used to improve the field. On March 1, 1938, Reeves Field was upgraded to the status of a Fleet Air Base. Bythen the base’s 255 acre field had received a 640 foot overhaul apron, a 286 foot concrete seaplane ramp, a 225 foot dock, a 1,400 foot breakwater, a 9,200 foot long by 400 foot wide landscape runway, as well as highways, water/electric facilities and a dredged seaplane anchorage. The number of observation aircraft the base serviced grew in tandem, from 130 in June 1938 to 200 in June 1939. The fields growing importance was reflected in the navy’s decision to seek outright ownership of the base. When it made its intent clear, the Los Angeles Harbor Department attempted to drive a hardbargain over oil revenues, commercial port development, and opportunity costs. These efforts produced unproductive negotiations. Finally, in August 1940 the Federal government officially condemned both the Los Angeles and Long Beach portions of the Island, seizing 228 acres of Los Angeles, and 105 acres of Long Beach property. On May 7, 1941 Terminal Island was designated Roosevelt Naval Base.vii

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Meanwhile, in fall 1939 the Navy began a frenetic buildup of facilities and activities in the harbor area. The planning aimed to bring together these naval shore and ship-based activities on to the Island. New permanent buildings would be supportedon pilings and designed to withstand earthquake forces. Exterior walls rose made of reinforced concrete. One purpose of the base was to make available in one locale recreational facilities forthe Pacific Fleet. Roosevelt Naval Operating Base (NOB) would be the “Flag Ship” for the fleet. The new base would devote about one-third of its space to administration and recreational facilities. Two-thirds of the base would be allocated to industrial warehousing and ship repair.

The first naval commandant of the Roosevelt Naval Base was Captain S. F. Heim, who arrived in 1940, just as the base began to take shape. Heim would preside over the dramatic expansion of the facility, and work closely and productively with the “farsighted” civilian leadership and businessmen of the harbor cities. In his testimonybefore a congressional committee he confessed, “we have found their understanding cooperation to be ofthe greatest value.”viii

Quickly added on the administration and recreation side were an Administration Building, the Fleet Post Office, Recreation and Bowling Ally buildings,a library, an Officers’ Recreation Building. The architectural cooperative, Allied Architects, whichincluded the African American architect, Paul R.

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Williams, produced the design for the base over thefour years of the project. In land, northeast of the harbor, the Long Beach Naval Hospital site was not acquired without protest from powerful landowners. In the case of the site of the future hospital, the Navy took on the premier pioneer family of Long Beach, the Bixby clan. In September1941, the Navy proposed the takeover of 88 acres ofFred H. Bixby’s Rancho Los Alamitos, and 16 acres of his sister Susana’s adjacent holdings. Despite the Bixby’s protests, the land was seized.ix The Naval Hospital was completed at the start of 1943. The new hospitals at Long Beach and also at Corona were soon recipients of Pacific theater casualties.Between January and March 1943, 500 patients arrived. Between September and November 1943, 3,000 patients arrived. On the warehousing and shiprepair side, two dry docks were built on the Long Beach side of the Island, and began operation in April 1943. San Pedro added a naval supply depot. According to the historian most familiar with theseevent, “Long Beach had truly become the home of thebattleships and the site of ‘battleship row.”x

By 1943, the building frenzy generated 84 activities and units on top of the original 15 bringing to 99 the total number of major functions and units in the 11th Naval District, a compelling measure of the “vast war establishment . . . super-imposed upon the harbor cities,” as one naval leader told Congress. (See Appendix A: Naval Activities in Los Angeles County, 1939-1943) On the basis of this presence, the Navy employed roughly 2,200 civilians and approximately an equal

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number of military personnel. Prior to this buildup, what the residents of Long Beach knew of the Navy came largely through the presence of sailors in the city during their off duty hours. But the dramatic increase in naval presence after September 8, 1939 brought a ten-fold increase in naval personnel to the area as well as a complete takeover of the harbor for the duration of the war.By 1943, the Navy reported the presence of some 21,200 officers and enlisted men in the district, as well as a couple of dozen government housed civil service personnel, and their families. Approximately 50 percent of the total military force imported by the navy had brought families into the area. In addition, their civilian work force had grown to 25,000.xi

Repairing ships was the key activity of the naval base. Keeping the Dry dock operating grew ever more important in the eyes of the leadership of both the navy and the city of Long Beach. This facility drove concerns for more workers as well asthe need for a new transportation infrastructure.

Adding to the difficulty in the recruitment of workers was the fact that the Naval Dry docks employment profile for civilians heavily favored skilled workers. Of the 5,741 civilian personnel at the docks in fall 1943, 75% were skilled in ship-repair trades. The remaining 25% included laborers, helpers, and janitors, among others. Thenavy was projecting another 9.300 dry dock workers in the first half of 1944. Interestingly, naval planners recognized that the late arrival of an

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operational naval base put their labor recruitment at a disadvantage in relation to shipbuilding and aviation employment in the area, as did the chronicshortage of housing for their workers.xii

Between April and November 1943, Long Beach-San Pedro-Terminal Island area was designated a “congested area.” Naval personnel testifying before a congressional committee sent to investigate the situation in November 1943 made it clear that “naval activities in the harbor area have developed with such rapidity and in such magnitude that the labor shortage and the threatened congestion of the area render every subject listed in the committee’s program of hearings of vital interest to the Navy.” Congested area hearing projections for 1944 called for another 14,000 civilian workers and 32,000 more workers at the other war plants in the harbor area.xiii

The movement of thousands of naval and civilian workers, personnel needing training, and recreationists onto and off of the island was itself a major challenge, owing to the geographicalisolation of the island. At the center of this problem was the dry dock operation. Viewed logistically, the dry docks location occupied “the extreme southern part of the Los Angeles critical labor market,” as commander Heim described the facility in 1943. That meant, “that part furthest removed from the central core of population, labor supply, and housing.” And that meant, “the labor

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employed in the district must commute long distances.”

Difficulties with recruitment and commuting distances were one thing, but compounding the challenge were access issues. Ingress and egress from the Island was “extremely limited.” The island was serviced from the north by the Ford Avenue drawbridge, mainly a railroad passage with two traffic lanes, which had originally been built in 1924. Just to the west of this, the navy added the temporary Pennington Avenue Bridge contributinganother four lanes of highway. Thus, the island hadonly six “poorly distributed highway lanes.” “There is no adequate public transportation servicefor civilians from the dry docks to Long Beach, SanPedro, or other community centers.” An extensive “share-the-ride” program was developed to accommodate the vast majority of workers dependent on private automobiles. But this is where the headaches began with local gasoline ration boards and subsequent traffic conditions. What was reallyneeded, especially in light of planned expansion ofthe work force in 1944, was “an adequate public transportation system.” This pointed toward investments in new access roads at the west, east, and north ends of the Island, or what R. R. Shoemaker, the Chief Engineer of the Long Beach Harbor Commission, called “the bare necessities of adequate highway approaches to Terminal Island.” According to Shoemaker, Terminal Island had the distinction of being “perhaps the most critical military and naval zone in the country lacking proper highway access.”xiv

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This situation led Captain Heim “to establish an organized transportation system” featuring, during 1943, the expansion of a bus system from 2 to 8 44-passenger busses initially operating for three hours daily to operating from 05:30 to 00:55 on a 30-minute schedule from the Island to Long Beach and San Pedro. Ridership grew from 15,000 passengers a month to 55,000 passengers by October 1943.xv

In anticipation of the great expansion of activities on the island some access planning had begun as early as 1940. By 1943 only the retractable pontoon bridge and Terminal Island Freeway had moved forward. The Terminal Island Freeway, once built permitted the removal of the Pennington Avenue Bridge. The pontoon bridge was to be “of the most extreme emergency nature as it will be valueless to land traffic without serious interference with water-borne traffic to the inner harbor.” In the longer run, a tunnel or “vehiculartube” from Long Beach to the Island was suppose to replace it, but it failed to win the approval of the Federal Bureau of Public Roads, which declined to support it, despite a request from the navy to move forward. Road Commissioner Thomas F. McDonaldhad concluded that freeway access from the north would move more traffic than the tube.xvi

The military’s dramatic expansion itself became a vehicle for calls for a rethinking of the city’s identity. Heim, in describing his operation to the Long Beach Council of Defense in September 1943,

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told them, “[m]illions of dollars have been spent in the harbor area by the Government to build a base for the war effort. As the intensity of the conflict in the Pacific increases, this base will become world important.” Given the investment, Heim emphasized, “to build a great naval establishment here entails a responsibility on the part of the community to support and sympathize with the needs of that establishment.” Two months later Lt. Commander G. L. Dickson, United States Navy Reserve, Heim’s Administrative Assistant made concrete what the navy meant by the city’s new responsibility in a remarkable re-imagining of the identity of the city. According to Dickson, “A vast war establishment has been superimposed upon the harbor cities of San Pedro, Wilmington, and Long Beach.” It required “the introduction of new thinking both in the minds of the Navy toward the communities and the communities toward the Navy.” Before the war Long Beach and her neighbors had been “cities normally devoted . . . to shipping, oil, fishing, tourist trade, and the entertainment of elderly retired people.” Now, however, “it is evident that if housing is to be devoted efficiently to the war effort, encouragement of tourists and retired persons to come into the areasshould be out for the duration.” As regards the Navy, Dickson also discussed the delicate matter ofmilitary families following their husbands into thearea. “[D]ependents of service personnel should engage in war work or leave the harbor area when their husbands go to sea.” This, he believed wouldopen up the area to accommodate “the man who reallyshould be housed,” “the men from the permanent

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shore establishments who are ordered to work in thearea and can find no place for their families to live at a price they can afford to pay.” It shouldalso be noted here as well the fate of the fishing community on Terminal Island, which the navy brought to an abrupt end shortly after Pearl Harbor.xvii

In the face of the massive growth of war related activities, the City leaderships’ initial focus on defense preparation would also begin to change. In1943, with the launching of a Citizen’s Service Corps, they began to address the social and economic impact of total war. As tens of thousandsof military and defense production personnel pouredinto the city, the municipal authorities, now led by City Manager Herbert C. Legg, would move adroitly to bring all the community’s resources to bare to address the overwhelming congestion, but also to lobby vigorously for more federal assistance.xviii

The capstone of the Navy’s rebuilding of Long Beachcame after World War II officially ended, and involved the construction of the Heim Drawbridge and the Terminal Island Freeway. The freeway extended north from the naval base to Willow Street, providing a six-lane intersection free road, 3,000 feet east of the Ford Avenue Bridge. Originally supported in 1940 by the Bureau of Public Roads, it had authorized the use of $200,000in Federal funds for the preparation of plans and specifications that had been completed in 1941. Itwas at that point that the navy balked at

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endorsement. But with congestion now choking the Island, the freeway had reemerged as a means to relieve congestion of war workers getting to and leaving the Island. Given a strong push by the subcommittee on naval affairs, the bridge was finally built and dedicated in January 1948. Dubbed “the world’s highest and widest vertical lift bridge,” by the Los Angeles Times journalist covering the dedication, the structure cost taxpayers $5.3 million. When the structure was completed it was immediately turned over to the city of Long Beach, and on the same day transferredto the Long Beach Harbor Commission.xix

Conclusions

In the wake of the end of WW II, Douglas Aircraft worked closely with the War Assets Administration to keep possession of some of the major facilities the government had constructed as part of its war mobilization. In 1947the Army Air Force gave way to a separate Air Force. With the Republican Party back in control of Congress, the Truman administration pushed guidelines emphasizing a rapid conversion back civilian use of aviation. This accelerated the return of Long Beach Air Force Base back into a municipal airport. Through the early 1950s, however, an Air Force Training mission continued tobe carried out at the airport. However, this mission abruptly came to an end in the 1950s as a result of public opposition to pilot training flow over an increasingly dense urban population following several mishaps. In the long run the Air

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Force maintained its presence in the city only through contracting activities with Douglas Aircraft Corporation, later McDonnell Douglas, and still later Boeing Aircraft.

So what does this story tell us about the military and the city of Long Beach? It is a part of the conventional wisdom that Long Beach began as a seaside resort and became an international city. This truism points to the obvious fact that the city has experienced less continuity and more change over its first one hundred years. This interpretation also applies to the relationship of the military to the city. The long association of the Navy with the city, beginning in 1916, and formally ending in the 1990s, has also been characterized by dramatic shifts and breaks as well. None were more dramatic than the transformation of San Pedro Harbor and Terminal Island. What had once been a strategically important military anchorage, became a full-fledgedor “vast war establishment” during World War II. The Base was sustained through two Pacific Rim wars, Korea and Vietnam, during the Cold War. Thenthe Cold War ended. In an ironic twist, a newer military service, the winged branch, with the leastinfrastructure investment outlasted the Navy and still remains as the purchaser of the USAF C-130 cargo plane, one of the single largest employers inthe city into the new millennium.xx

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Appendix A: Naval Activities in Los Angeles County,1939-1943

Activities established September 9, 1939-November 1943Activities on Terminal IslandRoosevelt Base (headquarters, naval operating base)Small craft training centerNaval Receiving StationNaval Dry docksNaval Net DepotInstruction Center, Receiving StationAssistant Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Bethlehem Steel Co.Commander Fleet Operational Training Command, SubCom, Receiving Station Intelligence UnitSecurity Center, Navy Pass BureauGeneral Court Martial, Receiving StationActivities in San PedroAssistant District Engineering and OrdnanceAssistant Industrial Manager, United States NavyAssistant Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Los Angeles Shipbuilding CorporationAssistant Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Western Pipe and SteelCo.Commander, San Pedro section, at section baseSection BaseDistrict Degaussing OfficerGroup Commander, NetsMine-disposal OfficerArea Public RelationsCivil Works Contracts, Construction, Los Angeles Shipbuilding Co.Medical StorehouseNaval Training School (Harbor Defenses)Port DirectorDetection DefensesSenior Pilot, Pilotage, and Ship ControlHarbor Entrance Control Post

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Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Los Angeles Shipbuilding Co.Zone Intelligence OfficerVenereal Disease Control OfficerNaval Fuel AnnexNavy Accounting OfficeAssistant Coastal Lookout OfficerCoast Guard Repair BaseActivities in Long BeachLabor Board, 11th Naval DistrictHousing OfficerNaval HospitalDistrict Coast Guard OfficerNavy Housing ProjectActivities in WilmingtonNoneActivities in Los AngelesAssistant District Labor Relations OfficeAssistant District Security OfficerBranch Office, Domestic Transportation OfficeBranch Office, Food Machinery CorporationDistrict Cable CensorDistrict Property Transportation OfficeDistrict Motion Picture and Liaison OfficeDirector of naval Officer ProcurementBureau of Ships, Field Representative for Ship Repair Unit, 11th Naval DistirctGeneral Inspector of Naval AircraftIndustry Cooperation DivisionInspector of Naval AircraftArea Public RelationsNavy Market OfficeNavy Purchasing OfficeNaval Liaison Office for 11th Naval District Selective Service AdministrationNaval Training School (Communications)Naval Training School (Meteorology), University of California at Los AngelesNavy V-12 Unit, University of California at Los Angeles

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Navy V-12 Unit, Occidental CollegeProfessor, Naval Science and Tactics, V-12 Units, Universityof Southern CaliforniaProfessor, Naval Science and Tactics, University of California at Los AngelesNaval Air Primary Training Command, Regional OfficeResident Inspector of Naval AircraftSenior Patrol OfficerSupervisory Cost InspectorVice Control Board, Los Angeles AreaZone Communications OfficeZone Intelligence OfficerActivities Contiguous to Long Beach AreaNaval Air Station, Los AlamitosNavy V-12 Unit, California Institute of Technology, PasadenaNaval Hospital, CoronaNaval Air Technical Training Command, BurbankNaval Training School (Aeronautical Engineering), CaliforniaInstitute of Technology, PasadenaNaval Photographic Services Department, HollywoodInspector of Naval Aircraft, Douglas Aircraft, El SegundoInspector of Naval Aircraft, Douglas Aircraft, Santa MonicaInspector of Naval Aircraft, Vega Aircraft, BurbankResident Inspector, Naval Aircraft, Timm Aircraft, Van NuysResident Inspector, Naval Material, TorranceResident Inspector, Naval Material, SaugusResident Inspector, Naval Material, PasadenaSource: House of Representatives, Subcommittee of House Naval Affairs, Hearing before the Committee to Investigate Congested Areas, 78 Congress, Part 8, “Los Angeles-Long Beach, Ca., Area, November 10-13, 1943.”

Endnotes

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i Nick Taylor, WPA; David Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt’s America and the Origins of the Second World War, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001. Hopkins traveled with Colonel Arthur R. Wilson, USA, the liaison officer between the Army General Staff and the Works Projects Administration, and Lt. Colonel Donald H. C Connolly, Army Corps of Engineers. Connolly was the Los Angeles based WPAadministrator for Southern California.

ii Douglas was an ardent interventionist. With the start ofWorld War II in Europe in September 1939, Douglas conspiredwith FDR to violate the Neutrality Laws by building military aircraft for France and England. On October 16, 1939, FDR approved a request from France for Douglas to build 170 DB7/A20 (D=Douglas, B=Built 7/A=Attack 20) aircraft and spare parts at a cost of $15.8 millions. A second contract for 100 motors for the DB7 was added on October 30, 1939. These documents were classified secret and only recently revealed by the FDR Presidential Library.In February 1940, Douglas announced plans for a new factory. See, Gerrie Schipske, Rosie the Riveter in Long Beach, Arcadia Publishing, 2008, pp. 14, 18.

iii Richard DeAtley, Long Beach: The Golden Shore, A History of the City and the Port, Pioneer Publications, 1988, p. 90; Nash, The American West Transformed, p. 20; J. D. Waldie, Holyland: A Suburban Memoir, Norton, 1996, p. 159. On the question of the total floor space of the Douglas Long Beach plant, for the lower end number see Schipske, Rosie the Riveter in Long Beach, p. 18. For the higher number see the reports of Edwin Hartman, National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics engineer, who regularly visited all Douglas’ southland plants beginning in 1940, RG 255, Records of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Western Coordination Office, Reference

Memorandums, 1940-1956, From Consolidated Aircraft 1940-1944 to Douglas Aircraft 1940-1944, Box No. 3, National Archives, Laguna Nigel, Ca. Note the mislabeled title on the left: Long Island Army Air Field was actually Long Beach Army Air Field. iv Long Beach Army Air Field, Long Beach, California, WAA-1005, Block 6 Schedule D, Narrative History, in RG 77, Records of the Office of the Chief Engineers, Los Angeles District, California, Military Site Audits Files 1849-1994,Box 65. The airfield consisted of two major runways and two smaller runways. The major runways ran on a northwest-southwest axis, while the smaller runways ran on a west-east axis. The airfield bordered Lakewood Blvd. to the east, Cherry Ave. to the west, Carson St. to the North, and Willow St. to the south. A bomb storage area was placed off base north of Carson St. The size of the resulting plant is a matter of some dispute. Official statements put the size at more than 1,400,000 feet of floor space. Unofficial records suggest a plant more than 2,500,000 feet of floor space. In the heady days of fall 1941, Douglas managers thought the plant could be grown to more than 3,000,000 square feet of floor area. Established on August 22, 1940,the DPC enabled Douglas to brake ground ninety days later.

v The order can be accessed at John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=75574.

vi Geraldine Knatz, “110 Years of Failed Attempts to Consolidate the Los Angeles and Long Beach Ports,” unpublished paper, Long Beach Community Studies Conference,February 11, 2012.

vii Beigel, Battleship Country, p. 49.

viii House of Representatives, Subcommittee of House Naval Affairs, Hearing before the Committee to Investigate Congested Areas, 78 Congress, Part 8, “Los Angeles-Long Beach, Ca., Area, November 10-13, 1943.” Hereafter cited as Congested Areas Hearing, p. 1931.

ix “Fred H. Bixby Opposes Navy Demand for Historic Rancho: Acquisition of Site for Hospital Would Doom Part of Highwayand Plans for Subdivision,” Los Angeles Times, Sep. 23, 1941, p. 9. Despite this loss, Bixby did not seem to hold a grudge. He and his wife hosted the Navy community threeyears later. See, Christy Fox, “Beach A.W.V.S. Unit Fetes Women Officers: Bixby Estate Scene of Reception for 300 Stationed at Near-by Posts,” Los Angeles Times, Jul. 18, 1944, A5.

x Congested Areas Hearing, p. 1962.

xi See the testimony of Lt. Commander G. L. Dickson, United States Navy Reserve, Administrative Assistant to the Commander of the Naval Operating Base, Congested Areas Hearing, pp. 1932-1938.

xii Congested Areas Hearing, p. 1939.

xiii Congested Areas Hearing, p. 1927.

xiv Congested Areas Hearing, pp. 1942-1943, 1966 (Shoemaker).

xv Congested Areas Hearing, p. 1961.

xvi Congested Areas Hearing, pp. 1967-1970.

xvii Congested Areas Hearing, Ltr. S. F. Heim to Citizens’ Service Corps of Long Beach, September 4, 1943, reprinted on pp. 2070-2071; testimony of Lt. Commander G. L. Dickson,

pp. 1932, 1933.

xviii The other members of the Council included James A. Lynch, representing public utilities related to power, J. N. Flesher, a Veterans representative, George E. Baker, Director of Public Services and the City Engineer’s office,the Chiefs of Police and Fire, Joseph H. McClelland and Allen Couree respectively, Colonel J.S. Herron the militaryrepresentative, Clarence E. Scott, public utilities relatedto communications, E. J. Amar, from the port authority, Clyde Baird, of the Red Cross, R. J. Kettenberg, the oil representative, and M. W. Daubney, representing the citizenry at large. See Organization Chart, City of Long Beach, Council of Defense, no date, Long Beach Public Library Collection, Civil Defense-1940s Folder.

xix “High Lift Bridge Dedicated at Terminal Island,” Los Angeles Times, January 11, 1948, p. 14. Congested Area Hearings, pp. 1967-1970.

xx See Gerald D. Nash, The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1985, pp. Vii-viii. Nash asserts, “[World WarII] transformed a colonial economy based on the exploitation of raw materials into a diversified economy that included industrial and technological components. It spawned another significant population boom and brought unprecedented Americans and of Spanish-speaking people. Itopened up new opportunities for Native Americans at the same time that it created new problems for them. In addition, it unveiled new directions for science in the West and served to quicken and deepen the cultural life of the region. In four short years the war brought a maturation to the West that in peacetime might have taken generations to accomplish. It transformed an area with a self-image that emphasized colonialism into one boasting

self-sufficiency and innovation.” The key claims of the Nash thesis deal with questions of continuity and change. Nash claimed the war brought about a sharp transformation in the economy, population, social experiences, central institutions of cultural and scientific innovation, and thus produced a new regional identity. Nash did not examinethe experience of Long Beach, California in any detail in his book. His chapter on California cities during the war devoted 5 pages to Los Angeles. See Nash, The American West Transformed, pp. 62-66. Roger W. Lotchin, Fortress California 1910-1961: From Warfare to Welfare, Illinois University Press, 1992, calls the influence of city boosters key to understanding the relationship between Metropolitan-Military Complex. Lotchin paid little attention to the case of Long Beach, although his comments are quite interesting on the tension between urbanization and persistence of the military in the city in the late 1940s, and early 1950s, city lobbying for military spendingin both the naval and airpower realms. See, pp. 174-175, 254-55. The interpretation advanced here emphasizes the impact of the federal government and the military in transforming Long Beach.