Saturday, February 7, 2009

Ocean Front Property







The sign above these buildings read the following:

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in World War II, the possibility of an enemy attack on the us mainland became very real. At one point, Japanese submarines operated in offshore waters and actually shelled some shipping operations and oil installations off the coast of California and Oregon.

To guard against potential invasion, the US Army built the "farm" buildings you see below. The cinder block structures, complete with shingled roofs, and fake windows and dormers, housed an early warning radar staion.

From the air, the sea and even the road, these buildings appeared to part be a working farm. In fact, they housed a diesel generator, electronic equipment and two 50-caliber machine guns.

As part of a network of observation stations, the soldiers and civilians stationed here reported any suspicious boats and planes to a communications center in San Francisco, ready to dispatch fighter planes if the crafts were identified as hostile.





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