The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy: And Other Tales From Home-Front America in World War II by William B. Breuer
Authors: William B. Breuer
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astonished by the wave of mass destruction that was striking home-front America from coast to coast. Said Secretary of War Henry Stimson to confidants: “Teutonic efficiency.” 22
Eastern America Set Ablaze
I T WAS NEAR MIDNIGHT on April 20, 1942, when U.S. Forest Service District Ranger J. B. Fortin was patrolling the mountains near his base in Brevard, North Carolina. Suddenly, he looked up to see “perhaps twenty fires” break out on Sunburst Mountain. The veteran forester had never seen anything to compare with the sight that greeted his eyes. Radioing his headquarters, he exclaimed: “All twenty started at almost the same time. It had to be saboteurs!”
This strange happening was no isolated event in western North Carolina. A series of forest blazes continued for a week and wiped out thousands of acres of valuable timber that was earmarked for Army-camp construction.
During that same week raging fires swept through the forests of New Jersey, destroying more than five thousand acres of woodland. One hundred and sixty-eight different fires were reported burning. Much of the woods were cedar and pine, which was in heavy demand for war activities. A force of twenty-five hundred soldiers, fire wardens, and volunteers finally brought the conflagrations under control.
District Fire Warden John Wiley noted that, in addition to the destruction of huge amounts of badly needed timber, the fires had been set by saboteurs at a time the wind was blowing toward a large Army post in New Jersey.
A few days after the New Jersey blazes were finally brought under control, ten or twelve forest fires broke out in Rhode Island along a fifty-mile wide swath. Governor J. Howard McGrath was deeply alarmed, and he proclaimed martial law in four towns and collected a fire-fighting force of some three thousand soldiers, sailors, and forest service wardens.
After the blazes were extinguished, James R. Simmons, district supervisor of the Forest Service, noted that the suspicious fires had been burning in a region where nearly 2 million feet of timber to be used for defense production were stored in several lumber yards.
“It seems strange to me that these fires would suddenly spring up where the United States government has such a huge amount of lumber stored,” Simmons told a Providence newspaper. 23
The Mysterious Shangri-la
S UDDENLY, PROGRAMMING ON MILLIONS of American radios was interrupted. After several moments of silence, a voice said that President Franklin Roosevelt would have an important message to deliver at 10:00 A.M. (eastern standard time). It was April 20, 1942.
Listeners braced for another bitter dose of disastrous news from the Pacific, as had been the case since Uncle Sam had gone to war more than four months earlier. Many feared that California had been invaded. Instead, the president was barely able to keep the glee out of his voice.
A force of bombers led by Lieutenant Colonel James J. “Jimmy” Doolittle had lifted off from Shangri-la and bombed Tokyo, the president stated.
Americans were electrified. Spirits soared. Japan’s greatest city, the capital of its empire, had been attacked from the air.
Actually, Doolittle’s sixteen, twin-engine B-25 bombers, after practicing the revolutionary technique on land many times, had taken off from the air
Disaster Impacts Two U.S. Towns 61
craft carrier Hornet, part of Admiral William “Bull” Halsey’s task force, which had sneaked to within a few hundred miles of Tokyo.
In the wake of the raid, the people in Tokyo were near panic. They had been assured many times that no American planes would ever get near the homeland. A spokesman for the government now spoke over the radio to assure the nervous citizenry that this “mistake” would never happen again.
Doolittle’s men dropped bombs on Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, Nagoya, and Yokosuka, causing minimal property damage, but the psychological impact on the Japanese home front was devastating. Curiously, the
Eastern America Set Ablaze
I T WAS NEAR MIDNIGHT on April 20, 1942, when U.S. Forest Service District Ranger J. B. Fortin was patrolling the mountains near his base in Brevard, North Carolina. Suddenly, he looked up to see “perhaps twenty fires” break out on Sunburst Mountain. The veteran forester had never seen anything to compare with the sight that greeted his eyes. Radioing his headquarters, he exclaimed: “All twenty started at almost the same time. It had to be saboteurs!”
This strange happening was no isolated event in western North Carolina. A series of forest blazes continued for a week and wiped out thousands of acres of valuable timber that was earmarked for Army-camp construction.
During that same week raging fires swept through the forests of New Jersey, destroying more than five thousand acres of woodland. One hundred and sixty-eight different fires were reported burning. Much of the woods were cedar and pine, which was in heavy demand for war activities. A force of twenty-five hundred soldiers, fire wardens, and volunteers finally brought the conflagrations under control.
District Fire Warden John Wiley noted that, in addition to the destruction of huge amounts of badly needed timber, the fires had been set by saboteurs at a time the wind was blowing toward a large Army post in New Jersey.
A few days after the New Jersey blazes were finally brought under control, ten or twelve forest fires broke out in Rhode Island along a fifty-mile wide swath. Governor J. Howard McGrath was deeply alarmed, and he proclaimed martial law in four towns and collected a fire-fighting force of some three thousand soldiers, sailors, and forest service wardens.
After the blazes were extinguished, James R. Simmons, district supervisor of the Forest Service, noted that the suspicious fires had been burning in a region where nearly 2 million feet of timber to be used for defense production were stored in several lumber yards.
“It seems strange to me that these fires would suddenly spring up where the United States government has such a huge amount of lumber stored,” Simmons told a Providence newspaper. 23
The Mysterious Shangri-la
S UDDENLY, PROGRAMMING ON MILLIONS of American radios was interrupted. After several moments of silence, a voice said that President Franklin Roosevelt would have an important message to deliver at 10:00 A.M. (eastern standard time). It was April 20, 1942.
Listeners braced for another bitter dose of disastrous news from the Pacific, as had been the case since Uncle Sam had gone to war more than four months earlier. Many feared that California had been invaded. Instead, the president was barely able to keep the glee out of his voice.
A force of bombers led by Lieutenant Colonel James J. “Jimmy” Doolittle had lifted off from Shangri-la and bombed Tokyo, the president stated.
Americans were electrified. Spirits soared. Japan’s greatest city, the capital of its empire, had been attacked from the air.
Actually, Doolittle’s sixteen, twin-engine B-25 bombers, after practicing the revolutionary technique on land many times, had taken off from the air
Disaster Impacts Two U.S. Towns 61
craft carrier Hornet, part of Admiral William “Bull” Halsey’s task force, which had sneaked to within a few hundred miles of Tokyo.
In the wake of the raid, the people in Tokyo were near panic. They had been assured many times that no American planes would ever get near the homeland. A spokesman for the government now spoke over the radio to assure the nervous citizenry that this “mistake” would never happen again.
Doolittle’s men dropped bombs on Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, Nagoya, and Yokosuka, causing minimal property damage, but the psychological impact on the Japanese home front was devastating. Curiously, the
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