War Over LA
The Hop King of the World
Remembering the Bataan Death March
May 8 World War II
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World War II – The War Over Los Angeles
The heavens were clear the evening of February 24, 1942, but Los Angeles, California was on high alert.
The Japanese enemy was lurking in the waters off shore, somewhere.
At this point during World War II, the Japanese forces had swept through Asia, Burma, into parts of Borneo, with the Philippine Islands swiftly falling. Japan appeared to have the upper hand, with little resistance. Eight Japanese submarines had spent much of December 1941 scouring the waters along the West Coast of the United States, destroying ships and killing six men.
The night before, on February 23, as President Roosevelt gave one of his many fireside chats to America, the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine, 1-17, surfaced to shell the Ellwood Oil Field, just over one-hundred miles to the north of L.A. More nerve wracking, an eye witness of the attack on Ellwood claimed the submarine, and its fire power, headed south, more than likely to the larger target, the City of Angels. [Read more…] about World War II – The War Over Los Angeles
The Japanese Spy Who Predestined the Fate of Pearl Harbor
As the 353 Japanese aircraft rained death and destruction across the Island of Oahu, Takeo Yoshikawa, using his alias of vice-counsel Tadashi Morimura, was hurriedly burning his implicating files inside the Japanese Consulate on Nuuanu Avenue. The 13,400-square-foot grounds of the Japanese consulate, in a well-to-do neighborhood, displayed a gold imperial chrysanthemum crest outside the two-story main building where the smoke billowed from the chimney, as the pile of incriminating evidence was destroyed.
When the FBI arrived at the Japanese consulate around 9:30 to place Takeo and his accomplices, untrained spies, Counsul-General Nagao Kita, Kokichi Seki the acting treasurer, and other staff members under house arrest, they were too late. Early that morning Takeo had been listening to his short-wave radio and heard the secret code words “East-Wind-Rain” which carried the heavy weight of Japan announcing their planned attack against America. The FBI unearthed nothing that linked Takeo to his crimes. [Read more…] about The Japanese Spy Who Predestined the Fate of Pearl Harbor