These images of the Ellwood oil pier after the Japanese submarine assault got to me throughout my analysis into my father’s ship, the Del Rio, and the way its story displays an untold facet of California’s maritime historical past. I interviewed Russel R. Bradford in San Pedro, who gave me these images. It was simply by probability that his son, who’s seen within the picture under, was the primary to research the shelled Ellwood web site for the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s division. Copies of those images at the moment are with the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, the place they’ve been displayed.
I really recall the “The Battle of Los Angeles,” that February evening in 1942! I used to be a two-and-a-half-year-old boy who immediately that evening needed to crowd shortly into a really darkish hallway with 5 different members of my adopted household. I might see enormous searchlight beams scanning the open skies, but all within the household rushed to show off any evening lamps nonetheless aglow in the home.
I used to be very scared, as a result of everybody was scared. We gave the impression to be proper below regardless of the searchlights have been in search of.
I don’t recall what was occurring earlier than or after this one scary reminiscence, however this reminiscence stays very clear to me.
I now know that my non permanent household had cause to be scared. Not solely did they know Ellwood had been shelled simply days earlier than whereas we have been all listening to FDR, however they have been additionally conscious that eight Japanese submarine assaults occurred alongside the West Coast of the USA inside a month of the Pearl Harbor assault. One lumber ship, the Absaroka, was torpedoed inside eyesight of Level Fermin Park in San Pedro. The sounds of the explosion could possibly be heard, as effectively.
The residence I used to be residing in was situated close to Pacific Avenue, the principle avenue operating by way of the town of San Pedro, which is the actual Port of Los Angeles. My adopted household have been my aunt and uncle who took me below their wing after my mom handed away quickly after my beginning. My father had simply been known as to lively responsibility within the U.S. Navy instantly after Pearl Harbor.
His first project turned out to be as a particular Navy Port Captain for L.A. Harbor. He would board ships arriving to the entrances of Los Angeles and Lengthy Seashore harbors to quickly substitute the captain of the ship. His job was to information the ship, cargo, and crew by way of an enormous metallic submarine internet and a protecting subject of mines that have been deployed close to the harbor entrances.
Dad additionally bought his industrial fishing vessel, the Del Rio, to the Navy to see service because the recommissioned AMc Grosbeak, a minesweeper/submarine-net tender in San Francisco Bay. Near 100 of the purse seiners and tuna clippers then fishing out of West Coast ports noticed service with the U.S. Navy and Military in WWII. Most have been bought again to their homeowners after the warfare, as was the Del Rio.
The Del Rio later sank, a narrative I wrote about in “The Shipwreck Del Rio,” which was given to the Channel Islands Nationwide Park, the place the Del Rio lies under in shallow water.
Paul D. Petrich was a historical past instructor for 35 years within the Oxnard Union Excessive Faculty District with an M.A. in Historical past. He has volunteered for the Channel Islands Naturalist Corps for happening 16 years. His tales concerning the Del Rio have been revealed within the Los Angeles Maritime Museum’s journal “The Channel Crossings.”
