From: Terry Groff <terrygroff.nul>
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 10:53:33 -0600
Fwd Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 08:47:19 -0500
Subject: Battle Of Los Angeles 63rd Anniversary


With all the Jennings UFO Special hoopla I almost forgot the
63rd anniversary of the Battle of Los Angeles, Wednesday,
February 25th, 1942. I can't believe this was overlooked for the
special.

http://www.virtuallystrange.com/ufo/sdi/images/battleofla.jpg

Extra! Extra! Read all about it.

-----

Source: UFO ROUNDUP

http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/1998/feb/m22-012.shtml

02-22-98


UFO ROUNDUP
Volume 3, Number 8
February 22, 1998
Editor: Joseph Trainor

<snip>

from the UFO Files...

1942: Army Gunners Fire At UFOs Over Los Angeles

On Wednesday, February 25, 1942, at precisely 2 a.m., diners at
the trendy Trocadero club in Hollywood were startled when the
lights winked out and air raid sirens began to sound throughout
greater Los Angeles.

"Searchlights scanned the skies and anti-aircraft guns
protecting the vital aircraft and ship-building factories went
into action. In the next few hours they would fire over 1,400
shells at an unidentified, slow-moving object in the sky over
Los Angeles that looked like a blimp, or a balloon."

Author Ralph Blum, who was a nine-year-old boy at the time,
wrote that he thought "the Japanese were bombing Beverly Hills."

"There were sirens, searchlights, even antiaircraft guns
blamming away into the skies over Los Angeles. My father had
been a balloon observation man (in the AEF) in World War One,
and he knew big guns when he heard them. He ordered my mother to
take my baby sisters to the underground projection room - our
house was heavily supplied with Hollywood paraphernalia - while
he and I went out onto the upstairs balcony."

"What a scene! It was after three in the morning. Searchlights
probed the western sky. Tracers streamed upward. The racket was
terrific."

Shooting at the aerial intruders were gunners of the 65th Coast
Artillery (Anti-Aircraft) Regiment in Inglewood and the 205th
Anti-Aircraft Regiment based in Santa Monica. The "white cigar-
shaped object" took several direct hits but continued on its
eastward flight.

Up to 25 silvery UFOs were also seen by observers on the ground.

Editor Peter Jenkins of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner
reported, "I could clearly see the V formation of about 25
silvery planes overhead moving slowly across the sky toward Long
Beach."

Long Beach Police Chief J.H. McClelland said, "I watched what
was described as the second wave of planes from atop the seven-
story Long Beach City Hall. I did not see any planes but the
younger men with me said they could. An experienced Navy
observer with powerful Carl Zeiss binoculars said he counted
nine planes in the cone of the searchlight. He said they were
silver in color. The (UFO) group passed along from one battery
of searchlights to another, and under fire from the anti-
 aircraft guns, flew from the direction of Redondo Beach and
Inglewood on the land side of Fort MacArthur, and continued
toward Santa Ana and Huntington Beach. Anti-aircraft fire was so
heavy we could not hear the motors of the planes."

Reporter Bill Henry of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "I was far
enough away to see an object without being able to identify
it... I would be willing to bet what shekels I have that there
were a number of direct hits scored on the object."

At 2:21 a.m., Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt issued the cease-fire
order, and the twenty-minute "battle of Los Angeles" was over.

---

See Beyond Earth: Man's Contact With UFOs by Ralph Blum, Bantam
Books, New York, April 1974, page 68.

See also the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
and the Long Beach Press-Telegram for February 25, 1942.

All newspaper quotes taken from "The Battle of Los Angeles,
1942" by Terrenz Sword, which appeared in Unsolved UFO
Sightings, Spring 1996 issue, pages 57 through 62.

Editor's Comment: Maybe the gang at the Black Vault could use
the Freedom of Information Act to get the Army's Situation
Reports for February 25, 1942 for the 65th and 205th A.A.
Regiments. Wouldn't that be interesting reading!

-----


>From Bruce Maccabee's site:

http://brumac.8k.com/BATTLEOFLA/BattleofLA.html

On Saturday, Febraury 19th, on SDI, Wendy Conners played a
recording of a news broadcast reporting the event. It was quite
chilling.


Terry