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Tag: Naval Ammunitions Depot

  • October 19th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1949, Seal Beach residents woke to discover that during the night frigid fifty miles per hour winds and rough waves had torn the Super Express fishing boat from its moorings at Seal Beach pier and smashed the boat upon the Seal Beach Naval Ammunition Depot breakwater, leaving a gaping hole in the hull.

    As dramatic as this event was to the normally sedate Seal Beach, it was just one of many similar incidents spread across Southern California. Flights at LAX airport had been grounded. Boats had been beached at Santa Monica and Redondo Beach. The Monstad Pier in Redondo Beach had a section torn apart by waves. Several inches of sand had blown on to Pacific Coast Highway, stranding automobiles and buses. Trees were toppled, and some communities went without electricity for a few hours. Daylight brought calmer weather, and repairs and clean-up efforts began.

    In Seal Beach, the Super Express was beached, and the hole was repaired with a temporary canvas patch to make the vessel seaworthy enough to be towed to the San Pedro Boat Works. The canvas patch prove too temporary for the entire trip and peeled, and the boat sank in what must have been shallow water. It was re-floated, re-patched, and towed to safely to San Pedro for more substantial repairs.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • August 19th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1956, The Los Angeles Times reported on the recent expansion of Seal Beach’s borders.

    Seal Beach had increased from a one square mile beachside city to nine times that size by annexing some private property and what was then known as the Naval Ammunition and Net Depot. The annexation had been completed weeks earlier, and Seal Beach had a certificate from Secretary of State to prove it. This also meant that if the tri-city area of Midway City, Barber City, and Westminster incorporated as one city, Seal Beach’s extension three miles east would result in Bolsa Chica Road becoming the new border between the two cities.

    The expansion was not without opposition. According to City Engineer Hal Marron, “private property-owning interests” objected to the expansion and had won a writ of mandate in Superior Court. The city’s appeal against the writ was pending.

    And that’s where matters stood on August 19th, 1956. So much unsettled, and yet there was enough optimism to stage a photo op with models Bernice Hugn and Marilyn Brechtel installing a new city limits sign at Westminster Avenue and Bolsa Chica Road.

    Aug_19_1956_City_Limits_expansion_photoLater, Midway City decided to remain unincorporated, but Barber City folded into Westminster. And that court appeal? Sixty years later, Bolsa Chica Road is the eastern border of the city, so Seal Beach must have prevailed.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • August 10th in Seal Beach History

     On this date in 1944, a car crash fatality at Main Street and Bolsa Avenue in Seal Beach occurred, according to the Long Beach Independent. An unnamed reporter wrote the next day that “Claud Roland, 23, of the San Diego naval base, was killed at 7:27 last night.”

    12-17-1936 aerial shot of Main Street as it turns into Bolsa Avenue right after crossing PCH

    Roland had been turning on to Bolsa Avenue from Main Street when his tire blew. The car flipped over and skidded almost 30 feet, throwing passengers USMC Sergeant James Johnson of the Corona Navy Hospital and Mrs. June Blackman of Fullerton from the car. Blackman and Johnson suffered some bruises and lacerations, and pedestrians Edward Booker and Joe Jackman, both of the Naval Weapons Depot, couldn’t avoid being hit by the car, but were only slightly injured. The injured were taken to the Long Beach Naval Hospital, according to Seal Beach Police Sergeant Charles Irvine.

    Police Chief Lee Howard, Captain James Morousek, and Sergeant Jack Whittington rushed to the accident scene and struggled to remove Roland from the overturned car wreckage, only to discover his head had been crushed and young Claud Roland was dead.

    A 5/23/1931 aerial shot showing how Bolsa Avenue curved into Main Street at PCH and how Main Street continue up into the farmland on Landing Hill.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • August 5th in Seal Beach History

     On this date in 1978, the Alliance for Survival staged a protest outside the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station. The protest was against the purported storage of nuclear weapons at the station, but the stockpiling of nuclear weapons in Seal Beach has never been confirmed by the Defense Department.

    Aug 6_1978_Nuke_Protest
    Photo Credit: AP Laserphoto

    Out of town protesters, some from as far away as Santa Barbara, were bussed in from Cal State Long Beach to join local activists at J.H. McGaugh Intermediate School. Police closed off Seal Beach Boulevard for about two hours to allow an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 marchers and picketers to peacefully demonstrate along the perimeter of the Naval Weapons Station. After the march, a picnic was held at McGaugh with anti-nuke speakers and a rock band.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • July 29th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1921, the following advertisement ran in the Santa Ana Register trumpeting the merits of waterfront lots at Anaheim Landing where you can bathe and fish in your backyard and tie your boat to your front porch. And, unknown to tract agent R. D. Richards, the Navy would be taking over in twenty-three years.

    July_29_1921_Anaheim_Landing_RE_adAn aerial shot of the real bay frontage a few months after this ad ran:

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • June 16th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1954, five civilian employees of the Seal Beach Naval Ammunition and Net Depot escaped serious injury or worse when a five-inch shell exploded in a defusing shop on the installation.

    Four of the men were defusing ordnance using a system of mirrors to watch the work from behind a concrete blast wall. J. L. Turner and L. McKellom were working a levered remote defusing machine at one end of the shop when the shell E. E. Haury and W. F. Nevis were working on with a similar machine at the other end exploded.

    The blast shattered the viewing mirrors and all the windows, and damaged the defusing machine. One corrugated asbestos walls was almost completely ripped while the other three had sections of siding torn from the steel framework of the 75 by 40 foot building.

    But the workers and T. C. Martin, lead ordnance man in charge of the shop were okay. Commander Richard Jewell, base commander attributed this to safety regulations and training set into place by his predecessor, Admiral J. R. McKinney shortly before he retired. He also gave credit to equipment and buildings specially designed for the dangerous work done on the base.

    Nevis and Haury, both former Navy gunnery chiefs, echoed Jewell’s sentiments while examining the two chunks of shrapnel that were all that was left of the exploded shell.

    “Good thing we were following safety regulations,” said Haury.

    “Thank god for that concrete bulkhead. All I got out of it was a plugged up ear,” Nevis observed.

    The damage was estimated at $10,000.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • May 14th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1951, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Seal Weapons Depot was busier than any time since World War II.

    According to Captain Russell G. Sturges, commanding officer, the Korean War had spurred activity at the 5,000 acre facility, and personnel had expanded from a stand-by staff of 50 to 800 civilians, 50 Marines, and 20 Naval Officers. Contractors were busy repairing and rebuilding railroad lines, docks, fences, and depot buildings.

    Before any ship entered the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for repairs or refitting, its ordinance would be unloaded at sea and taken to the Seal Beach depot for inspection and storage under the supervision of chief quartermaster, Udor Labossier. Additional work done at the depot included repair of large steel anti-submarine nets, processing spent shell casings for either reuse or to be sold as scrap metals, and leased farming of 2,000 acres of the base to provide revenues and act as an aid to fire prevention.

    This was a dramatic change from the previous year. In 1950, the depot had been all but deactivated. Navy use of Anaheim Landing was so slow that The city of Seal Beach had been negotiating  a 20 year lease for Anaheim Bay for aquatic and recreational use when the Korean conflict heated up. This would have severely curtailed any further development of the depot, and the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station would not probably not exist in its present form (or might have been closed by now). Anaheim Landing would not have been available (or suitable) for loading Saturn rockets for sea transport in the sixties, and Seal Beach would have missed out on being part of the history of NASA’s Apollo program.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • March 21st in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1944, The U.S. Navy formally established an ordnance depot at Anaheim Landing.

    The Orange County war housing commission chairman, Philip Norton (who also had a real estate office at 710 Ocean Ave), announced the seizure of thirty-five thousand acres of beach and tidelands in January of 1944 for the construction of the twenty million dollar ordnance depot. Real estate would be purchased, bridges would be demolished, Anaheim Bay would be dredged to a depth of fifteen feet, and the Pacific Electric line that crossed Anaheim Bay into Surfside would be rerouted.

    The decision meant approximately 2,000 people living in Anaheim Landing would need to vacate by March 21st. The housing commission helped residents relocate, and many Anaheim Landing homes were moved to lots in Westminster and Seal Beach. The popular Glide ‘Er Inn would move a few blocks east to 14th Street. The Seal Beach Airport would be permanently abandoned.

    The speed and urgency applied to the project is understandable considering that the United States military was engaged in a worldwide conflict. Today the outcome of World War II seems inevitable, but in 1944 the future was uncertain, and wartime efforts required full commitment. For most of 1944, the Navy would be transforming what had been a casual small boat harbor into an efficient first class naval installation.

    And Anaheim Landing’s time as a civilian port and recreational attraction came to an ended. The seventy-five year history of what is now known as the Seal Beach Weapons Station was just beginning.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • March 18th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1956 at 2 p.m., on the spot where Bay Boulevard met Electric Avenue, a dedication ceremony was held for a monument designating Anaheim Landing as a historical landmark. The marker read:

    ANAHEIM LANDING After the establishment of the Mother Colony at Anaheim in 1857, a wharf and warehouse were constructed at the mouth of Anaheim Creek to serve the Santa Ana Valley. Treacherous entrance conditions caused several disasters, but steamers loaded with wine, wool and other cargo continued to dock here regularly. Use of the seaport began to decline in 1875 with the incursion of the Southern Pacific Railroad into the area. By 1890, the landing was no longer in operation.

    (This was not the first Anaheim Landing. The landing was originally established in 1864 on Alamitos Bay, a more ideal port for shipping, but when an 1867 flood filled the bay with silt and severely limited ocean access, the landing was relocated to what is now known as Anaheim Bay. Local historian Larry Strawther has established that the original landing was approximately where the Island Village tract is today.)

    Eleven years earlier almost to the day of the dedication ceremony, Anaheim Landing’s days as a civilian shipping port, a recreational destination, and residential neighborhood ended when the U.S. Navy took possession of Anaheim Bay and Anaheim Landing to install a weapons depot. On the other side of the fence behind the marker, munitions were loaded and unloaded to and from Navy ships serving in the Pacific Ocean.

    On the civilian side of the fence, a crowd celebrated Anaheim Landing’s past. Perhaps some in that crowd had been Anaheim Landing residents and felt wistful recalling earlier days of swimming, boating, and fishing in the bay before the Navy removed their homes and cottages and dredged it.

    Installing the marker had been a community affair. The project was instigated by the Senior and Junior Women’s Clubs of Seal Beach. Mrs. Bernice V. Smith and Mrs. Sven Lindstrom researched the historical data. Buell Brown designed the seven-foot high monument. Frank Curtis poured the foundation. The local Girl Scout and Cub Scout troops and Veterans organizations gathered the stones that were used in the monument, and surplus stones formed a crescent shaped rock garden on either side of the monument.

    The theme for the ceremony was “Preserve the Past for the Future.” Scout troops presented mixed colors, Mrs. Noel Chadwick gave the devotional, and the Woman’s Club chorus sang a musical piece under the direction of Mrs. Clyde Spencer.

    Officiating the ceremony were Willis Warner, chairman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, Lee Winterton and William Gallienne of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, Admiral John McKinney, William Hynds of the recreation development committee, M.K. Hillyard of the marker committee, and Mrs. Albert Sylvia of the Woman’s Club of Seal Beach, and Mrs. Larry Howard of the Junior Woman’s Club of Seal Beach.

    It must have been fine and proud Saturday event for all parties involved.

    The Anaheim Landing monument still stands today, but somewhat diminished. Bay Boulevard is now Seal Beach Boulevard, the monument was moved to make room for a public works lot, and the rock garden is gone, replaced by a couple of bushes and a bus stop.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • March 13th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1957, Los Angles auctioneer Ted Gustafson was in Seal Beach to sell the 9-unit motel at 257 Bay Boulevard (Seal Beach Boulevard today) to the highest bidder.

    Not described in the Los Angeles Times ad was how the south building of the motel had been built at an angle to the boulevard to accommodate the adjacent Pacific Electric right of way.  When the U.S. Navy took possession of Anaheim Landing in 1944, the red car tracks were rerouted from Electric Avenue at Fifteenth Street to meet Pacific Coast Highway past Bay Boulevard. By 1957, the Pacific Electric red cars were no longer running on the track, but the supply trains used the track as a spur for loading well into the sixties.

    There are no details to share of how the auction went, but someone must have won because the motel is still there, converted into apartments under the cozy and inviting name of Snug Harbor.

    – Michael Dobkins

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