Battery Osgood-Farley in fog. Photo copyright 2018 by Anna Boudinot.
Underneath the soil in Los Angeles’ southernmost neighborhood, San Pedro, lie hidden, artificial caverns that contain a military history dating back to 1919. That was the year that construction on Fort MacArthur was completed, fortifying the Southern California coast with massive guns mounted in hulking concrete emplacements. These rifles and mortars protected Los Angeles Harbor and had a firing range of up to fourteen miles. It was 22 years before Pearl Harbor, but World War I had proven the importance of preparing for a seaborne crusade against the United States. After Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, three more batteries were built at Fort MacArthur. They were armed with “the largest and most powerful seacoast defense guns ever deployed by the United States,” with a maximum range of 26 miles. That meant they were capable of hitting a target as far away as Catalina Island. The guns, capable of shooting warships out of the sea and planes out of the sky, were unused against enemy forces. They were only fired for practice and during a false alarm in 1942 that some claim was a UFO invasion.
If the phone system went down, soldiers could send messages by shouting into pipes. Photo copyright 2018 by Anna Boudinot.
The guns were housed inside of concrete batteries nested in manmade hills. There were seven batteries in San Pedro, with several others situated in Manhattan Beach, Terminal Island, and Rancho Palos Verdes. Underneath San Pedro’s Battery Osgood-Farley are elaborate rooms and corridors that included a commander’s station, communications center, mess hall, and electrical facilities that function to this day. It is considered the “best-preserved example [of] modern-age coastal defense gun emplacement in the United States,” and it is the structure that makes up today’s Fort MacArthur Museum.
Finding the museum can be a little tricky. The driveway is sometimes gated on the Gaffey side and you have to approach it from Osgood Farley Road. Use a map or mapping app to find your way there; GPS might not help you. After you park, pause to pay respects at the military animal cemetery on the way in. The museum is essentially a series of concrete hallways and chambers, lit faintly with bulbs connected to the same electrical lines installed during WWII. It reminds one of a European cathedral: dim, a little damp. The hulking gun carriages and stacks of ammunition boxes could stand in for the crypts of saints. Still-operational military vehicles are parked in the halls, waiting for the next Old Ft. MacArthur Days or the Great Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942. The walls are lined with yellow sheets of laminated 1940s newspaper. Frozen in time, they proclaim that Pearl Harbor has been bombed, and later that Japanese internees are “adjusting nicely” to their “new homes.”
A door, long welded shut, at Battery Bunker. Photo copyright 2018 by Anna Boudinot
Though the museum is on the National Register of Historic Places, its dearth of funding is apparent, with a lack of professionally-printed signage and exposed WWII-era artifacts ostensibly decaying in the salt air. The staffing is minimal and seems to be volunteer-based, but it’ well worth asking if there’s anyone available to give a tour. This gives you access to parts of the battery that are otherwise behind locked doors. You’ll discover a Nike Ajax missile, radio equipment that still works, and instruments that pinpointed exactly where to aim the guns – a mind-blowing example of military precision in an era without computers. I was greatly amused to see the backup communications network that had been installed in case the telephone or electrical lines were compromised: a network of pipes one could shout into and listen from the other end.
Nike missile site LA-43. Photo copyright 2018 by Anna Boudinot.
After you’ve explored the museum and the gift shop, consider leaving a cash donation to help support and preserve Los Angeles’ military history. Then head over to White Point Nature Preserve to see two more batteries and a Nike missile site. Site LA-43 was active from 1955-1973, one of sixteen Los Angeles-area anti-aircraft missile sites. During this time “Los Angeles in particular, thanks to its aerospace facilities, military bases, and booming postwar population, became one of the most fortified regions in the United States.” You can read a very detailed history of the Nike program and technical rundown on how the missiles worked at the Nike Historical Society website. If you’re facing the nature center, LA-43 is to your right: a large swath of concrete with enormous, welded-shut, metal doors embedded in the ground.
Once you’ve pondered an alternate history where those missiles were actually deployed, follow the hiking trails up the hill to Battery Bunker. From the battery you’ll find beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean with Catalina Island in the distance. The nature preserve has been populated with California native plants, and are alive with birds, small mammals, and reptiles. The only sign of military life is the Air Force brats playing in the yards above: today much of Fort MacArthur is housing for the Los Angeles Air Force Base.
The ocean as seen through Battery Bunker. Photo copyright 2018 by Anna Boudinot
Fort MacArthur museum is open from 12-5 p.m. on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. White Point Nature Preserve is open daily from dawn to dusk. Be sure to stop by Angel’s Gate Cultural Center, a collection of artists’ galleries and studios inside former Army barracks.