California’s forts, naval bases, and airfields in operation in the 1930s were expanded and supplemented by more such facilities during the war years. The state’s pre-war military installations included San Francisco’s Presidio, Fort Ord, Mare Island’s U. S. Naval Shipyard, San Diego’s naval base, and March airfield. As a result of America’s entry into World War II, California became a garrison state serving as one of the nation’s two major training and staging areas for military operations, Texas being the other.
Modest in its beginnings, California’s war-related infrastructure grew dramatically after Pearl Harbor. From 16 military bases in 1941, the number grew to 41 by 1945, more than those in the five states combined that were ranked just beneath California.
After the Pearl Harbor attack, the San Francisco Bay area served as the command center for America’s West Coast. The city’s Presidio was headquarters for the Army’s Western Defense Command, under Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt. DeWitt’s 4th Army was also headquartered at the Presidio. Situated in San Francisco Bay, Mare Island served as the nation’s largest naval ship repair facility. Warships of all kinds ringed the island; damaged naval vessels from the Pearl Harbor assault, like the U. S.S. Shaw, were refitted there and put back into battle. Camp Stoneman, abutting the Carquinez Strait that empties into San Francisco Bay, provided the major training center and staging area for the more than 1 million soldiers who afterward voyaged through the Golden Gate en route to the Pacific theater of military operations. The Western Sea Frontier, the U. S. Navy command responsible for protecting the West Coast from Alaska down to and including Mexico, was headquartered on Treasure Island lying between Oakland and San Francisco. Moreover, the man-made island served as a command center for the Coast Guard. Northern California’s Navy Pre-Flight School, one of four such centers nationwide, was located on the campus of St. Mary’s College in the East Bay community of Moraga. Crissy Field and Hamilton Field, both of which were located on the Bay’s perimeter, accommodated Army Air Force warplanes as did nearby Travis Air Force Base. Numerous smaller war-related facilities - forts, depots, and piers - dotted the area.
Approximately 80 miles south of the Bay Area, Monterey County’s Fort Ord served as home to the Army’s 7th Infantry Division, under the command of Brigadier General Joseph Stilwell. Fort Ord doubled in size from 15,000 acres in World War I to 30,000 acres in World War II. Utilizing the beaches of Monterey Bay, it became a major training area for the amphibious warfare that characterized much of the Pacific fighting between 1942 and 1945.
Southern California, too, was garrisoned. With Pearl Harbor in ruins, Long Beach furnished the major anchorage for the U. S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet from 1942 to 1945. San Diego, as well, provided an important harbor for that fleet’s warships, a training area for amphibious landings along the Coronado Strand, and the West Coast’s center for naval aviation. The Marine Corps established an air base at El Toro in Orange County, and purportedly the world’s largest military installation, occupying 123,000 acres, at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. In 1944 nearly 87,000 Marines and other military personnel were stationed at Camp Pendleton. Also in the Southland, the Army Air Force used the San Bernardino Air Field and Depot (much later renamed Norton Air Force Base), as well as March Field in Riverside County, and operated its West Coast Training Center in nearby Santa Ana, which taught pre-flight maneuvers to some 20,000 cadets. Those completing the program then went on to pilot, bombardier, or navigator instruction at the Victorville Army Flying School or at the Army Air Force’s Advanced Flying School at Sacramento’s Mather Field.
California’s forts, naval bases, and airfields tell only part of the story of the state’s role in fighting World War II. Fueled by Pentagon expenditures and driven by wartime production demands, the civilian sector of the state’s economy became equally consequential in transforming California from a peacetime, consumer-based society into a preeminent defense juggernaut.
World History
