{"id":662,"date":"2025-10-13T06:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T06:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/662\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T06:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T06:13:11","slug":"californias-redwoods-hid-a-secret-war-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/662\/","title":{"rendered":"California’s redwoods hid a secret war machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

A coastal fog softens the dramatic plunge where the American continent meets the Pacific. Nearly 350 miles north of San Francisco, just south of\u00a0Crescent City<\/a> and beyond the mouth of the Klamath River \u2014 one of California\u2019s wildest waterways \u2014 the redwoods crowd to the edge of the sea. Here, on a lonely bluff within Redwood National and State Parks<\/a>, the forest thins to reveal what looks like a weather-beaten barn and farmhouse tucked into the hillside.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Yet the humble farmstead below is no ordinary ruin. Built in 1942, these unassuming structures once hid a secret U.S. Army radar outpost \u2014 Station B-71 \u2014 as part of a covert coastal defense network created in the panicked months after Pearl Harbor to help defend the continental United States against possible Japanese air and naval assaults during World War II.<\/p>\n

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, a war many Americans had viewed as distant suddenly struck home. Fear spread up and down the West Coast. Within two weeks, Japanese submarines began prowling California waters, testing defenses and stoking panic. On Dec. 20, the oil tanker SS Emidio was shelled off Crescent City, killing five crewmen and leaving the vessel to drift, battered, toward shore. That same week, another submarine fired on an oil tanker near Santa Barbara\u2019s Point Arguello and missed; a second torpedoed a ship off Cambria, spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the Pacific.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/p>\n

A 1970s photograph of Station B-71, taken before the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Mudslides had begun to press against the buildings, showing the toll of time and weather.<\/p>\n

National Register of Historic Places\"A<\/p>\n

A 2005 photograph shows the rooftops of Station B-71\u2019s power and operations buildings overlooking the Pacific in Redwood National Park. The dormer windows were added to disguise the site as a farmhouse.<\/p>\n

Jet Lowe\/Library of Congress<\/p>\n

Among those who have studied this era is Justin Ruhge, a 91-year-old amateur historian who has spent decades documenting California\u2019s forgotten military past. He told SFGATE on a phone call that the massive mobilization of coastal defenses was born from one overwhelming sentiment \u2014 fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very scared,\u201d he said. \u201cIt had a big effect on everybody. We didn\u2019t know what was going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Air patrols, coastal artillery and lookout stations were quickly established from San Diego to the Oregon border. Japanese commanders, seeing the coastal buildup, reportedly abandoned plans to shell U.S. cities that Christmas. But the fear didn\u2019t fade. In 1942, a Japanese submarine fired on Fort Stevens near the Oregon border, and months later, a seaplane dropped incendiary bombs over the state\u2019s forests, hoping to start wildfires.<\/p>\n

That same climate of panic led to darker decisions at home: the forced incarceration<\/a> of more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of them U.S. citizens. Ruhge said the mood was one of pure fear. \u201cEveryone was scared,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"What<\/p>\n

What looks like a rural barn once hid a U.S. Army radar outpost guarding California\u2019s coast. The structure remains intact today, in September 2025.<\/p>\n

Matt LaFever\/SFGATE\"The<\/p>\n

The farmhouse structure at Station B-71, once used to conceal power equipment for the World War II radar station south of Crescent City, in September 2025.<\/p>\n

Matt LaFever\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

As the Pacific war crept ever closer to American shores, the U.S. military turned to technology to watch the skies. By late 1942, a chain of early warning radar stations began to rise along the coast, disguised as barns, farmhouses and rural homesteads. One of them still stands on a bluff south of the\u00a0Klamath River: Station B-71.<\/p>\n

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A National Register of Historic Places nomination form<\/a> from the late 1970s offers one of the clearest surviving records of Station B-71. It lays out in precise military detail the site\u2019s origin, purpose and peculiar disguise. Station B-71 was the northernmost California post in a network of coastal radar sites meant to guard against enemy attack. Officially designated \u201cTrinidad,\u201d the outpost was perched on a bluff just south of the Klamath River, its placement chosen for both elevation and isolation.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The barn entrance of Station B-71, built with a peaked roof and false detailing to complete its camouflage as a working farm, in September 2025.<\/p>\n

Matt LaFever\/SFGATE\"Interior Wayne Hsieh via Flickr CC 2.0<\/p>\n

From the sea, it looked perfectly ordinary \u2014 a weathered farmstead with a house and barn tucked into the hillside. The \u201cfarmhouse\u201d was built of concrete block but faced with false wooden siding and fake windows, its roof topped with sham dormers to complete the illusion. The \u201cbarn\u201d concealed the operating center, with a fake barn door and even a decoy pulley hoist that would be used for lifting hay in a real barn. Even the privy out back was part of the ruse.<\/p>\n

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Inside, soldiers worked around the clock monitoring aircraft movements and relaying information by direct line to the Army\u2019s filter office in Berkeley. The station operated under strict security, guarded by military police armed with rifles and, according to one corporal who served there, \u201cvicious dogs.\u201d Three .50-caliber machine guns were mounted nearby, and the 35-man crew lived in barracks down the road in Klamath, rotating through shifts that never stopped.<\/p>\n

Station B-71 operated in near-total isolation. Crews rotated through day and night shifts, monitoring radar scopes and maintaining equipment while the Pacific winds battered the bluffs outside.<\/p>\n

\"Visitors<\/p>\n

Visitors approach the barn at Station B-71, a World War II radar station disguised as a working farm, in Redwood National and State Parks in September 2025.<\/p>\n

Matt LaFever\/SFGATE\"The<\/p>\n

The rugged coastline south of Crescent City, where a disguised World War II radar station once watched the Pacific, in September 2025.<\/p>\n

Matt LaFever\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

By mid-1944, the danger of a Japanese invasion had faded, and the need for constant coastal surveillance diminished. Station B-71 was reassigned that summer to rescue duty, and its equipment was adapted to help locate downed pilots and distress signals offshore.<\/p>\n

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When the war ended, the little \u201cfarm\u201d overlooking the Klamath Bluffs was abandoned. The Army left. The land reverted to ranchers. Over the years, locals stripped away parts of its wooden camouflage siding for lumber. Sheep wandered in and out of the concrete buildings. Mudslides from the steep slope above eventually filled parts of the interior.<\/p>\n

Decades later, after the creation of Redwood National Park, the National Park Service took over the site. The structures were battered and half-buried, but enough of the disguise survived \u2014 the false siding, the wooden framing, the fake windows layered over cinderblock walls \u2014 to preserve its story.<\/p>\n

Today, the site is little more than a pullout on a narrow road deep within Redwood National and State Parks \u2014 a relic tucked among the trees, marked by a modest sign. Those who find it are usually alone, with only the wind in the redwoods and the surf below.<\/p>\n

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