1942 California Fire Fight

hey, some of you know me from alot of threads, but its my turn to ask somebody to help me do some research. My great grandpa (my family is young my grandma is 60 and im almost 20) he died back in the 90's. well my family was diggin up some stuff from his past cause he worked for the goverment, he was a mechanic for the airforce, we recently found out he was in vitenam, we also know he was a very highly useful mechanic/designer. they sent him to Lasvegas in the 60s which makes us think he was at area 51, he was also station in Alaska and in Edwards base in Cali. This is where i need the help, theres a story my great grandma told us about when my great uncle was born in 1942(my grandmas uncle they all are still alive) she and her husband (hes dead now but hes the one that worked for the gov and was a civilian, but never talked about anything) were stationed in South California, probably around the LA area. This would have taken place in either Feb or March of that year, but one night she heard commotion going on and turned on the light of the place she was in, she heard raid sirens go off and gunfire, she quickly turned off the light and grabbed the baby and got down. Her husband (my great grandpa) was no where around, it lasted for a while and then it went quiet. She also mentioned to us there was a Japenese sub off the coast, anyways the point of this is Does anyone know what happened that night? or know of anything that went on in California during WW2? Side note: my great grandpa was also belived to work in area 51 and either helped or did design the cargo bay of the one of the planes the dropped the nuke in japan)

I posted this thread twice cause i wasnt sure what catagorie it fitted in

[edit on 6/5/2006 by ConfederacyOfUnity]

U2U sent on double posting

[edit on 5-6-2006 by masqua]

oops...nv

[edit on 5-6-2006 by masqua]

I think that the sub shelled some fuel tanks back then. There was minor damage. It was the only attack on the mainland other than some poison balloons that floated over.

Well, there was the "Battle of LA" where spotlights and anti-aircraft guns were trained on an unknown object. That was in February, 1942, and was well documented.

Yeh i've watched documentries etc about that. An unknown flying object supposedly.

Yes, I remember something about this attack. There was A Japanese sub spotted of the coast that night. Fortunately, the only damage from the attack was the loss
of one ferris wheel off the Sana Monica pier. Also, one beachfront home was
destroyed, but it was believed to have been hit by "friendly fire".

Don't forget John Belushi pirated the sub and forced the Japs to take him back to Tokyo.