Following the attack on Pearl Harbour, the US military built entire fake towns along the West Coast to hide its airplane factories from Japanese bombers.
How America Won World War II (This Picture Is One Big Clue)
After Pearl Harbor, the Pentagon was worried that Imperial Japan would launch a full-scale bombing run on the U.S. West Coast.
Here s What You Need To Know: Everyone from the military planners at the War Department to the civilians on the street gazing nervously at the sky knew that World War II was an air war. It was the first war in which air power played an essential role, and air power was proving itself to be a prominent and devastating weapon.
When I was a young boy in Seattle, my father told me about a fake town that had been built on top of Boeing’s Plant 2 during the war. This naturally fired my imagination. What an ingenious way, I thought, to fool the enemy bombers that might being coming over the Emerald City to wreak havoc.
America Built Fake Cities to Hide Its World War II Airplane Factories
The cities and villages sat on top of the secret workshops and was meant to fool Imperial Japanese pilots into thinking they were not worth bombing.
Key Point: The idea was a good one, but one that proved largely unnecessary. Thankfully, Imperial Japan was never able to launch a major, full-scale bombing raid on the West coast.
When I was a young boy in Seattle, my father told me about a fake town that had been built on top of Boeing’s Plant 2 during the war. This naturally fired my imagination. What an ingenious way, I thought, to fool the enemy bombers that might being coming over the Emerald City to wreak havoc.