WrightwoodCalif.com Forum
Public Forums => Wrightwood History => Topic started by: GRAHAM_RANCH on Jan 09, 08, 08:12:07 PM
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(http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o267/tjranch91/jet.jpg)
THE BATTLE OF PALMDALE....OR THE SANTA CLARITA VALLEY WAR
As Wrightwood was settling in on being a peaceful mountain town and enjoying being separated from the busy city life below, history of sorts was unfolding just forty miles to the northwest. To some it seemed like war had hit the area. It started in Santa Clarita Valley-thus the name "the Santa Clarita Valley War; it ended in Palmdale-thus the named "The Battle of Palmdale". It was on August 20, 1956, when the Santa Clarita Valley was attacked by the United States Navy and Air Force. Well, sorta...kinda..., mostly sorta. And to make the day extra exciting, the City of Palmdale was next on their to-do list.
It was on this day that Point Mugu Naval Base launched a drone plane for routine testing. The pilotless craft's electronics refused to respond to commands from ground control and soon the drone was weaving over the populated area Santa Clarita Valley! "The Hellcat took off at 11:34 a.m., climbing out over the Pacific. As controllers attempted to maneuver the drone toward the target area over the ocean, they realized it was not responding to radio commands. The drone had thousands of square miles of ocean in which to crash, but instead, it made a graceful climbing left-hand turn to the southeast...", reported Aerospace archaeologist Peter Merlin.
The Air Force and Navy figured that the only way to stop a runaway aircraft was to send up some more.
From Oxnard Air Force Base, two F-89 Scorpion fighters were dispatched to shoot down the drone - as it flew over the populated area of Santa Clarita Valley. What happened next made it evident that In 1956, dog fighting skills obviously needed improvement. The pilots of the two F-89 Scorpions were Lieutenant Hans Einstein and Lieutenant Dick Hurliman. The two jets fired a total of two hundred and eight Tiny Tim rockets that were completely off target...well, at least they all missed the pilotless drone aircraft. They did succeed in hitting the ground, and the explosions started over twenty brush fires all over the valley.
In the way of the hundred of the Tiny Tim rockets were also ranches, houses, power lines and oilfields. The ordinance also took out half of the valley's power and local law enforcement was used to stop traffic on the highway and streets during the one way firefight. Before brush fires could be extinguished, one thousand acres were burned.
During the brief Santa Clarita Valley War there was some miracles. No one was killed. Two men escaped death only by the grace of God. J. R. Johns and J. C. Babbit were two coworkers eating lunch in their work truck, parked in Placerita Canyon, when the sorta...kinda...mostly sorta, attack happened. They decided to sit under a shade tree to finish lunch. A few moments later, rocket fragments tore through the bed and windshield of their parked truck and completely destroyed it!
Fires ignited by the military firepower at one point endanged the Bermite Powder Company explosives plant. The rockets also ignited a fire in the vicinity of Soledad Canyon , west of Mt. Gleason , burning over 350 acres of heavy brush. Meanwhile, the errant drone suddenly changed course. It headed east to its new target, the City of Palmdale! The Scorpion crews readjusted their intervalometers and each fired a final salvo, expending their remaining rockets. Again, the unpiloted, the unguided, and the unarmed drone eluded the two F-89 Scorpion fighters.
The calm and quiet afternoon was shattered as rockets dropped on downtown Palmdale. Edna Carlson was at home with her six-year-old son when shrapnel tore through her front window, bounced off the ceiling, pierced a wall, and finally came to rest in a kitchen cupboard. More shrapnel ripped through J. R. Hingle's garage and home, nearly hitting Mrs. Lilly Willingham as she sat on the couch minding her own business. Leona Valley teenager, Larry Kempton, was driving west on Palmdale Boulevard with his mother in the passenger seat when a rocket exploded on the street in front of him. Fragments blew out his left front tire, and put tore holes in his radiator, hood and windshield! The drone continued to pass over the town, when suddenly the engine sputtered and died as its fuel supply ran out. The red Hellcat descended in a loose spiral toward an unpopulated patch of desert eight miles east of Palmdale Airport . Just before impact, the drone sliced through a set of three Southern California Edison power lines. The air battle came to a quick end as the camera pod on the airplane's right wingtip dug into the desert floor and the Hellcat cartwheeled and disintegrated.
Capt. Sewell Griggers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Aero Detail spotted two 2 -inch rockets buried up to their tail fins in an empty field in the center of Palmdale, near the railroad tracks. The rockets were blown up by a sheriff's demolition crew. Meanwhile, thirteen more rockets were found between Santa Clarita and Palmdale, and demolition personnel from Edwards Air Force Base recovered them.
Source:
Santa Clarita Signal- Runaway Aircraft Weaves Over SCV-, Aug 20, 2006; reporter John Boston
Antelope Valley Press, Jan. 18,2004; reporter Bob Wilson.
War Bird Alley News Archives
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I was stationed at Pt Mugu (1958-61) and worked in the control room that would have been in control of the drone. I never heard this story, which leads me to assume that it wasn't a real proud moment in Naval history. ;D
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It's not to hard to imagine the outrage that would happen if something of that sort happened today. But then, I don't believe highway 14 was completed until the 70's and the population of Palmdale and SCV were a small fraction of what they are now.
Nonetheless, someone's head rolled, I am sure.
Sure wish I coulda been there to see it.
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There was a Highway 14 back then--it is now called Sierra Highway and "Highway 14" is now the Freeway that was constructed in the 1970's. I worked with a guy who lived in Palmdale and his grandmother lived in Sylmar. He said it was a LOOOOONG drive (especially to a kid) to drive to his grandmother's. I talked to folks who worked on the Angeles NF in the 1980's and said there was nothing in Santa Clarita.... ;D Where the Burger King is on Bouquet Canyon Road (at the corner of Newhall Ranch Road) was a fruit stand where they would buy stuff for their lunch. I imagine there was even less stuff in the 1950's. My dad almost got transferred from Palo Alto (Moffat Field) to Edwards in the mid 1970's and my mother was frantic....