WWII Exhibit to Open March 8, 2012


What challenges and sacrifices did the residents of Coronado face during World War II? How did the war years change the community? These and many other questions will be addressed when Coronado On The Frontline: 1942-1945 opens at the Coronado Museum of History & Art.


Visitors will get a glimpse through a “window in time” to see how the town responded to the war effort, and what was happening on North Island as the U.S. ramped up its war effort after the bombing at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Photographs, documents, letters and postcards from the Museum’s archive, as well as artifacts representing Coronado during this period will be on view. Radio broadcasts from the era and a 1940s-style living room vignette will provide an appropriate backdrop for the exhibit.


The direct effects of the war were felt in many ways. Blackouts went into effect almost immediately. Many residents, fearing imminent invasion, initially left town and went inland while others dug “bomb booths” in their back yards.


In order to insure adequate supplies for the troops


overseas, rationing began in January and was very quickly expanded to include most commodities from red meat, coffee and sugar to rubber, wood and gasoline.


The rationing, blackouts, displacement, travel limitations and economic hardships were acute everywhere. However, as a residential community for many naval officers and men,


particularly aviators, a disproportionate number of Coronado’s residents were already serving in the armed services when the war broke out. Many Coronado homes displayed a star in the window for loved ones in the service.


A ballooning population of military personnel and war workers led to severe housing shortages. Existing military bases were expanded and new facilities sprang up virtually overnight. Access to the beaches was eliminated. And tourism, the primary fiscal driver for the


community, dried up completely. Just as well, though, as the War Department


requisitioned many hotels, including large parts of the Hotel Del Coronado, for transient officers or contractors.


In May 1942, residents of Japanese descent, whether or not they were American citizens, were rounded up and shipped off to internment camps.


One particularly poignant display in the exhibit will feature objects owned by Japanese Americans living in Coronado, who were sent to internment camps; these objects will be on loan from the collection of the Japanese American Historical Society of San Diego. An interactive kiosk about the experience of Coronado’s Japanese American community is already on display in the lobby of the Museum. (See page 8.)


Coronado On The Frontline: 1942-1945 opens on Thursday, March 8th


, with a members’ preview, and will remain on


The women of Coronado quickly answer the call for volunteer service after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Shown are several local members of the American Women’s Volunteer Service in 1942.


display through October 2012. Guest Curator Mark Aldrich contributed to this article.


www.coronadohistory.org 3


Ensign Herbert C. Jones, a Coronado High graduate, shown with his mother before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. (See story on the opposite page about his bravery during the attack.)


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