June 6, 1946 DANGEROUS JOB.–Working rapidly to perform their job before high tide, Navy demolition experts drag ashore just west of the Golden Gate Bridge, a 12-foot Jap torpedo head section suspected of being “alive”.
Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library
I was searching the San Francisco Public Library website online today when I found this interesting photo of Navy demolition men hauling a piece of a Japanese torpedo ashore on Baker Beach just west of the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Two days earlier an “unidentified beachcomber” found the two sections of torpedo lodged in the sand near the South Tower. The warhead had separated from the propulsion section. The detonator was successfully removed and exploded early in the morning.
At 1 PM, Highway patrolmen stopped traffic at the bridge plaza as the head section was readied for demolition. It turned out to be a dud.
The torpedo was thought to have been fired by a Japanese submarine during the war and that got me thinking about what it must have been like to be in San Francisco immediately after the attack on Pearl harbor. Continue reading
