According to the "Long Beach Argus", the anti-aircraft batteries were firing during a blackout and a shell exploded in the intersection of Long Beach Boulevard and Market Streets on February 25, 1942. Damage was done to the surrounding buildings and pieces of the casing were found two blocks away.
I was elated to have found confirmation of mother’s story. But I was absolutely amazed when Jane Kappel Snyder, a longtime resident, told me the following story during a conversation in September 2003:
Jane married her husband in 1939 at Shady Acres Miniature Golf Course. He was the manager and they lived in an upstairs apartment on the property. They were home during the "air raid" when the shell exploded at Market Street. Jane said she crawled under the bed with her dog while her husband was out on the roof deck watching the action. They picked up pieces of flack from the golf course for several days thereafter.
The Coastal Artillery was located across the street from them toward the river bed, and Jane related another story – one evening during the war, while getting ready to cross the bridge on her bicycle with an old style domed lid lunch box in the basket, she hit a bump. The lunch box fell out and rolled down the bank. She went down the bank to retrieve it and on her way back up was told to "Halt!" by a young, shaking soldier, who thought she might have gone down the bank to plant a bomb.
