The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-02-25

nouncer, ran into a store awning while hurrying to work and suffered face injuries.
 With daylight, more evidences of | the anti-aircraft fire were found. Santa Monica police said a shell dropped in residential district and buried itself three feet in the ground without exploding.
 The blackout followed a three hour alert last night which ended at 1925 p. m.
 Plane Reported Down
 Police were Investigating a report that an unidentified plane was shot down near 180th street and Vermont avenue, about 15 miles from the center of the city, in the vicinity of Palos Verdes hills.
 A desk sergeant at the 77th Street station informed headquarters he had seen two planes fall from the cone of searchlight beams after strenuous anti-aircraft activity.
 A bomb or an 'anti-aircraft shell was reported to have demolished garage and automobile at a resi- dence in the western part of the city, Is minutes from downtown Los Angeles. Fragments of debris were 1 driven through the home nearby but no one was injured, police said. i During the height of the barrage and while the entire coastline from Santa Monica to San Diego was blacked out, a number of Japanese were arrested on the Venice pier for signaling with flashlights.
 Searchlights swept the skies and on at least one occasion caught a group of planes directly in their cone over Long Beach. Police who witnessed the episode said they could not determine whether any plane was hit by shells which burst all around them.
 First Near Redondo
 The first flight came in over the coast at a point over Redondo beach and apparently penetrated about five miles in the direction of the Municipal airport and North American Aviation's plant before cutting to the south and disappear ing in the direction of Long Beach. The second wave came in over the Palos Verdes hills and also swung south and out to sea near 1 Seal Beach.
 l It was assumed that army craft i had taken to the air to pursue the unidentified planes. Witnesses told of seeing planes leaving various 1 fields, although reports from Long Beach indicated the squadron based there was merely lon the line" and "alerted."
 The aircraft first were detected at 2:22 a. m. (5:22 a. m. EWT) and a blackout of Los Angeles county was ordered three minutes later.
 San Diego, 125 miles south of Los Angeles, was blacked out at 3:08 a. m. (6:08 a. m. EWT).
 Police said the planes flying over Los Angeles area were too high to be identified.
 | Watchers on the rooftop of the United Press bureau saw at least 30 searchlights sweeping the skies in a wide arc from Manhattan Beach on the west to the Santa Monica mountains on the north.
 Scores of Rounds
 The guns fired scores of rounds. Concussions of the shells could be i felt in downtown Los Angeles, 15 miles away.
 l There was no official comment immediately from army sources. | The gunfire brought the war to 1 the front door of this city of 1,250,- 900 for the first time. Already it had been placed on the alert because l of presence off the coast of Japa- nese submarine which pumped 25 | shells into an oil field north of Santa Barbara Monday night. Because of the submarine, three ! hour alert was ordered at dusk last night and civilian authorities stood