SEA BENCH MILITARY
RESERVATION
The trails of
this hiking area will take you right over two concrete and steel
structures buried in the hillside. If you don't know what you are
looking at, you might mistake them for parts of a sewage system. In
reality they are two "lost" lookouts from historic Fort MacArthur.
Why are they "lost"? There are no plaques indicating their
historical pedigree, nor does the Ft. MacArthur museum have
anything that will direct you to them. Thus their identity and
location are "lost" to all except those with inside
information.
Fort MacArthur was a large military reservation headquartered in
San Pedro, with smaller stations spread throughout the Palos Verdes
Peninsula and Long Beach. It's named after Lt. General Arthur
MacArthur (father of the more famous Gen. Douglas MacArthur of
World War II and the Korean War). MacArthur won the Congressional
Medal of Honor in the American Civil War and was a commandant of
the Military Academy at West Point. After the Spanish-American War
he served as military governor of the Philippines, and was also
instrumental in establishing America's harbor defenses.
Fort MacArthur was originally built to defend Los Angeles Harbor
from enemy attack and invasion, but after World War II it's guns
were replaced with radar stations and nuclear-tipped Nike
missiles tasked with shooting
down Soviet nuclear bombers intent on vaporizing Los Angeles.
Planning for the fort began in the late 1800's, with the first guns
becoming operational in 1919. New weapons and facilities were added
at various times until the 1950's. The military declared the
facility obsolete in the 1970's and it was decommissioned. The only
parts still used by the military today are its military housing in
San Pedro (for personnel stationed at Los Angeles Air Force Base
near LAX), and a Coast Guard station on the original San Pedro
reservation overlooking Long Beach. The Coast Guard Station
monitors ship traffic coming into the port and watches for
potential terrorist activities.
The cache is in an area called the Sea Bench Military
Reservation. It contains four abandoned base-end stations
(sometimes called fire-control stations) that supported guns at the
main fort in San Pedro and a battery at White Point. Although these
look like "pillboxes", they are not. Pillboxes were fortified
defensive positions, usually armed with heavy machine guns. These
are observation posts - not machine gun nests. If machine gun crews
were stationed inside alongside the fire support crew, neither
would have the elbow room to effectively do their jobs. However, if
an invasion were taking place and the position was in danger of
being overrun, the fire control station crew could have mounted a
difficult and determined defense from inside their armored
position, but this would only have been done as a last ditch
effort. The best thing they could do was keep calling in the
positions of enemy ships so that the large the artillery batteries
could sink them.
Base-end stations held precisely mounted,
high quality telescopes that could accurately measure angles. Each
artillery battery was assigned a group of stations scattered
throughout the peninsula. In case of attack each station would
sight the same target and call out its range and position. Using
triangulation, the positional measurements from each station were
combined and plotted so that the battery could fire at the target.
Widely placed stations, such as these, allowed distant targets to
be accurately plotted. The massive 16"
guns at White Point could
target ships as far away as Catalina Island's backside (about 26
miles).
Stand at the following coordinates: N33 43.511 W118
20.254. You are now between both stations. It's obvious that
their 300-foot altitude gave them a commanding view of the area. If
you face the ocean and
look to your
right, you'll see a
single base-end station that supported Battery
Osgood. Although it may
be hard to see through the brush, the front and sides of it
have steel doors that hinged upward to allow observations.
Unfortunately they are welded shut, preventing us from
peeking in. On the top of it you'll see a rusty, steel hatch
that has also been welded shut. That's where the soldiers
accessed it.
Now look behind you (or, if facing the ocean again,
look left). This is the only tripled-decked fire control station
remaining out of six that formerly supported the big guns of
Battery Osgood. The other five were removed to restore the native
habitat and wildlife that originally populated the area. Each tier
supported its own artillery battery. These three were assigned to
the 16-inch battery at White Point, Battery 241 at Fort MacArthur
(now under the Korean Bell) and Battery 240 at Point Vicente. The
latter two were 6"
guns having a range of 15
miles. This one has at least two access hatches: one on the side
and the other in the middle of the trail. The
front of the lookout features steel-shuttered windows. The neat
thing about this station is the concrete laid on it. The top was
camouflaged to make it look more natural, thus hiding it from the
aerial surveillance. The dents were most likely made by patting the
wet cement with shovels. If you look closely at it you can also
see
footprints from the men who built it. The youngest of any builders
still alive would be in his 80's. Soon the World War II generation
and their firsthand memories will be gone. These footprints make a
sort of "memorial" to the builders that will last centuries after
they've passed away.
DRIVING
DIRECTIONS
The site is
located next to Trump National Golf Club on the Palos Verdes
Peninsula. Suggested parking coordinates are N33 43.548, W118
20.266.
- Take Palos Verdes Drive South
- Turn onto La Rotonda Drive (whether you make a
right or left onto the Drive depends on which direction you are
coming from)
- Turn LEFT onto Cape Point Drive
- Park on Cape Point Drive
THE
CACHE
Follow the well-worn
footpaths to the cache. The trail distance is very short -- only a
little over 300 feet. The cache is easily accessible from the path
(it's right on it), so no bushwhacking is required.
Hikers come by about every 10 minutes on the weekends and
evenings, but most of the time the trail is quiet.
I averaged 70 readings for the coordinates and the accuracy is
in the 16-foot range. The terrain and concrete mess with reception
a bit so read the clues if you get stuck.
The cache is small (approximately 6" X 4" X 3"). Only tiny
trades will fit.
Please replace it as found. It's behind 2 "layers" of
camouflage. Both layers are needed in case one falls away. The
cache is easy to see without both.