By Herb Kugel

World War II came to the Hollywood motion picture studios, the “Dream Factories” as they were sometimes called, the day after Pearl Harbor.

“Hollywood became a military camp. Within a day … studio trucks and drivers were transporting army troops and equipment, studio arsenals were stripped of prop (weapons) and ammunition to fortify undersupplied posts along the West Coast …” wrote Bruce T. Torrence, in his book, Hollywood: The First Hundred Years.

Hollywood Hunkers Down for War

Movie studios mobilized their firefighting equipment, and the beautiful sands in front of Hollywood’s luxurious Malibu Beach homes were soon overrun with soldiers as Hollywood’s yachtsmen donated their entire fleet to the Coast Guard. The physical resemblance of several of the Dream Factory studios with their large complexes of buildings to nearby aircraft factories was suddenly a cause for frightening concern. Warner Brothers Pictures took a unique if not too patriotic action in an effort to prevent Japanese bombers from mistaking Warner’s Burbank lot for nearby Lockheed Aircraft Company buildings. Studio set painters were ordered to paint a 20-foot arrow on the roof of a soundstage that lined up toward Lockheed. Next to the arrow, the painters inscribed in large letters: LOCKHEED THATAWAY.

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