ABSTRACT

Set designers, special effects people, carpenters, and lighting experts volunteered to help. The plan was to change how California looked from the air so that Japanese pilots would not be able to see the actual location of the bases and factories. To hide the California Lockheed Vega Aircraft plant, the gigantic building and its parking lots were all hidden underneath a fake “suburb.” The set designers stretched a huge canopy of chicken wire and canvas over the top of the entire area. Fake cars and trucks were place on the fake streets and clotheslines were put in the yards. Real clothes hanging on the line fluttered in the breeze. From the air it looked like a typical California suburb. To maintain the illusion of a real live neighborhood, workers had to periodically move the fake cars and trucks and take in the laundry and put out new clothes.