Many people know the story of “The Night That Panicked America.” On Oct. 30, 1938, Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre Troupe broadcast a fictional Martian invasion of New Jersey.

Presented as a series of news bulletins interrupting regular programming, the radio broadcast described the “invasion” as happening in real time, complete with sound effects simulating explosions and “ray gun” fire.

Panicked listeners called police, fled their homes, and gathered in churches to pray. “Radio Listeners In Panic” reported The New York Times the following day.

Lesser known are the two nights in February 1942 when California panicked, not from fictitious invaders from outer space but at the prospect of an invasion by a very real adversary: the Japanese.

By mid-February 1942 the Japanese had run up an impressive string of victories.

After crippling the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese had captured Guam on Dec. 10, Wake Island on Dec. 23 and Singapore on Feb. 15, 1942. They were also well on their way to conquering the Philippines. 

Even as Americans were turning on their radios at 7 p.m. Feb. 23, 1942, to listen to President Franklin D. Roosevelt give another of his “Fireside Chats,” a Japanese submarine was surfacing off the coast of Goleta and preparing to fire its 5½-inch deck gun at the Ellwood Oil refinery.

Capt. Kozo Nishino directed his sailors to aim at the Richfield aviation fuel tank. Most of the refinery workers had gone home by the time the bombardment commenced at 7:15 p.m., but the few who remained were about to receive the shock of their lives.

At first they didn’t know where these explosions were coming from. Then they saw the flash of the cannon’s muzzle and the submarine a mile offshore.

The shelling only lasted 20 minutes, and the damage it did was slight. A pumphouse and a derrick were destroyed. A cat walk and a pier were hit. Total cost: $500.

But if the physical damage was minimal, the psychological damage was maximal.

Americans, especially on the West Coast, were shaken, and many feared the Goleta attack was but the prelude to a full-scale invasion.

Phone lines were jammed as frightened citizens called police. People reported seeing lights on shore flashing signals to the submarine. Four local Japanese were arrested. A blackout was ordered from San Diego to Monterey. 

“Submarine Shells Southland Oil Field,” the Los Angeles Times headlined the following day. The New York Times echoed, “Submarine Shells California Oil Plant.”

The Goleta attacked made the country feel vulnerable. Enemy shells had not fallen on American soil since the War of 1812. 

The following day the Office of Naval Intelligence issued an alert, stating that a Japanese attack on California was hours away.

At nightfall flares and signal lights were reported coming from defense plants in the Los Angeles area.

At 7:18 p.m., a full-scale alert was issued for Southern California. Air raid sirens sounded. A total blackout was ordered from Ventura to Long Beach. Air raid wardens were summoned to their stations.

The U.S. Army coastal defense units began scanning the skies with searchlights, and at 3:16 a.m. .50-caliber machine guns and anti-aircrafts guns began to fire at what were thought to be enemy planes in the sky above.

While there were no enemy planes over the city that night, there were casualties: Several buildings and vehicles were damaged by shell fragments, and five civilians died as an indirect result. Three victims were killed in car crashes and two of heart attacks attributed to the stress of the “battle.”

“Air Battle Rages Over Los Angeles,” roared the Los Angeles Examiner the next day. “Air Raid Over Los Angeles,” the Los Angeles Times added.

Perhaps the most tragic result was the way the submarine attack on Goleta and the fear of an invasion were used to justify the incarceration of the California Japanese.

Fear that Japanese living in America constituted a “Fifth Column” had begun the day after Pearl Harbor, and these events took that fear took a quantum leap.

On the very day — Feb. 19, 1942 — that Roosevelt signed the infamous Executive Order 9066 providing for the internment of the Japanese, the Los Angeles Times had editorialized “Since December 7 there has existed an obvious menace … in the presence of potential saboteurs and fifth columnists,” referring to the Japanese in California.

On Feb. 28, the newspaper went even further, saying, “As to a considerable number of Japanese, no matter where born … they will aid Japan in every way possible … and they need to be restrained.” 

In the wake of this, the first Japanese were removed late in March 1942, and by fall 117,000 had been deprived of their freedom because, as actor George Takei put it, “We looked like the people who attacked Pearl Harbor.”

Most would spend the next three years behind barbed wire.

Today a sign commemorates the Japanese attack on Goleta. Titled “Goleta Historical Marker 3,” it looks out at the Pacific Ocean where an enemy submarine once surfaced and caused Americans on the West Coast to panic.