Booby-trapped village at Central Coast military base trained troops to fight Nazis
The United States was united in defeating Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers.
Many local families sent their best to fight the war against the fascists. The county was small enough then that almost everyone knew someone who never came home.
On April 17, 1945, my grandmother’s brother, Elwyn Righetti flew his last mission over Germany, killed in action. His body is still missing.
Democracy is messy and may have frayed edges, but when it was called on to meet the challenge of war in both Europe and the Pacific the United States responded with a mobilization of the whole nation for the war effort.
Women worked in factories, Navajo troops spoke in a language that functioned as a code the Imperial Japanese troops could not break.
On the other side of the world, Japanese-American troops in the 442 Infantry fighting Nazi forces in Italy were the most decorated unit in United States military history. The all-Black 332nd Fighter Group was one of the most effective and decorated in the Army Air Force.
One could argue that diversity, now being erased from websites under the current administration, was a factor in winning the war.
In addition, the military learned from mistakes. Ineffective commanders were replaced and leadership success was rewarded.
Unfortunately the current administration officials have not absorbed the WWII lessons shared on posters that advised “Loose lips sink ships” and “Don’t discuss: Troop movements, ship sailings war equipment.”
A group of key cabinet members including the Vice President, National Security Advisor, Secretary of Defense, CIA Director, Director of National Intelligence, White House chief of staff, Secretary of State and more shared exactly that information in an unsecured group chat.
Something present during the war that seems absent today is strong congressional oversight.
While huge sums of money were being spent on the war effort, there was a temptation for grift and fraud.
Senator Harry Truman rose to national prominence leading the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. Sometimes Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration officials were called to answer even though Truman and Roosevelt were Democrats.
One investigation into cost overruns at Camp San Luis revealed that unusually heavy rains had delayed construction, driving up costs.
But another complaint lead to an investigation of an aircraft manufacturer Curtiss-Wright which preferred to make the obsolete but profitable P-40 rather than create or assist in producing a top flight fighter like the North American P-51 Mustang or Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.
Curtiss-Wright had put a focus on quantity and not quality, profit-taking over research and development.
The investigation led to the company becoming greatly diminished after the end of the war, a time when aerospace industry as a whole was taking off like a jet.
Congress needs to be an effective watchdog and not rubber stamp requests from the executive branch.
The war required training that learned from past mistakes to help save lives. Today they are called IEDs or improvised explosive devices, but then they were called booby traps.
In 1944, the fight in Europe lead to an ersatz Nazi village being built at Camp Roberts, just north of the county line, to train soldiers.
From the May 30, 1944, Telegram-Tribune:
Nazi ‘Booby Trap’ Village Built at Camp Roberts
Camp Roberts trainees will learn to discover and disarm booby traps in a model Nazi village where swastikas fly from the buildings which hide authentic mines and explosive charges.
Constructed by the Field Artillery replacement raining center, the village is built of waste lumber and includes a chapel, drug store, grocery store and a beer hall (bierstube).
Signs in German
Displayed throughout the village are German language street signs, and large martial law proclamations in German.
The purpose of the village is to demonstrate to each trainee just how cunning Nazi soldiers can be and how and where they leave mines hidden so that incautiously attacking Yanks will be killed.
Lt. Warner Hutchinson, who also conducts a 12-hour anti-booby trap course, was in charge of construction and planning of the village.
Hutchinson explained that 50 percent of the casualties in the European theater of operations are caused by booby traps. The course has been designed to lessen this loss.
Artillerymen walking along Adolf Hitler Strasse in the village may release a percussion type trap which will detonate a nitro starch charge. Although charges are not heavy enough to injure a trainee, they do give him a scare and demonstrate just how easy it is to lose a life when moving in territory abandoned by the enemy.
Variety of Traps
Traps planted in the village may be detonated by trainees stepping on loose floor boards, pulling wires, sitting on unsuspected furniture or by such actions as pulling a window sash.
The village, when fully completed, will have 17 buildings. Still needed is more furniture to furnish the houses and to provide places in which to plant booby traps for the unwary trainees.
This story was originally published March 29, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
