Travel

South Pacific Army/Navy WWII amphibian landing craft Morro Bay training base

KCBX | By Tom Wilmer

Published August 18, 2017 at 5:32 AM PDT

U.S. Army Air Forces Crash Boats trained in Morro Bay but there's much to be learned about their mission here.

Joe Dunlap, a class of 1966 graduate of Morro Bay High School, and a U.S. Navy veteran, has been a student of WWII history for more than forty years. His areas of specialization include the Richmond California shipyards, and the U.S. Navy and Army base at Morro Bay, California where troops trained for South Pacific Landings.

The Morro Bay Detachment, Training command Amphibian Forces Pacific Fleet Landing Craft School drilled as many as 16,000 troops daily. Come along and join Joe Dunlap on the Morro Bay waterfront as he shares informative insights about Morro Bay’s vital role in WWII.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOzd1QILsr4

In addition to landings on the beaches of North Morro Bay around the old Cloisters Inn, the sandspit all the way down past Los Osos and Baywood Park was used for live fire aerial bombing runs, embedded machine gun nests, bazookas, and flame throwers.

The Morro Bay Naval bas was dedicated on November 17, 1941, just weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The base was originally designed as a repairs station for small vessels up to small destroyers. But before too long, the base was repurposed to specifically focus on landing craft drills.