By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif —The swastika-shaped barracks complex at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado has stood for 36 years, so this is not a new story.  However, satellite imaging and Google recently have put it on display to an astonished world.  As of  December 7, 2006, which coincidentally was Pearl Harbor Day,  someone typing the words “Coronado Swastika” into Google’s  Internet finder would be directed to 21,400 sites.  Word is spreading throughout the world how a Nazi symbol stares up from a United States military base.


via www.thepowerhour.com
If you surf the sites, you will see a variety of reactions.  Some people are outraged, as well they should be.  Not everybody, of course  All those neo-Nazi organizations out there are delighted.

World War II cost the lives of 318,274 U.S. service personnel—182,070 of them in the European theatre.  These brave soldiers and sailors died fighting
the people whose symbol inexplicably mocks their deaths from the grounds of a U.S. Naval Base. 
In response to the explosion of interest about the four L-shaped buildings configured into a swastika around two smaller central buildings, U.S. Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego) and Morris Casuto, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, contacted Navy brass to find out what can be done about the offensive symbol.

The Naval Amphibious Base is within Davis’s district.  Her interest runs even deeper than that:  She is an active member of our Jewish community, and she is also a member of the House Armed Services Committee. "I have been in contact with the Navy on the matter of the barracks in Coronado,” she told the Jewish Times in an e-mail message sent on December 5.  “I am supportive of their efforts to find a feasible solution.”       

Casuto told the Jewish Times that he also spoke recently about the barracks with U.S. Navy Capt. Mike Allen, who is chief of staff to Rear Admiral Len Hering at Naval District Southwest, the command which has administrative jurisdiction over a plethora of bases in San Diego County, including the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado.

The ADL Director said he told the Navy that he was concerned that the swastika buildings send a terrible message. The symbol tears a hole in the hearts of Jews everywhere, and especially in the hearts of our Holocaust Survivor community.  Casuto said he asked if the configuration of the buildings could be changed so that the hated symbol does not become Coronado’s most recognized landmark, even better known than the Hotel del Coronado.  Casuto reported that Allen told him he would see what could be done. 

In a subsequent conversation with San Diego Jewish Times, Allen confirmed that the Navy will look anew into whether the buildings can be modified.  He said that as the four-story concrete buildings  are home to about 1,000 service personnel, they are too valuable to be simply torn down.  He was of the impression that on several occasions over the last 36 years,  the Navy, without success, has tried to change the appearance of the buildings from the air by adding hardscape features, like pavement, and landscape features, like trees—but to no avail.

Through most of the last three and a half decades, very few people even would have seen the swastika design of the barracks – perhaps only those passengers who looked at just the right time out a left-side window of a plane approaching Lindbergh Field. But now, as a result of Google and the satellite imaging, it’s time for the Navy to consider again how the buildings might be modified, Allen said.

I’m just guessing but there probably are numerous ways that the swastika configuration of the flat-roofed, 33,034-square-foot building complex can be changed.  Extensions, whether full-scale building additions or simple walkways, might connect the arms of the four L’s, creating a square. 

Another option: If you have ever driven by the old Convair plant near Lindbergh Field you can see the repetitive small triangular structures sitting on the roof of the long building where warplanes were once manufactured.  Those were put there as camouflage, in case an enemy plane should ever fly over. From the sky those boxes would have looked like the roofs of houses.  An enemy bombadier, looking down, would have seen a little village instead of an aircraft plant. Conceivably, the rooflines of the swastika complex could be broken up in similar fashion.
    
These are not the only options, of course.  Any architects among this newspaper’s readership probably could sketch a dozen more.    

There are two important questions attendant to this controversy.  The first is now that the issue is again on the front burner, what can or will be done to get rid of the swastika?  The second is how in the hell did a swastika design ever get there in the first place? 

On this latter question, Allen says he is totally mystified.  An illustration accompanying this article shows a vicinity map submitted in November 1967 by architects William T. Hendrick and John R. Mock that clearly shows the swastika configuration. Allen says he has trouble imagining why someone at the time didn’t notice the offensive symbol and seek a redesign.

Mock, in an interview with KFMB-TV, said, no matter what the complex looks like from the air, “it isn’t that—it is four L-shaped buildings.  When you look at the ground and you look at the air; it still is.”  He told reporter Steve Price that the design was efficient, maximized space and won architectural awards.

On a website for the Coronado Amphibious Base, the Navy admits that there was an “oversight” by Navy planners in the design and construction of the complex, officially called “NAB Complex 320-325.”  According to the site (as it appeared on December 7, 2006): “It wasn’t until after the groundbreaking began that Navy officials realized how the buildings would appear when seen from above.”

We asked for amplification from Steve Fiebing, a civilian public affairs officer at Naval Base Coronado—of which Naval Amphibious Base in a component.  He said that the snafu was that the design of the first L-shaped building was approved by the Navy without anyone thinking about what happens when four L-shaped buildings are configured together.  Fiebing said it is his understanding that the Vicinity Map accompanying this article was drawn well after the project was too far along in the process to be changed.

Getting approval for buildings to be constructed is a long and laborious project—involving votes in Congress—and, even though it was eventually realized they would have a swastika on their base, some Navy brass somewhere decided not to hold up the construction.  The new Vietnam War-time housing was deemed essential.
       
The officially approved website, as of December 7, 2006, went on to say: “The Navy has fully utilized this building complex for more than 35 years, and intends to continue the use of the buildings, as long as they remain adequate for the needs of the service.”

* * *

One reason that the story of the swastika complex is being addressed again is because of the persistence of  Avrahaum Segol, a Wisconsin-raised Israel resident who holds dual U.S.-Israel citizenship.  Segol is a musician, a clothes designer for observant Jewish males, and a researcher who is working on a book that inquires into the origins of controversial symbols on public property in the United States.  

Besides the swastika on the Amphibious Base, Segol has been researching the Mount Soledad Cross controversy, and has been inquiring about the frieze on the south wall inside the United States Supreme Court that shows Moses holding one of the two tablets bearing the Ten Commandments. 

According to Segol, Moses’ beard falls in front of the tablets in such a way that the Hebrew word “Lo” (typically translated “Thou Shalt Not”) is missing from each of the commandments proscribing murder, adultery, stealing, perjury and coveting.  To a Hebrew reader, the frieze could appear as if Moses is advocating these sins.

That may be a story for another time.  But in the meantime, I’d like to applaud Segol’s dogged efforts to get to the bottom of the swastika story.  He was the one, for example, who obtained the Vicinity Map, and passed it on to the Jewish Times, and it was he who has been in touch with numerous San Diego journalists, including Steve Price, who covered this issue on KFMB-TV.   So, to Avrahaum Segon, a yasher koach. We'll be interested to read the outcome of your investigations into these controversial symbols and others under your investigative scrutiny.