Goleta History or Myth? If the Shrapnel in These Walls Could Talk

Goleta History or Myth?
If the Shrapnel in
These Walls Could Talk

Are the Remnants of a
1942 Japanese Submarine Attack
Lodged in the Timbers Restaurant?

By Alex Scordelis | July 20, 2023

You never plan on getting tangled up in a mystery involving a Japanese submarine attack, a Goleta barbecue joint, a legendary Hollywood screenwriter, a golf-course cactus, and a UCSB physicist. But here we are.

I’ll start from the beginning.

Stumbling Onto a Story

Several years ago, my wife traveled to Goleta for a work trip. We live in Los Angeles, and I courageously agreed to tag along for a two-night oceanside getaway. While she attended meetings one afternoon, I took a stroll along Haskell’s Beach. It’s a stretch of the coast I know well. As a student at UCSB, I’d often jog at Haskell’s to burn off calories acquired from a steady diet of Woodstock’s Pizza and foamy keg beer. On this particular walk, something caught my eye that I’d never seen before: a sign, partially obscured by a thicket of chaparral and coastal sage, that said “JAPANESE ATTACK” in bold capital letters. Alarming message aside, it looked like the kind of historical marker you’d see outside a New England inn, noting that George Washington once stopped there for clam chowder. Below the eye-grabbing headline was this: