Tillamook Guerrillas, 1942

This photograph was taken by an Oregon Journal photographer in March 1942. It shows members of the Tillamook Guerrillas taking aim from behind a berm.

Like other Americans, Oregonians were shocked by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Many began to worry that the Pacific Coast might be the next target. “We all know,” the Tillamook Headlight-Herald wrote on December 25, 1941, “that the coastal area is the first line of defense.” The Oregon coast lay largely unprotected, however. The Oregon National Guard had been called to active duty and the nascent Oregon State Guard was still largely ineffectual. Historian G. Thomas Edwards writes that, “aware of these troublesome conditions, at some places men argued that they must defend their own communities through the formation of guerrilla companies.”

On March 5, 1942, the Headlight-Herald reported that a “Guerrilla Rifle club” was being organized in Tillamook County by Stewart P. Arnold, a blind World War I veteran. Sixty-nine men enrolled at the first meeting. Within a month the group grew to over 1,000 strong. The March 30 edition of Time magazine described the members of the Guerrillas as “snuff-dipping, mackinawed men from the forests; ruddy, overalled farmers of sturdy Swiss stock; pale businessmen from the little towns….They had no uniforms, did no drilling, furnished their own guns and ammunition for target practice. But they were dead shots and they were ready to shoot.”

The state welcomed the formation of the Tillamook Guerrillas and other guerrilla groups—Governor Charles Sprague even handed out guerrilla warfare manuals to some of them—but in May 1942 the federal government ordered that the independent guerrilla units be absorbed by the Oregon State Guard. The Tillamook Guerrillas remained independent, but it was redesignated a non-military organization. Shortly after the Oregon State Guard took over military operations, Stewart Arnold helped organize an offshoot of the Tillamook Guerrillas known as the Guerrilla Women. The Headlight-Herald reported that “the guerrilla women will be able to shoot, to carry food, perform first aid to fire fighters and otherwise help in a time of disaster.”

Although some questioned the ability of untrained, poorly equipped civilians to fend off a battle-hardened Japanese invasion force, most contemporary observers expressed admiration for Oregon’s guerrilla organizations. The Oregonian editorialized on March 25, 1942, that “if the same spirit and purpose animated all our citizens, similarly armed, attempted invasion of America must in the long run assuredly come to grief.”

Further Reading:
Edwards, G. Thomas. “The Oregon Coast and Three of Its Guerrilla Organizations, 1942.” In The Pacific Northwest in World War II, edited by Carlos Schwantes. Manhattan, Kan., 1986.

Written by Cain Allen, © Oregon Historical Society, 2006.