Navy Slots $600,000 to Hide Swastika-Shaped Coronado Barracks

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published September 26, 2007 at 12:18 PM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

The Navy has budgeted $600,000 to camouflage a series of barracks buildings on the amphibious base on Coronado. The camouflage is not to protect the building from enemy fire, but from observers who sa

Navy Slots $600,000 to Hide Swastika-Shaped Coronado Barracks

The Navy has budgeted $600,000 to camouflage a series of barracks buildings on the amphibious base on Coronado. The camouflage is not to protect the building from enemy fire, but from observers who say the building looks like a swastika when seen from the air.

Angelique Dolan, public affairs for Naval Base Coronado , says the barracks were built in 1970.

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Dolan : The original plan for this building was to do one building, and it was an ‘L’ shape, and they liked the shape of the building and it worked, so they decided to repeat that building three times around in a 90 degree angle. During that time they did not realize what the symbol, what the buildings would look like from above.

The airspace over the base is restricted, so the symbol was not noticed by civilians until technology like Google Earth revealed the swastika clearly in satellite images.

The Navy is hoping that installing new landscaping and erecting photovoltaic cells on the roof will effectively disguise the image.

(Image: Google Earth.)

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.