Neal Graffy “They Came, They Saw, They Shelled”

The Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society is pleased to welcome Neal Graffy at its first in-person general meeting in over two years on Saturday, June 18. The hybrid meeting will take place at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Barbara, and will also be available via Zoom.

Following the Society’s annual membership meeting to approve next year’s budget and elect Board members, the ever-popular Santa Barbara local historian Neal Graffy will give his presentation, “They Came, They Saw, They Shelled.” On February 23, 1942, at 7:15 pm, a submarine sitting off the coast shelled the Ellwood Oil Field near Goleta. Just two months and sixteen days after the attack at Pearl Harbor – and during one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fireside chats – the I-17, a Japanese submarine, surfaced in the Santa Barbara Channel and shelled the oil facilities at Ellwood. It may have fired only 25 shells and caused minimal damage, but it set off widespread panic up and down the California coast.

About Neal Graffy
Since giving his first slide-show talk on local history in 1989, Graffy has given well over 400 presentations on 22 different topics! Further, his expertise has been sought out by local, state, and national radio and TV. He has authored numerous  monographs for historical organizations, as well as articles in regional and national publications, three local history books, and co-authored a series of historical fiction novels taking place in the early 1900s. He has also been featured in several documentaries including the Emmy Award winning Impressions in Time, appeared on Huell Howser’s California Gold, KCET TV’s Life and Times, and on This Old House. “Delightfully unfettered by convention” pretty much sums up Neal Graffy’s approach to history. Whether it be in print, radio, television, documentary, or live, his audiences always find his presentations to be entertaining, fun, and still educational.” Learn more about Neal Graffy at ElBarbareno.com.

This presentation and meeting of the Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society is free and open to the public. The meeting will be held at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Barbara at 21 E. Constance Avenue. To attend via Zoom, please register at SBGen.org. The meeting will include Special Interest Groups at 9:30 am (in person only), a brief business meeting at 10:30 am, followed by Neal Graffy’s presentation beginning at 11:00 am.