Corona World War 2 Aircraft Warning Service Tower 

When the United States entered World War 2, there was a fear among the land that the Japanese would attack the mainland just as they had attacked Hawaii. Therefore lookout towers were built and should a Japanese aircraft be spotted in the skies, immediately their movement would be tracked as the observation towers would phone in to a military manned response center.
In our area there were towers in Corona, Prado, Norco and Temescal Valley. They were manned by citizen volunteers, and it was a responsibility that Corona’s citizens took very serious.

Corona’s lookout tower was located on Foothill Ranch. Some historical estimates say the tower existed around the corner of Chase and Main, other accounts show that the tower was nestled more towards the mountains. Hopefully as more future research is done, the exact location will present itself.

Currently on display at the Corona Heritage Museum are items donated by the Dillon family that once belonged to Helen Dillon who was a Corona volunteer that donated her time to man the aircraft watchtower.

In case your wondering how successful these towers were, the government tried to paint a couple of captured Japanese planes with U.S. marking and fly them to March Air Force Base for further study, the lookout towers all spotted them along the way and lit up the response centers.