Milestones in Surf History Part Twelve (#70 - #76)

Milestones in Surf History Part Twelve (#70 - #76)

by Sam Bleakley

 

#70 : 1945 Warboards : In Europe, the Allies landed on the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944. Nearly a year later, on May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered. ‘V.E. Day’ ended war in Europe. The US dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities in early August 1945. The Japanese government subsequently surrendered. The total human cost included approximately 35 million combatants, plus 10 million Nazi concentration camp victims. For surfing, the end of war set the stage for technological advances in surfboard design. In fact, surfboards were considered for use as an instrument to advance military objectives. After the US Marines suffered crippling casualties in assaults on the Gilbert Island's on the Atoll of Tarawa, and the taking of Iwo Jima in the summer of 1945 (often simply due to tidal change and limited knowledge on water depth), the military conceived the idea of an advance recon unit that could map the approach to the beaches and clear a path for the advancing Marines. A specialist team was trained in Hawaii to use surfboards, inspired by Gene ‘Tarzan’ Smith's great paddling feats, and consulting Californian surfers Pete Peterson, Bob Butt and John Kelly and Hawaiian Hot Curl rider Fran Heath. Small teams of frogmen (who had to chart or clear underwater obstructions in the dead of night) were created by the Navy to limit the number of casualties caused by landing craft grounding on reefs during coming Pacific island invasions. The Navy also developed a surfboard : a 14ft hollow wooden board built of a thin layer of redwood over a wooden frame. They were camouflaged and included a depth sounder between the frames, and a two-way radio to relay the depth sounder's readings to the mother ship. They were ready for action, but the atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima on August 6th and on Nagasaki three days later preempted the need of the Warboards and they were never used operationally. After World War II ended and the surfer servicemen, “started coming back in late '45 and early '46,” Duke Kahanamoku recalled (with reference to Hawaii), “surfing once again took an upturn. But it was slow, for the military returnees were occupied with finding jobs or returning to their interrupted education chores.”

#71 : Post War Attitudes, Australia : Before WWII, coastlines of Hawaii and California advocated hollow and redwood boards (the Hot Curl designs key in Hawaii), while in Australia, surfers rode hollow paddleboards as part of the Surf Lifesaving Association of Australia (SLSA) culture. They were stored upright in clubs, where they could drain overnight. In ‘Surfing Subcultures of Australia and New Zealand’ Kent Pearson explains that “board design was biased towards the interests of SLSA requirements…concerning paddling speed rather than wave-riding performance. Board paddling in Australia became a form of athletic competition, which was in direct contrast to the more expressive and playful activity of wave riding itself. Thus, board design development was in complete accord with the central aims and official SLSA ideology. Stressing, as it did, the benefits of competition for rescue work, the official position also seemed to parallel general societal values on achievement and performance. World War II had several major repercussions on surf life saving," Pearson notes. "At an international level, Australians posted overseas introduced local life saving methods to other countries. At home, club memberships were depleted by both voluntary drafting for overseas service and home conscription. Sydney beaches were barb wired and manned by troops. As a consequence, surf life saving activities declined.” When the war ended “there was a big change in the manner of the SLSA members," said Snowy McAlister. “They were restless and hard to control, despite the years of army training... It was something the clubs never recovered from. Cars were becoming available and in 1948 petrol rationing was lifted (during the war we had been limited to four gallons a month) giving a new freedom to youth. Suddenly the youth were able to get mobile and were no longer anchored to the club.” Thus, in addition to this mass release and new freedom, there were technological advances, increased mobility and greater consumer affluence that helped characterise the post-war period in Australia.

 

#72 : 1946 Explosive 'Bikini' Atoll Revealed : Swimsuits are ancient, however the bikini made its debut on the beaches of southern France in 1946. Louis Réard, a Parisian-based mechanical engineer who took over his mother’s lingerie business in the 1940s, and Jacques Heim, a fashion designer and owner of the fashion house House of Jacques Heim, both developed two piece swimsuits which exposed the naval. Jacques Heim’s suit, called the ‘Atom’ was marketed as the “world’s smallest bathing suit,” and was available to the public in 1932. Réard’s design was released four days after the US military conducted nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1946. The size of the bikini was important (it could fit in a matchbox), with Réard stating that “a bikini is not a bikini unless it can be pulled through a wedding ring.” First modelled by French dancer Micheline Bernardini, the bikini has become an iconic piece of fashion. Celebrities such as Brigitte Bardot and Marilyn Monroe helped popularise the bikini in the ‘60s. Pictured here (courtesy of Roxy) Hawaiian Kelia Moniz is one of a long list of ultra talented surfers (such as Stephanie Gilmore, Kassia Meador and Belinda Baggs) who have helped redefine surfing as dance.

#73 : 1947 VW Kombi : As the Dutch Importer Ben Pon walked across the grounds of the VW factory in April 1947, he came across a very strange vehicle. VW employees had built it themselves to make their work easier when transporting panels around the car plant in Wolfsburg, Germany. This impression crystallised in his mind, Ben Pon sketched a box shaped vehicle with a rear engine. Through persistence and tenacity he was able to win over the boss, Heinrich Nordhoff. The VW Bus - officially labeled The VW Type 2, but also known as the Kombi, Transporter, or Microbus, depending on where it was sold – went into production in 1949. VW’s second car model, following the Beetle (aka Type 1), it was originally offered in two body types: the cargo-carrying Transporter, followed by the Kombi (short for combination, or ‘kombination’ in German), which featured removable rear seats and additional windows. Both body types came with a distinctive split windshield. It filled a market gap for tradespeople - simple, robust, highly flexible with reasonably priced production and running costs. In 1950, VW added the Samba model, with roof-top windows. Variants to the first generation models included a Westfalia camping van that included an optional pop up top. Of course, it accidentally found one of its greatest purposes: the transport of surfboards. The Kombi was soon the iconic surf travel wagon. The second generation debuted in 1967, and remained in production in Mexico until 1994 (German production ended in 1979). The new generation lost its split windshield. There were five generations of the Type 2. The VW Kombi boasts the distinction of being the longest-produced model in the global automotive industry. The Brazilian factory kept the Type 2 in production until late 2013, allotting the iconic VW van a full 63 years of production (second only in production years to VW’s original Beetle).

#74 : Late ‘40s California Scene : In 1934 the total number of surfers in California was estimated at approximately 80. Although World War II curtailed much surfing activity, it exposed tens of thousands of American soldiers to Hawaii and the Pacific. Consequently, the California scene grew steadily after WWII with colonies springing up at Windansea, Oceanside, Laguna, Huntington Beach, the South Bay, Malibu, Santa Cruz and San Onofre. The origin of what Hollywood would later romanticize as the ‘existential outlaw’ lay in the home return of many Allied combatants, often disillusioned with 'conventional' society. In ‘Pure Stoke’ John Grissim wrote that “surfers of this era possessed a maverick spirit, combined with a commitment to having fun,” which “pervaded the surfing community. 'Surfer' suggested a natural bohemianism, an outlaw subculture that was daring, adventurous, sexy, and, if not exactly illegal, at least on occasion illicit. As important, these early veterans were tough, solid, and tested - tested by waves as much as war.” San Clemente was an a-typical Southern California beach town after WWII. It would later become the global capital of surf publishing. “Ahh, San Clemente,” recalled local Vince Nelson. “We were lucky to live in little 'ol San Clemente; post-war, pre-population explosion...” Jim Severson recalls, “You could walk anywhere. There were trails across fields, through eucalyptus-lined canyons and up and down the bluffs to the beach...” Doc Ball’s ‘California Surfriders’ is a masterpiece of the time, surfers enjoying a nearly pristine California coast from La Jolla to Santa Barbara, to Santa Cruz and Pacifica: beach parties with fresh lobster and abalone pulled from the ocean, hardly any traffic along the coast highway and landscape that was still open and undeveloped. Pictured here are the hollow 'cigar box' boards that dictated the classic upright style of the era. Styles would soon change radically as board design and technology evolved.

 

#75 : 1948 John Lind Founds the Waikiki Surf Club : By the late 1940s the two main original Waikiki (Hawaii) surf clubs had changed considerably. The native Hui Nalu was focused on outrigger canoe racing, while the haole-influenced Outrigger Canoe Club had become more of an exclusive prestige-type establishment. So, in 1947, the Waikiki Surf Club was formed for the same reasons that the other two had originally been put together. “To promote surfing as well as other Hawaiian water sports,” wrote surf historian Ben Finney. “It provided board lockers and clothes changing facilities near the beach, for anyone who could pay the small initiation fee and monthly dues.” Under the leadership of John Lind, the Waikiki Surf Club enrolled 600 members in three months. “We had island local members like George Downing, Wally Froiseth and Russ Takaki,” recalled Walter Hoffman. “The Outrigger was down the beach, at $200 per month…very exclusive, you had to be voted in. Our club was for the regulars who surfed, so it was a great place to meet everybody - where all the transplant Californians hung out.” The club also initiated and sponsored events that stimulated public interest and fostered competition, including the Diamond Head Surfboard Championships, the Molokai-Oahu Outrigger Canoe Race, the Makapu Bodysurfing Championships, and what was to become the first truly international surf contest: the International Surfing Championships at Makaha. It’s crucial to appreciate how surfing development is not just the achievement of talented riders and shapers, but social structures, technology and devoted organisers who sweat-out behind the scenes to see their passions flower for the good of the wider community. ‘Waikiki’ became a brand-name, Carlos Dogny founding the Club Waikiki in 1942 in Miraflores, Peru, and later partnering with French surfer Michel Barland to cofound the Waikiki Surf Club in Biarritz, France in 1959. This shot of the Hawaiian Waikiki Surf Club was taken by John Lind in 1949.

#76 : Late 1940s Fibreglass, Foil and Bob Simmons : WWII generated huge advancements in technology. For surfers, new materials like styrofoam, resin and fiberglass would allow a fundamental shift in surfboard composition, design and performance. Pete Peterson was the first to make a 100% fiberglass hollow board with a central redwood stringer. He was assisted by Brant Goldsworthy, who had a plastics company in LA that supplied component parts for aircraft. But it was Bob Simmons (a student of engineering and mathematics), from Pasadena, who became the primary architect of the modern surfboard, exploring principles of nose-lift, foil and finely sculpted rails. In the ‘40s boards were heavy and cumbersome. In order to really popularize and democratize surfing, boards needed to be lighter, easily handled and more readily transported. This would promote inclusion. Post-war California was seen as a spearhead of liberation in terms of social values. Simmons learned the fundamentals of board-building from Gard Chapin (stepfather to Mickey Dora). In 1946 he began applying complex equations and theories to surfboards based on the study of planing hulls. By 1949 the new Simmons board was wide, with a square tail, and a broad spoonlike nose. Simmons used balsa and resin-saturated fiberglass. He praised fibreglass for its ‘magical’ properties – flexibility combined with durability. Simmons also made the first double-finned boards. Along with fellow Malibu surfer Joe Quigg, Simmons produced a small number of styrofoam-balsa ‘sandwich’ boards in the late 1940s, pre-dating the commercial production of polyurethane foam surfboards by 10 years. Quigg, Matt Kivlin, Dale Velzy, and other Malibu-based boardmakers incorporated many of Simmons's design features into their own boards, and by 1950 were producing the easier-to-turn Malibu chip design. This photo courtesy of John Elwell show Simmons’ ‘37 Ford. Elwell explains that “had gutted it except for a driver's seat… had a place to carry hydrographic charts…to locate surfing reefs… He had cut and padded two-by-fours that were bolted on his roof for a surfboard rack.” Tragically in 1954 during a large swell at Windansea, 35 year old Simmons was struck in the head by his own board and drowned. He left in his wake a lighter surfboard, very buoyant, easily paddled and easily ridden in small surf. Surfing could gain an identity where ‘all can be kings and queens’.