NATURAL and CULTURAL FEATURES of MONMOUTH COUNTY

sent raiding parties into Barnegat Inlet from a blockading fleet (NJDMVA, 2008). In 1813, the
US Army built a temporary fortification at Sandy Hook called Fort Gates (renamed Fort
Hancock in 1895), and in 1814 the NJ militia was organized to combat British attacks until the
Treaty of Ghent ended the war later that year on December 24 th (OCCHC, 2008; SSH, 2008)
What is much less known is that during WWII, the coastal waters from New England to Florida,
including Monmouth County, were patrolled by German U-Boats during Operation Drumbeat,
Germany’s invasion of shipping lanes along the US East Coast that was planned by Hitler just 5
days after Pearl Harbor (Bilby, 2008; FTH, 2008; Larson, 2008). The first attack took place on
January 12, 1942, when the British passenger steamship “Cyclops” was sunk 300 miles off Cape
Cod; 2 days later, the “Norness” was sunk 60 miles off Montauk Point, Long Island, during the
first attack in the NY Bight (FTH, 2008; Larson, 2008). A couple of weeks later on January 26,
the “RP Resor”, owned by Standard Oil (Exxon) and carrying 78,729 barrels of crude oil, was
torpedoed about 20 miles east of the Manasquan Inlet, where it burned and drifted for 2 days
until it sank in 130’ of water, 31 miles east of Barnegat Light (EDC, 2008). The 2-day fire was
so spectacular that crowds gathered at Asbury Park to watch (EDC, 2008; Berg, 2008).
During the first 6 months of 1942, as 397 merchant ships and tankers were being torpedoed
along the East Coast by the U-Boat “wolf packs”, residents near Wreck Pond left turpentine on
their back porch so they could clean their feet of the tarry crude oil that was washing ashore; and
in early spring of 1942, students were sent home from school in Leonardo when a sub was
spotted off Sandy Hook (Bilby, 2008; Cassone, 2008; DD, 2008; FTH, 2008). Shore-bound
tourists were only able to enjoy their 4 th of July weekend in 1942 after 300 workers, including 65
from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), had removed all the oil, tarballs, and wreckage
that had washed up in late June along 7 miles of beaches from Belmar to Manasquan (Bilby,
2008; New York Times, 1942).
Three days after Pearl Harbor, mariners were notified that a “mined area covering the approaches
to New York Harbor has been established. Incoming vessels will secure directions for safe
navigation from patrol vessels stationed off Ambrose Channel Entrance" (FTH, 2008). A
submarine net and booms were eventually laid by the US Navy Net Depot of Bayonne across the
Verrazano Narrows, from Norton's Point in Coney Island to Hoffman Island (FTH, 2008). On
January 15, 1942, the U-123, which had sunk the Norness off Montauk Point the day before,
cruised west along Long Island, navigating with a NYC tourist map off the Parachute Jump and
Wonder Wheel on Coney Island, so close that they almost beached in the shallows along the
southward curve of the Rockaways near Fort Tilden (FTH, 2008; VWHCAP, 2008). NYC
Mayor Fiorello La Guardia later questioned whether “the Republic could even guarantee the
defense of Coney Island" (FTH, 2008). It is now known that slogans such as “Loose Lips Sink
Ships” were more effective at calming the public than at frustrating the Germans submarines,
who located their targets by intercepting ship radio transmissions (FTH, 2008).
The U-Boats attacked at night when the target boats were silhouetted against the shoreline, and
teenagers in NJ took their dates to the beach to watch “submarine races” (VWHCAP, 2008).
East Coast cities, initially reluctant to order blackouts, were finally ordered to “dim-out”
waterfront and sky signs on April 18, 1942, and blackouts were imposed by May (FTH, 2008;
Larson, 2008). The US Coast Guard Reserve (now USCG Auxiliary) formed in 1939, the same
year that the war had begun in Europe. They checked “commercial fishing boats and their crews
upon departure and arrival at docks in Wildwood, Two Mile, and Cape May to guard against
their carrying supplies to enemy vessels off-shore or bringing enemy agents ashore. . . .” (Larson,