ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Black Tom ExplosionPlanning the attack at Black Tom. In 1914, shortly after thestart of war in Europe, the German government sent a newambassador to Washington. Count Johann Von Bernstorffbrought with him a consular staff not of diplomats, but oftrained German intelligence operatives. The staff also hadan unusually high budget of 150 million dollars. The staffperformed regular consular duties, but also led a networkof other agents in the Unites States. They designatedtargets for sabotage, and used their money to buy resourcesand bribe officials. Soon after the German delegationarrived, the first sabotage fires were reported. Inaddition to monetary damage, the fires scarred the pre-1920s American psyche. A certain hysteria began regardingthe presence of spies and saboteurs on American soil.Rumors of German agents spreading germs, plantingbombs, and kidnapping people were plentiful in the publicimagination. Even though the threat posed by saboteurson the public was propagandized to the extreme, theactions of saboteurs were limited in scope until 1916.German agents, including master spy Franz vonRintelen, worked to increase the damage inflicted by theirattacks. Von Rintelen devised an explosive charge called apencil bomb that was designed to detonate when a shipwas already out to sea. German intelligence alerted theGerman navy of the position and names of ships that werecarrying weapons and supplies. Some of these merchantvessels were sunk without warning. After just a few shortmonths, von Rintelen and his operatives caused nearly100 million dollars worth of damage. British intelligenceand police then devised a plan to lure von Rintelen back toGermany via Britain. British intelligence sent the agent atelegram with fake orders from German command toattack a target off the British coastline. Von Rintelen tookthe bait, was promptly arrested before arriving in Britain,and was extradited back to the United States to stand trial.Sabotage attacks continued to occur. Von Rintelen’s mostambitious plan for destruction was carried out in hisabsence.The Black Tom explosion. Months before his capture, vonRintelen established a team of agents that would be responsiblefor the destruction of Black Tom Pier. He hiredseveral agents to perform various tasks from smugglingthe charges onto ships to bribing pier workers. It remainsunknown who actually lit the first explosive fuse to causethe explosion at Black Tom. Police investigations pointedto a man named Michael Kristoff who was living at aboarding house in Bayonne, New Jersey, and was reportedby his land lady to keep odd hours and often returnhome smelling of fuel or having small soot stains on hishands or clothing. Kristoff, when later questioned by authoritiesmentioned several other accomplices, but did notspecifically mention their various roles in the sabotage.The exact events of the night of the Black tom explosionlargely remain a mystery. Several night watchmenguarded the area around the pier, but two were laterdiscovered to have accepted bribes from German agentsto loosen their guard. The cargo itself was largely unprotected,and sat loaded on moored barges and hips in theharbor. An ammunition storage facility and several fueltanks were located on the adjacent shore. The first fire andexplosion most likely began in this area. Guards fled thescene, wary of the materials they knew were in the vicinity.At 2:08 a.m., a thunderous explosion shook the NewJersey harbor, shattered windows, and threw people fromtheir beds across the bay in Manhattan. That explosionbegan aboard the Johnson 17, a ship carrying explosivesand fuel that was docked near the pier. Several otherexplosions were heard shortly after, and continued untildawn. Shrapnel rained down on New York City and theNew Jersey harbor area. Immigrants awaiting entry processingon Ellis Island were evacuated from their barracks,and the Statue of Liberty sustained damage from flyingdebris. When all of the fuel and explosives were spent, thesmoke cleared to reveal a swath of devastation several cityblocks wide. Black Tom pier and most of its islandwere gone.Investigation following the war. Following the war, a specialcommission convened to assess damages from variousincidences of terrorism in the United States. The MixedClaims Commission consisted of a German, an American,and a neutral representative. The commission reviewedthe claims of industries, companies, and governmentsthat lost property to the work of saboteurs during the war.The Black Tom explosion was the largest of such claims.After reviewing evidence supplied by police and intelligenceinvestigations, the panel decided that the explosionwas the result of foul play on the part of German terrorists.The commission awarded a settlement amount of 50million dollars, the largest damage claim awarded for asingle incident during the war. The money was to be paidfrom German reparations payments proscribed in theTreaty of Versailles. The damage award to the plaintiffs,however, was not finally made until 1939.❚ FURTHER READING:BOOKS:Volkman, Ernest. Espionage: The Greatest Spy Operationsof the Twentieth Century. New York: John Wiley &Sons,1996.Whitcover, Jules.Sabotage at Black Tom: Imperial Germany’sSecret War in America, 1914–1917. Chapel Hill,NC: Algonquin Books,1989.ELECTRONIC:Vogel, Peter. “Ship Explosions: Black Tom Island, SS MaryLuckenbach, SS Robert Rowan, USS Mount Hood” fromThe Last Wave from Port Chicago 2001. (December 2,2003).130 Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security