The Night World War II came to the Texas Coast

[TexasTowelie]

Thursday marks the 70th anniversary of when World War II came to the Crossroads area, up close and personal.



When most people think of World War II, they are reminded of places such as Normandy, Pearl Harbor, or other places far from South Texas. But some of the fighting occurred right off the Calhoun County beaches, within sight of land.

World War II took place from 1939 to 1945 and involved a majority of the world's nations, including the United States. The United States entered World War II when war with Japan was declared on Dec. 8, 1941 the day after the Japanese attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. Three days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war on the United States. Few people in the states ever expected that the war would come to U.S. shores, but in January 1942, the German Navy launched "Operation Drumbeat," which involved sending five U-boats to attack shipping off of the East Coast of the United States.

<<snip>>

The United States, having no experience with a modern naval war close to its own shores, did not employ shore-side blackouts, nor any increased naval patrols. The U-boats simply waited and picked off ship after ship in broad daylight, and at night as the ships were silhouetted against the lights of the major cities. Sometimes the U-boats attacked on the surface, using their deck guns to save torpedoes, people on shore sometimes witnessed these attacks firsthand. By the time this first group of submarines ran out of torpedoes and started their return trip to Europe, 23 ships had been sunk with not a single U-boat loss.

http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2012/jul/25/bc_ship_072612_183402/?features&counties

[malthaussen]

1. The beginning of the last paragraph is, pardon me, bullshit

The state and local governments throughout the US did not black out the coasts because they did not want to lose money in the tourist season, plain and simple. They said as much: the papers are full of screams of outrage at the potential lost revenue if the tourist areas were blacked out. "No experience," my... foot. The world had been at war for 2 years before we entered. The world had been experiencing lesser wars for most of the century before we were dragged into the fray. Procedures were well understood and universally-known. We didn't take action because of the lust for dollars. Who cares if a few ships are sunk, a few men killed? It took months before we adapted blackout.

-- Mal

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Good read -- "Operation Drumbeat"

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780060161552-5

One German submarine actually sank a ship in New York Harbor, but very few New Yorkers learned about it, because the censors suppressed the story "for the sake of morale". A small number of people did spot the sub off the Long Island shore. Apparently, the story that a young Woody Allen actually saw a German submarine just off the beach and recreated that scene in "Annie Hall" is just urban myth -- http://books.google.com/books?id=bPrGh3NWri4C&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=woody+allen+saw+german+sub&source=bl&ots=8Pfp4cT1gO&sig=diwA_9BZmHR5jh3KqAXLu-yDevE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ILIYUKv3GoGe8QTvl4Ew&ved=0CFwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=woody%20allen%20saw%20german%20sub&f=false

Peter Mathiessen ("The Snow Leopard", "Indian Country&quot has a cameo in the book.