(erielack) common road names; oil tankers, WWII

[harebridle_@_aol.com]

Paul B is correct, as far as he went, but the Military Channel, just last night, had a re-run on The Battle of The Atlantic.Seems that German U-Boots entered the Lower NY Bay, got in sight of the Belt Parkway, and followed a tanker out to

deep water, past Ambrose Lightship, and torpedoed her.

Older Pilots told me, when I was an Apprentice in the '60s, that the subs waited for more off the NJ Coast, and that the fires from burning tankes were visible from shore; when I built my Widow's Walk on my house in Manasquan, I talked to a southbound ship in the Barnegat Sea-lane, and she was 17 miles off-shore, clearly visible.

So, after numerous losses, the War Department embargoed the Coastal Tankers, to and from Texas, and installed Submarine Nets between Forts Wadsworth and Hamilton, also between Fort Schuyler and Long Island, and stationed CG Cutters as the Harbor Entrance Patrol off of Coney Island, until the 70's.

Thus, the railroads got the oil trade for the War's duration.

Rumor has it that the Lower Bay was also Mined; a US Navy Destroyer, the Turner, ;sank NW of Ambrose, about this time, after an exposion; her wreck has never been found.

In 1970, I met a German ship-master who told me that during WWII, he got into New Haven Harbor, on a U-Boat, by following a ship thru the nets; his description of the harbor was very accurate; but they had no suitable targets, and escaped safely.

73's, Capt. Charles Gerow


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