The time is 1940. England is experiencing war in all
its savagery. The German Air Force has begun nearly daily bombing of London and
other major population centers. The German Navy has implemented a blockade of
the British Isles. The German Army is occupying Paris as well as most of the
Continent and is planning to invade England.
American radio broadcasts are originating from London,
hosted by war correspondents Edward R. Murrow[i] for CBS and Walter Cronkite for UP. Americans are
gathering around the radio set, carefully tuning the dial, searching for the
clearest signal possible, to hear the latest news from Europe. Even though it is
many months before the United States would formerly enter the conflict,
preparations for war were underway, and Bogue Banks would soon be actively
involved and on the front line of coastal defense.
By
1941, German naval strategy focused on submarine warfare, with U-boats striking American shipping in the Battle of the Atlantic. In January 1942, an
expanded assault on U.S. merchant shipping that included the east and gulf
coast of the U.S. was begun. In the first eight months
of 1942, more than 50 merchant ships were lost to U-boats patrolling off the North Carolina coast[ii]. 
Much of the detailed information concerning the U.S. merchant shipping losses was withheld from the public as a military secret. During those early months of the war, the U.S. was woefully unprepared to combat German submarine attacks. We lacked both strategy and equipment. Civilian owned boats and planes were put in service to support the few military vessels available. The situation was so dire the British Navy sent 24 converted fishing trawlers and crews to augment our forces.
Within weeks of the United States formal declaration of war against Germany on December 8, 1941, two Army artillery units were in place and operational on Bogue Banks.
The First Battalion, 244th Coast Artillery from Virginia, established Headquarters Battery at Fort Macon, with Battery B in the sand dunes southwest of the fort and Battery A in the dunes 2 ½ miles west of the town limits of Atlantic Beach[iii]. The development named Roosevelt Beach now occupies the Battery-A encampment site. Each Battery consisted of approximately 180 men,[iv] and Batteries A & B were each equipped with four 155 mm tractor-drawn guns as well as lookout and ranging towers equipped with searchlights.
155mm gun M1, called Long Tom, towed by M1
heavy tractor –militarymashup.com
This
defense was all accomplished by December 27, 1941. The War Department was
making preparations for direct U.S. involvement in the conflict in Europe and
the Pacific long before December 7th. The purpose of the North Carolina coastal
operation was to protect the Beaufort/Morehead City Harbor and the military
installations being built and expanded on the mainland—specifically, the U.S.
Army Base at Camp Glenn and the Navy Section Base further west. The German
surface ship Navy never approached the Atlantic coast and the sub fleet stayed
out of range of shore artillery.
A Marine training installation was set-up a quarter mile west of the Army Artillery Battery A unit. It was located where Knollwood Drive is currently. A practice firing range was built with four 50-caliber machine-gun turrets. Live firing exercises were conducted for recruits from Camp Lejeune using moving targets offshore to prepare them for duty onboard ships[vi]. A friend of the History Committee who spent her childhood summers at her Grandparents home on Knollwood tells us “in the 1980s you could see them when the tide was low. The most I ever counted was 5. Some were just corners showing some were almost completely uncovered. . . The ones that could be seen were about (based on my childhood memory) about 5’x5’. They had metal bolts and some had curved metal "tracks" that look like those at Fort Macon. The cement blocks were surrounded by cyprus knees. We used to play on these battlements.”
The Coast Guard had a base off
Fort Macon for many years, but during the war, their duties were expanded. On
the western edge of Salter Path, a Coast Guard outpost was established to
perform beach patrol and man observation towers built along the beach. This
small base was located at the end of Salter Path Road to the west of the
driveway to the beach. In addition to the usual military buildings needed for
this contingent, there also were a barn and stable for the horses they used for
beach patrol.
At the peak of the war, there
were about a thousand troops on the island and maybe twice that many stationed
on the nearby mainland. Businesses of all types prospered. The war effort also
resulted in the military widening and strengthening the road from Atlantic
Beach to Salter Path and undertaking other transportation projects throughout
the county.
On the north side of
Bogue Sound were a number of military installations that were active for WWII.
The Port of Morehead City was critical for military and commercial
transportation. By mid-1943, the Navy had leased the entire Morehead City Port
facilities, including Inlet Island (name changed in late 1940s to Radio Island).
The east-side elements of the port facilities were constructed in the mid
1930s—the channel was dredged from 18 feet to a depth of 36 feet, in the
process adding land to the port and creating Inlet Island across from the port
on what had been marshland. A curious turn of history involved the construction
of this port. It was reported in The
Beaufort News, January 16, 1936 issue, that much of the steel used was
German steel shipped from Hamburg. In the paper, it was referred to as Nazi
steel. We imported steel from Germany to build a facility that would contribute
to defeating Germany, while at the same time the U.S. was shipping scrap steel
to Japan, where it was turned into weapons to battle us.
Five miles west of the
Morehead City Port was Camp Glenn, a National Guard training base of long
standing. For the war effort the Navy constructed a Naval Section Base adjacent
to the camp.
Naval Section Bases
were small naval bases on the Coast of North Carolina built prior to and during
World War II for coastal patrol and antisubmarine defense.[vii]
After opening in March 1942, it quickly became the most important reception and processing center
on the North Carolina coast for the survivors of sunken or damaged merchant
ships. Over the course of the war, both U.S. Navy and Coast Guard personnel
used the base, whose primary duty was to serve the vessels patrolling the coast
looking for German U-boats. Navy patrol craft, Coast Guard cutters and the converted
British trawlers operated from the base in conjunction with larger vessels at
the Port of Morehead City and
the Fort Macon Coast Guard Station
on Bogue Banks. They aided in minesweeping and in maintaining a submarine net
across the entrance to the ship channel in Beaufort Inlet. The base was also
available to supply ammunition, make small-scale repairs and provide refitting.
Camp Glenn and Naval Section Base locations are now occupied by Carteret
General Hospital and surrounding medical facilities on the north side of
Arendell, and by the Visitors Center and Carteret Community College on the
south side.
Fifteen miles further
west was Bogue Field, which was used almost exclusively by Marine Corps dive-bombing squadrons. To support the training, specialized training
facilities were established in the surrounding area. Dive-bombing targets were
constructed on nearby islands, and
vertical targets were built for low-level bombing practice. A maneuvering target boat
was also used to practice attacks on shipping[viii]. In the mid 2000s all of
Bogue Sound was surveyed for unexploded ordinance. Those located were removed
and safely detonated at Camp Lejeune.
Germans were staging
operations on the east coast of the U.S. For example, on the night of June 12,
1942, eight German infiltrators were landed by submarine on the beach at
Amagansett, Long Island, New York, and four days later, another group were put
ashore at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Upon arrival on shore two men deserted, went
to U.S. authorities and revealed plans to sabotage strategic facilities along
the east coast of the U.S. This set in motion an extensive FBI manhunt, and
within three weeks all eight were captured.
Although
North Carolina’s eastern seaboard never suffered a direct attack during the
war, the state’s newspapers and Office of Civilian Defense mobilized to prepare
citizens for the worst. Air raid sirens were installed from the coast to the
mountains to warn of the approach of enemy planes. Air raid drills were held.
Citizens learned how to blackout their homes and businesses so at night their
lights would not be visible from the air or sea. Residents of Morehead City and
Beaufort began to take the blackout regulations seriously when 114 violators
were arrested and fined during a one-week campaign to enforce the rules.[ix]
Alice
Hoffman was in the middle of all this frenetic activity. Before the start of
the war, Alice had lost or disposed of all her real estate interests in New
York City and Paris. Her legal and financial affairs by this time limited her
to living on Bogue Banks. She was still viewed as exotic, reclusive and perhaps
aloof by those who knew of her in Carteret County. Her live-in companion,
Gabrielle Brard, was a native of France and not yet a naturalized US citizen.
All this led to rumors circulating concerning Alice and her activities: she was
German, she was a spy, she radioed freighter locations to German submarines,
German mini-submarines resupplied at her dock, the FBI and U.S. Army were
tracking her activities. All rumors proved to be untrue, baseless and lacking
in any link to reality. The truth was just the opposite.
Miss
Gabrielle (Gabby) Brard was interviewed at length in 1973 by Jan Rider, a staff
reporter for the News Times for
article about Alice Hoffman. Alice had died 20 years earlier in 1953. Gabby
recalled, “During the war, Mrs. Hoffman’s house was the scene of frequent
parties for the soldiers stationed in the area.... Besides the parties, solders
were welcomed as overnight guests and at meal-times.” During this time, war
rationing was in effect, local fishermen would bring in the catch, the soldiers
would help prepare the meal, and “we shared what we had with them.”
Military
activity on Bogue Banks wound down well before victory in Europe. The
anti-submarine efforts of the US military began to take effect, and by late
1942, four U-boats had been sunk off the North Carolina coast. Two by Navy
ships, one by a U.S. Army Air Corps bomber and one by a Coast Guard patrol boat.
North
Carolina’s total of four sunken U-boats represented the most of any state[x].
By 1943, these losses convinced the enemy to redeploy its remaining submarine
fleet to the North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea.
By
early 1944, confidence grew that a coastal attack of the U.S. mainland was no
longer a threat, and, accordingly, many defense activities were scaled back,
withdrawn, or redeployed. For Bogue Banks, World War II was a mixture of
tragedy, change and blessings. Some local boys who went to war did not return.
However, businesses prospered, employment opportunities grew, jobs were
available to all who needed work, roads were widened, housing expanded, electric
service extended and buildings constructed. Large numbers of troops, civilians
and families from around the nation came to live in Carteret County, bringing
new ideas and viewpoints. From this influx, a few local girls found husbands who
had funny accents, or at least a non ‘Cart’tret’ County “banker” brogue. New
blood added to the melting pot.
Post Author: Walt
Zaenker
To contact the author or the History Committee
[i]
Listen for a chilling recording of Edward Murrow on the street in London during
an air raid, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KLQxtDOkZA
[ii]
Live Science website, Photos: WWII Shipwrecks Found off NC Coast, by Stephanie
Pappas, 2014. This count was derived by NOAA from post war sonar and undersea
research.
[iii]
Fort Macon, A History, by Paul Branch, The Nautical & Aviation Publishing
Co, 1997
[iv]
North Carolina and World War II: a documentary portrait, by Anita Price Davis,
McFarland & Company, Inc., 2015
[v]
Base map from mapquest, annotated by W. Zaenker
[vi]
Southern Oral History Program Collection, Interview Number K-1085, James Willis
interviewed by Melynn Glusman, June 30, 1999, The Louis Round Wilson Special
Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.
[vii]
NCpedia, Naval Section Bases, by Paul Branch, 2006
[viii]
Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: Southeastern North Carolina, by Paul
Freeman, 2014
[ix] Don’t You Know There’s a War On?
Division of State History Musuems, Office of Archives and History, North
Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, www.ncculture.com
[x] When World War II was fought off North
Carolina’s beaches, by Kevin P. Duffus