The Inside Story of How a Nazi Plot to Sabotage the U.S. War Effort Was Foiled (Operation Pastorius)

[TomSea]

The Inside Story of How a Nazi Plot to Sabotage the U.S. War Effort Was Foiled
J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI took the credit, but it was really only because of a German defector that the plans were blown


The Hell Gate Bridge in NY, one of the main targets (Public Domain)

By David A. Taylor
smithsonian.com
June 28, 2016 | Updated: June 26, 2017

The New York Times headline on July 4, 1942, was almost jubilant, an Independence Day gift to a country in the throes of war: “Nazi Saboteurs Face Stern Army Justice.” The article described a plot thwarted and an FBI that was vigilant against threats to public safety. It included a line drawing of J. Edgar Hoover on an important phone call.

The article was also terrifying. Eight agents of Nazi Germany were in custody, caught on American soil with detailed plans to sabotage key infrastructure and spread panic. In late June, two squads of German saboteurs had landed on American beaches, ferried by U-boats to Long Island and Florida’s coast. The saboteurs had enough explosives for two years of mayhem, with immediate plans to blow up a critical railway bridge, disrupt New York’s water supply and spread terror. They were stopped in the nick of time.

The reality was even scarier than the Times reported, and strikingly different from the story presented by the FBI: a defense system caught unawares, plotters who were merely human, and a confession nearly bungled by the agency.

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Read more at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-story-how-nazi-plot-sabotage-us-war-effort-was-foiled-180959594/

Nazi Saboteurs and George Dasch

Shortly after midnight on the morning of June 13, 1942, four men landed on a beach near Amagansett, Long Island, New York from a German submarine, clad in German uniforms and bringing ashore enough explosives, primers, and incendiaries to support an expected two-year career in the sabotage of American defense-related production. On June 17, 1942, a similar group landed on Ponte Vedra Beach, near Jacksonville, Florida, equipped for a similar career in industrial disruption.

The purpose of the invasions was to strike a major blow for Germany by bringing the violence of war to our home ground through destruction of America’s ability to manufacture vital equipment and supplies and transport them to the battlegrounds of Europe; to strike fear into the American civilian population; and to diminish the resolve of the United States to overcome our enemies.

By June 27, 1942, all eight saboteurs had been arrested without having accomplished one act of destruction. Tried before a military commission, they were found guilty. One was sentenced to life imprisonment, another to 30 years, and six received the death penalty, which was carried out within a few days.

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/nazi-saboteurs-and-george-dasch

Small image but here is a graphic presentation:


More reading:  https://www.beachesmuseum.org/operation-pastorius/

Historical Novel, "The Ninth Man" by   John Lee    (Lee taught at Cal State-Long Beach and a number of other institutions).

I believe the Nazis also had other operations on the USA besides this "Operation Pastorius in 1942.

Apparently, six of the eight saboteurs were promptly executed.

[Fishrrman]

I made hundreds, maybe thousands of trips over that bridge on the engine.

I believe the Hell Gate had guards posted on it during the war.

In any case, nothing less than a nuclear explosion would take that bridge down. It's massively "over-built", designed to carry weight of four trains at once moving over it.

It's probably "the strongest structure" in the entire city of New York.