During WW2 our Grandfather, Dewey Holden (Papaw) served in the U.S. Coast Guard. He was trained in Long Island, New York and was later stationed south of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Papaw has some interesting stories from his service in the coast guard. While he was in the service Papaw helped protect U.S. waters from the very real and dangerous threat of German submarines that prowled along the east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, a perilous side of the war that many people know very little about. When Germany declared war on the U.S. on December 11, 1941, German U-boats left for the American coast within ten days to carry out what was called “Operation Drumbeat “. The German’s goal was to sink Allied supply ships faster than they could be replaced and they came very close to accomplishing their goal. America suffered one of its worst defeats of WW2 from German U-boats who hunted and destroyed close to 400 allied ships along the eastern seaboard and many more crossing the Atlantic. The German U-boats also targeted the oil shipping out of the Gulf of Mexico, sinking fifty-six ships in the year 1942. The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard were totally unprepared for war and many ships that could have been used had been destroyed at Pearl Harbor. Thousands of men lost their lives before the Navy and Coast Guard were prepared and equipped enough to fight back. Papaw remembers while training in New York in spring 1942 hearing about German saboteurs being discovered by a Coast Guardsman. “Operation Pastorius” was a plan to sabotage strategic American areas of manufacturing, power production and transportation. Four saboteurs were landed by U-boat on the coast of Florida and four on Long Island, New York, burying explosives in the sand dunes for their expected operations. The saboteurs who landed in New York were discovered by John C. Cullen, a Coast Guardsman, but escaped. The plot finally failed when one of the saboteurs turned himself in to the FBI and revealed the whereabouts of his companions. In “Anchored” we are able to only touch on Papaw’s memories of this dramatic story, but the full details are an exciting piece of history to remember.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 02:01:50 +0000