Skip to main content

Today's Reading

PREFACE

THE HARBOR FULL OF ships lay hull to hull, their masts spreading forest-like across the fifteen-mile stretch of Delaware Bay between Cape May, New Jersey, and Cape Henlopen, Delaware. It was a sight to break the heart of any sea-faring man.
 
Heavy-laden oil tankers out of Las Piers, Venezuela, and Port Arthur, Texas, lay drowsing at anchor, their decks almost awash under the weight of their precious cargoes; grimy little colliers, bound for Norfolk with soft coal for the war plants of the East; weary, weather-stained coastal luggers, their rusty hulls splotched with red lead; and smartly painted deep-water freighters carrying rubber from the Amazon jungles, quinine from Ecuador, tin from Bolivia. It was a motley assortment of bottoms, but all had one thing in common: beneath their bulging hatch covers and in tarpaulin-covered packing cases lashed to salt-encrusted decks, they carried the raw materials to keep in operation the factories which were supplying not only our Army and Navy but also the war machines of most of the united nations.

There they wallowed, sturdy hulls which once had proudly carried the American flag into the seven seas, now humbled, crowded together in a sheltering basin, fearful to venture beyond the mine fields which reached a protective arm across the bay's mouth.

William B. Mellor Jr., 1944

CAPE MAY, NEW JERSEY—FEBRUARY 1942

The morning begins cold and clear as the destroyer USS Jacob Jones slips past the Statue of Liberty, her gray hull a sleek arrow gliding south along the New Jersey coast. Her crew stands alert, scanning the horizon from open decks and wheelhouse windows, their breaths visible in the crisp air. She answers new orders without hesitation—shift course toward Cape May, closer to the Delaware Capes. Her engines hum low and steady; her bow knifes through glassy seas, unaware of the predator waiting below.

By afternoon, a black smear stains the sky ahead. Smoke from the wreck of R. P. Resor looms—a tanker gutted by a U-boat's strike. The air burns with the scent of oil and fire. Twisted steel juts from the surface like bones, and flames dance in the breeze. Debris drifts like ash after a funeral pyre, lifeboats sit half-sunk, a solitary boot bobs between planks. Jacob Jones circles slowly, her lookouts straining for survivors. For two hours, they search. No voices answer. No hands wave from the wreckage. The ocean keeps her secrets.

As dusk slips into night, the ship pushes forward. A full moon climbs into the sky, casting pale light across the Atlantic. The destroyer darkens herself entirely—no signal lamps, no radio calls, no light from within. She becomes a shadow moving through moonlit glass, silent as breath. Her sailors speak in low tones or not at all.

The next morning, she continues her patrol. Without warning, the first torpedo strikes.

It slams into Jacob Jones just aft of the bridge. The explosion is instant and violent. Her forward magazine ignites—an eruption of fire and steel that tears her open. The bridge vanishes, flung into the sea in a shower of debris. The chart room is gone. Bulkheads flatten, steel plates curl back like paper. Men sleeping in their bunks never wake. The bow is simply no longer there.

A second torpedo follows, hitting near the stern. It shears away the aft section—crew quarters, decks, the fantail, all blown into pieces that scatter across the sea like so much kindling. Only the midsection remains, suspended in smoke and fire, already sagging into the waves.

Sailors stumble from the wreckage. Some leap. Others crawl across twisted metal to reach the edge. Thirty men make it into the water. They cling to rafts, life rings, and shattered beams. The February waters are frigid. Oil coats their skin, fills their noses. Blood colors the surface.

***

NOT FAR FROM THE harbor, Seaman First Class Joseph Lydon Jr. braces against the icy wind knifing through his Navy-issued peacoat, the wool doing little to hold the February cold at bay. His breath drifts in ghostly wisps, vanishing into the black night. Salt spray stings his face, the Atlantic restless beneath him. Beyond the hum of the ship, only the slow, rhythmic slosh of waves breaks the silence. But every man aboard patrol boat USS Eagle PE-56 knows this calm is an illusion. The German U-boats have prowled these waters since mid-January, sinking ships with deadly precision—one a day now. The East Coast is ablaze with war, oil slicks lighting the sea on fire, desperate men swimming through the flames or diving under to escape.

What our readers think...

The Dangerous Shore: How a Motley Crew of Scientists, Mobsters, Double Agents, Retirees, Volunteer Pilots (and a Boy Scout) Stopped the Invasion of America | Online Book Clubs Skip to main content

Today's Reading

PREFACE

THE HARBOR FULL OF ships lay hull to hull, their masts spreading forest-like across the fifteen-mile stretch of Delaware Bay between Cape May, New Jersey, and Cape Henlopen, Delaware. It was a sight to break the heart of any sea-faring man.
 
Heavy-laden oil tankers out of Las Piers, Venezuela, and Port Arthur, Texas, lay drowsing at anchor, their decks almost awash under the weight of their precious cargoes; grimy little colliers, bound for Norfolk with soft coal for the war plants of the East; weary, weather-stained coastal luggers, their rusty hulls splotched with red lead; and smartly painted deep-water freighters carrying rubber from the Amazon jungles, quinine from Ecuador, tin from Bolivia. It was a motley assortment of bottoms, but all had one thing in common: beneath their bulging hatch covers and in tarpaulin-covered packing cases lashed to salt-encrusted decks, they carried the raw materials to keep in operation the factories which were supplying not only our Army and Navy but also the war machines of most of the united nations.

There they wallowed, sturdy hulls which once had proudly carried the American flag into the seven seas, now humbled, crowded together in a sheltering basin, fearful to venture beyond the mine fields which reached a protective arm across the bay's mouth.

William B. Mellor Jr., 1944

CAPE MAY, NEW JERSEY—FEBRUARY 1942

The morning begins cold and clear as the destroyer USS Jacob Jones slips past the Statue of Liberty, her gray hull a sleek arrow gliding south along the New Jersey coast. Her crew stands alert, scanning the horizon from open decks and wheelhouse windows, their breaths visible in the crisp air. She answers new orders without hesitation—shift course toward Cape May, closer to the Delaware Capes. Her engines hum low and steady; her bow knifes through glassy seas, unaware of the predator waiting below.

By afternoon, a black smear stains the sky ahead. Smoke from the wreck of R. P. Resor looms—a tanker gutted by a U-boat's strike. The air burns with the scent of oil and fire. Twisted steel juts from the surface like bones, and flames dance in the breeze. Debris drifts like ash after a funeral pyre, lifeboats sit half-sunk, a solitary boot bobs between planks. Jacob Jones circles slowly, her lookouts straining for survivors. For two hours, they search. No voices answer. No hands wave from the wreckage. The ocean keeps her secrets.

As dusk slips into night, the ship pushes forward. A full moon climbs into the sky, casting pale light across the Atlantic. The destroyer darkens herself entirely—no signal lamps, no radio calls, no light from within. She becomes a shadow moving through moonlit glass, silent as breath. Her sailors speak in low tones or not at all.

The next morning, she continues her patrol. Without warning, the first torpedo strikes.

It slams into Jacob Jones just aft of the bridge. The explosion is instant and violent. Her forward magazine ignites—an eruption of fire and steel that tears her open. The bridge vanishes, flung into the sea in a shower of debris. The chart room is gone. Bulkheads flatten, steel plates curl back like paper. Men sleeping in their bunks never wake. The bow is simply no longer there.

A second torpedo follows, hitting near the stern. It shears away the aft section—crew quarters, decks, the fantail, all blown into pieces that scatter across the sea like so much kindling. Only the midsection remains, suspended in smoke and fire, already sagging into the waves.

Sailors stumble from the wreckage. Some leap. Others crawl across twisted metal to reach the edge. Thirty men make it into the water. They cling to rafts, life rings, and shattered beams. The February waters are frigid. Oil coats their skin, fills their noses. Blood colors the surface.

***

NOT FAR FROM THE harbor, Seaman First Class Joseph Lydon Jr. braces against the icy wind knifing through his Navy-issued peacoat, the wool doing little to hold the February cold at bay. His breath drifts in ghostly wisps, vanishing into the black night. Salt spray stings his face, the Atlantic restless beneath him. Beyond the hum of the ship, only the slow, rhythmic slosh of waves breaks the silence. But every man aboard patrol boat USS Eagle PE-56 knows this calm is an illusion. The German U-boats have prowled these waters since mid-January, sinking ships with deadly precision—one a day now. The East Coast is ablaze with war, oil slicks lighting the sea on fire, desperate men swimming through the flames or diving under to escape.

What our readers think...