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Showing results for tags 'Censorship kept off record'.
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I grew up in the Wash. DC area, and my parents were residents of DC back to the late 30's (separately, they were single, but dating) in the early 1940's. After Pearl Harbor, everything was rationed, particularly gasoline. So couples traveling from DC to the ocean on hot sumer days had to pool gas ration cards, and it was not unusual for 3 couples to travel in one sedan to the Delaware coast for a long weekend, (Dewey Beach, Rehoboth Beach, Henlopen...) and rent a cottage together. Very romantic... one hot August weekend, my parent's couldn't get free, so their usual traveling partners went without them... As early as 1940, but certainly, by 1942, there was a vague understanding that U-Boats were attacking allied ships ---often just over the horizon from the eastern beaches ---- but because of press censorship, no one had a clue to what extent, except that since the outbreak of war-- there seemed to be a lot of oil on the otherwise, pristine beaches. That 'vagueness' ended for those two couples in August '42' as they splashed in the warm ocean off Henlopen, a tangle of oily debris washed up in front of them, containing the badly burned bodies of a half dozen American merchant seamen, still in their burned cork life jackets, and covered with oil. Victims of a U-boat attack, just the night before. So this last Sunday, while pursuing the book stacks at GoodWill here in Portland, I came across a book that fleshed out much that I didn't know about that period: "U-Boats Offshore ---- When Hitler Struck America" --- By Edwin Hoyt. Man, this fills in a lot of details! (much of it quite exciting really ---except for the totally ineptitude of the America to stop U-Boat attacks at the beginning of the war ---but even so, not the full story, lost, I think forever, under the censor's hand. Beginning in 1964, (until 1968) as a sea scout, I sailed on small ships (YP --- Yard Patrol) out of Annapolis (Naval Academy) --- what an opportunity!~ We were trained seamanship by the same Chief Petty Officers that trained the plebes. And they were the best of the best -- still in their late 40's, but decorated veterans of the Pacific war --- and very patient, great instructors. While on the bridge of a pleasant weekend Chesapeake cruise I remember asking my non-com what it was like in WW2 --- he deferred, but pointed to forward deck to old mounting plates on the YP and told me: "there was once mounted a 3 inch gun that saw action against German U-Boats" --- -I thought he was pulling my leg! After reading this book, I now know he wasn't..
