LIVING HISTORY
14
U.S. COAST GUARD HISTORIAN’S OFFICE
Outmatched by aggressive German U-boats off shore, Coast Guardsmen
were put on horses to patrol the beaches for spies during WWII.
In that attack, three members of the crew were killed instantly,
two drowned and 23 others got to shore safely, most
landing on nearby Jupiter Island where they were welcomed
at the beach house of Mrs. Worthington Scranton (others were
picked up by a passing ship and taken to Port Everglades).
A colorful account of the sailors shucking off oil-soaked
dungarees and donning donated clothing like silk robes and
Scottish tweed jackets was written by a local newspaperman,
Ernest Lyons, 50 years after the event. Lyons said government
censors wouldn’t allow newspapers to publish information
about U-boat attacks in 1942, so the story remained local lore
for decades.
As Lyons remembered it, residents of Jupiter Island and
Hobe Sound gathered to offer what they could to the shipwrecked
sailors, including whiskey and caviar. Safe and
warm in clean duds, they relaxed and began to enjoy themselves
in the beach house until their captain burst in and put
an angry end to the revels. The men stepped back into their
soiled shipboard clothing and left on Navy trucks within a
few hours. >>
UBOATARCHIVE.NET
The U.S. was unprepared for the damage German U-boats caused. But by
1943, training and technology, including depth charges, had turned the
tide against them.
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