WORLD WAR II
his attacks the government imposed a blackout on Vero and
other coastal towns. German U-boats sank 24 ships in Florida
waters in 1942.
Vero Beach resident Harry Hurst grew up in Winter Beach during
the war and remembers that the Coast Guard patrolled local
beaches, initially on foot. His father, too old to serve in the war,
volunteered to transport Coast Guardsmen to and from their
observation posts in his truck.
Eventually, the Coast Guard acquired horses so the men could
patrol on horseback, which allowed them to cover more territory
in less time. Hurst wasn’t allowed to tag along, but remembers
seeing some of the herd in a stable near Wabasso beach.
“These were not old mules,” he said. “They were nice looking
horses.”
LOCAL WAR EFFORT
Many residents volunteered to serve as spotters at observation
posts on the beach. They scanned the ocean at night, looking
for signs of U-boats. Armed with binoculars and plenty of coffee,
Phillips did all-night duty atop Vero Beach’s tracking station, now
the site of a public beach and park.
“It was scary at night and it was very dark,” she said. “You’d see
these tiny little lights and it was worrisome. You weren’t supposed
to be seeing those! We never saw anything that really made us
call the person in charge. The lights told us they were out there
but we never really saw them that close.”
Hurst aided the war effort when he was a sixth-grader at the
Winter Beach School. The teacher put up a large photo of an Army
jeep, with parts labeled and a price for each. The children would
bring in their dimes and quarters and after several months would
have raised enough to buy an $18.75 war bond. The principal, >>
Blackout do’s and don’ts are published on the front page of the Jan. 16, 1942,
edition of the Press Journal, a little more than a month after Pearl Harbor.
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