COMMUNITIES
10
NATIONAL UDT SEAL MUSEUM PHOTO
A 1943 aerial photo shows the Navy base in full swing. To the left of the
bridge was the motor pool. The tent city to the right was home for more
than 140,000 troops who came through to train for beach landings in
World War II.
SLC HISTORICAL MUSEUM PHOTO
At left, this structure was built so soldiers could train to climb down from
ships and into the landing crafts that would take them to enemy beaches.
Many of the troops who landed at Normandy trained on South Beach.
Above, a monument pays tribute to those who trained on South Beach.
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in Fort Pierce and the aspect of a small town,” 83-year-old native
Charles Kroghan said. “As your patriotic duty you were
asked to rent out rooms. We were willing to accommodate
these men, with wives and children, who were headed to the
battlefront. We thought they were going to the Pacific and
their days were numbered. It turned out most of them went
to Normandy or the invasion of Italy.”
“Our girls loved them,” 80-year-old native H.B. Moore
said. “The dances were once a week. A lot of those boys married
Fort Pierce girls,” he said.
As a teenager, Moore worked at a citrus packing plant with
a refrigeration unit the Navy had secured for its use. “I wore
my brother’s Navy fatigues and the military guys used to
take me to lunch in their landing craft,” Moore said. “They
smuggled me in like I was one of them. They took care of me
because I took care of their food.”
Moore was learning to fly with friends in J-3 Cubs and one
day they decided to spiral down and buzz one of the landing
crafts loaded with troops. “When we came back, they took
our licenses. They told us if we did it again, they would shoot
us down,” he said.
Spencer Gilbert’s father owned the Burston Hotel in Fort
Pierce that was taken over by base commander Capt. Clarence
Gulbranson. Gilbert remembers the commander asking
his driver to take Gilbert for a ride around the base. “It was
impressive,” he said.
MOSQUITO PATROL
But it was not all fun and games for the troops who came
through South Beach. Men died, but no one really knows
how many.
“There were a lot of deaths that people didn’t know about,”
said O’Dell. “I don’t know how God himself could have lived
there with the sand flies and mosquitoes. A Navy guard committed
suicide. They used to run out and jump in the water.
A hell of a lot of them went AWOL. They had the toughest