Never has the World War II warning “loose lips sink ships” been more appropriate than during the events of November 1959 that almost totally destroyed one of New Jersey’s and Ocean County’s most valuable crops, the cranberry. On the ninth of the month, papers across the country prepared for the holiday season with articles like the one in the Hackensack Record.

“Neither new-fangled notion nor short-cut modern menu shall keep the bright red cranberry from its appointed task.