The U-578, under the command of one of the oldest German captains, 41-year-old Ernst Rehwinkel, left France bound for the northeast coast of the United States as part of Operation Drumbeat on Feb. 2, 1942. On the night of the 27th, the 220-foot-long submarine was off Manasquan Inlet when it fired torpedoes at the 435-foot Standard Oil tanker R.P. Resor, which was carrying over 78,000 barrels of crude oil. The subsequent explosion and flames could be seen and felt along the Jersey Shore.
Point Pleasant fishing boat captain John Bogan remembered, “My father, Captain Jack Bogan, operated a fishing boat, the…
Subscribe to keep reading
This story is from our archive. Get your SandPaper Annual Pass for access to our digital archive, plus everything else a pass includes. Details below.
Annual Pass — $18 Details
365-day access to:
- The complete SandPaper digital archive (stories date back to 2012).
- Full photo galleries from our photographers.
- The entire catalog of SandPaper games, puzzles and quizzes.
How it works
- Enter your email below and click to pay the one-time $18. Card details are entered on Stripe’s secure page.
- You’re in straight away — no password to create, and nothing to set up or manage.
- You stay signed in. If you’re ever signed out, or you read on a new phone or computer, we’ll email you a code to get you back in.
- Never auto-renews. Your pass is good for one year. We will email you when it expires so you can renew if you’d like.
See our site policies for more information.
Already a subscriber? We’ll email a code to get you back in.
