During the first months of World War II, the American people were being told that the German U-boat menace along the East Coast was under control, that there was no need for convoys and the Navy was sinking the submarines if they entered U.S. waters. For shore communities it could be business as usual, and there was no need for blacking out coastal lights; when summer came, the New Jersey beaches would be free from oil slicks, wreckage and floating bodies.

The reality was a little different. A German crewman on the U-123 wrote about surfacing off Wildwood on Jan. 12, 1942.