Throughout New Jersey there are monuments and signs marking the many battles fought here and remembering those who fell defending their country. But if you walk its beaches in late winter, there is nothing to tell you that 74 years ago during a three-week period they were the front lines soaked in oil and blood, in what many now call the largest and most important naval battle of World War II, the Battle of the Atlantic.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States decided on a Hitler-first policy, and the Navy was…