200 Plus
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•September 5, 2018
Flu Stalks Camp Dix Celebration
The numbers associated with the 1918 flu pandemic are staggering, but it is the stories of those who experienced it that linger in your mind. The first U.S. outbreaks, at New York and Boston, were…
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•August 29, 2018
Medical Failures Spread Spanish Flu
Tracing the 1918 influenza pandemic is like watching a snowball rolling down a hill, getting bigger and bigger, knowing as it does it will be harder to stop. The first flu cases arrived in New York…
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•August 22, 2018
Death Strikes From Friendly Fire
One of the most dreaded phrases for the morale of the military is “friendly fire,” when death and destruction are brought down on helpless comrades by their own forces or allies. One of World War I’s…
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•August 15, 2018
How Spanish Flu Invaded the U.S.
In mid-August 1918, most Americans were following the progress of the war in France. It is hard to believe that tens of thousands of them would not live to see the final victory on Nov. 11 and more…
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•August 8, 2018
U-117 Claims Another Victim
In mid-August 1918, as the Allies were beginning the big push that would eventually bring the war “over there” to an end, the people at the Jersey Shore were experiencing it in their own backyard. On…
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•August 1, 2018
New Torpedo Radio Controlled?
In August 1918, the U-117 was heading toward the East Coast with orders to lay mines and attack shipping off New Jersey. At the same time the Norwegian steamship Bergensfjord was bound for New York…
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•July 25, 2018
U-boat Takes Aim at Cape Cod
By the end of July 1918, the nation was still trying to understand how the Germans could sink the armored cruiser USS San Diego just a few miles off Fire Island, N.Y., when it was faced with the…
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•July 18, 2018
U-boat Threat Returns to the Shore
Following the raids of the U-151 in early June 1918, the East Coast seemed to return to normal, and most hoped that the threat from German U-boats along the shore was over. But a June 29 telegram…
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•July 11, 2018
Letters From the Battlefront
During the summer of 1918, most residents of Ocean County were closely following the war on the Western Front. The year before, the majority of those drafted locally had been sent to Camp Dix and…
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•July 4, 2018
What’s Happening in the Pinelands?
World War I is repeatedly used to show the horrors of modern warfare, and as June 1918 ended, Ocean County and its citizens found themselves totally involved. Early in the month, coastal sections had…
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•June 27, 2018
Espionage on Long Beach Island?
The attacks by the U-151 just off the Jersey coast in early June 1918 did more than just sink merchant ships. They rattled the nerves of those living along the shore. Shock was followed by rage as…
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•June 18, 2018
Were Spies on Land Helping the U-151?
In early June 1918, the German U-boat U-151 brought the reality of World War I to the Jersey Shore. In one day it had attacked and sunk six ships, leaving hundreds stranded in lifeboats awaiting…
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•June 13, 2018
Navy Faces Fact of U-151 Attacks
On June 2, 1918, after months of telling the American people there was no threat from U-boats, the U.S. Navy admitted the U-151 was attacking shipping off the Jersey Shore, including the sinking of…
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•June 6, 2018
Deadly Sinking of the Carolina
As the sun set on June 2, 1918, the U-151 had finished its historic day off the coast of New Jersey. It had destroyed six allied ships, including the liner SS Carolina, and left nearly 450 people…
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•May 30, 2018
U-151 Has a Busy Day
Noon on June 2, 1918, found Capt. Heinrich Nostitz and the U-151 off Long Beach Island, with orders to bring World War I to the shores of America. Nostitz had already sunk three ships that day when…
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•May 23, 2018
Three Ships Sunk Before Noon
In April 1918, Capt. Heinrich Nostitz, in the U-151, had been sent to the United States’ East Coast with orders to take the war to the Americans. As May ended, he had placed bombs on three ships…
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•May 16, 2018
U-Boat Takes Americans Captive
In May 1918, as American eyes were fixed on sending an Army to France and the Western Front, the German U-boat U-151 was off Cape May bringing the Great War to the East Coast. On the 25th, the U-boat…
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•May 9, 2018
U-Boat Stalks Atlantic Shipping
The U-151 had been built to run the British blockade and minefields in order to carry cargo between Germany and the United States, but in April 1918 she set out on a mission armed with mines…
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•May 2, 2018
First U.S. Troops From Dix Head Abroad
The United States entered World War I in April 1917, and the rest of that year was spent in preparations to send an Army overseas “to make the world safe for democracy.” But the parades, speeches and…
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•April 25, 2018
Sumner Continues to Cause Havoc
As World War I raged in far-off France, Ocean County residents were dealing with a growing problem – the hulk of the once-elegant Army transport Sumner. The ship had stranded in December 1916 and…
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•April 16, 2018
Sumner Becomes Major Obstacle
Most shipwreck stories end with the final count of those lost or rescued, but the story of the stranding of the U.S. Army Transport Sumner in December 1916 was only the beginning of its influence on…
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•April 11, 2018
No Hope for Saving the Sumner
In December 1916, the Army transport Sumner was stranded just beyond the breakers in Barnegat Light. Once called the most elegant transport in the Army, the 351-foot ship had served the nation in…
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•April 4, 2018
Sumner Comes to Watery End
On the foggy night of Dec. 11, 1916, the 351-foot Army transport Sumner, once described as the most elegant ship in the Army, ran aground in calm seas just beyond the breakers at Barnegat Light. The…
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•March 28, 2018
Running Afoul of Barnegat Shoals
On the night of Dec. 11, 1916. U.S. Army Transport Sumner was heading north, parallel to the beaches of LBI, bound for New York City from the Panama Canal. The official Coast Guard report sets the…
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•March 21, 2018
From Troop Transport to Special Missions
U.S. Army transport Sumner was destined to end its career on the Barnegat Shoals, but there is a long and winding story of how the ship got there. By June 1904, the Sumner was back in the Atlantic…
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•March 14, 2018
A ‘Grewsome’ Voyage Home
After the Army transport Sumner survived two typhoons in the Pacific, the U.S. government decided it was time to bring the ship back to the East Coast. It was considered by many to be the finest and…
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•March 7, 2018
Rough Seas in the Pacific
U.S. Army Transport Sumner, destined to end its career on the Barnegat Shoals, arrived in Manila in the Philippine Islands, on May 23, 1900, carrying almost 1,000 troops. It had left Sandy Hook…
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•February 28, 2018
The Sumner: Floating Place or Hellhole?
The story of how the U.S. Army transport Sumner ended up stranded at Barnegat Light is full of twists and turns and its involvement with the geopolitics of the time. It had been a passenger ship…
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•February 21, 2018
Is Renaming a Ship Bad Luck?
Stories of Long Beach Island shipwrecks usually focus on the event and the rescue, but sometimes if you dig deeper, you uncover an interesting prelude and epilogue. So it is with the little-discussed…
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•February 14, 2018
Did Film Really Incite Mutiny?
In 1916, Robert Goldstein had begun work on a film titled “The Spirit of ’76,” about America’s struggle for independence. During the winter of 1918, he sat in jail awaiting trial under the Espionage…