It's been an explosive seven days at Cape Hatteras National Seashore on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where another World War II-era bomb has been found.
Last Friday a World War II training ordnance was recovered from a sandbar off Cape Point in the park. The U.S. Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit from Little Creek, Virginia, safely removed the weapon and headed back to Virginia, where the device was to be studied before being disposed of, the National Park Service said.
Then, earlier this week the National Park Service located and then contacted the U.S. Navy regarding a potential World War II-era ordnance found in a remote area on the southern end of Hatteras Island. On Wednesday the U.S. Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit arrived on scene and used a controlled detonation to destroy it.
“The disposal of two unexploded ordnances in the last six days serves as a reminder of the part the Outer Banks played during World War II," said seashore Superintendent David Hallac. "I greatly appreciate the support the U.S. Navy has provided.”
The waters off Cape Hatteras saw plenty of action during World War II, with both German U-Boats and Allied merchant ships sunk off the cape.
"In 1942, the Germans aimed to sink U.S. merchant ships that were carrying supplies to England. U.S. and Royal Navy ships patrolled the coast to protect them and, when necessary, take on the Germans," according to the seashore. "One of the most overlooked engagements of World War II, (the so-called Battle of the Atlantic) claimed 80 ships and hundreds of lives."
July 15, 1942. America had been in World War II for less than a year, but the fight was coming to the nation’s shores. That day, off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, the German U-boat U-576 sank the Nicaraguan-flagged freighter SS Bluefields. But it came at a steep price – the merchant ship convoy and its U.S. military escorts fought back, sinking the U-boat within minutes as U.S. Navy air cover bombed the sub while the merchant ship Unicoi attacked it with its deck gun. -- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In a residential area of Ocracoke near the southern tip of the national seashore the British government leased a small patch of land to use as a cemetery for their dead from World War II. On May 11, 1942, a British ship, the HMT Bedfordshire, was torpedoed and sunk by German U-boats. There were no survivors. Only four bodies were recovered, and today they are buried in Ocracoke. The small, neat graves with concrete gravestones are covered with pebbles and encircled by a white picket fence.
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