In The End...It Was A Dud

Things don't always turn out as they appear, and that was the case at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, where the rough surf spun out of Hurricane Maria landed a World War II mine on the beach. At least that's what it looked like. In the end, you might say it was a dud.

"The potential unexploded ordnance was determined to be a non-explosive military training sea mine," said Mike Barber, a spokesman for the seashore. "The determination was made by the (Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit) that came from Marines Corps Air Station Cherry Point to remove the item from the beach.

"I've seen some people on Facebook calling it a WWII-era mine, but I don't believe it's that old," he added in an email. "To ensure visitor and staff safety, a buffer zone around the training mine was established until the EOD unit arrived."

The training mine washed ashore Monday, promoting park staff to institute a 200-meter buffer zone around it.

Interestingly, another World War II training ordnance was recovered from a sandbar near Cape Hatteras National Seashore back in July. 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.

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.