Every May, the US Coast Guard and the Royal Navy hold a ceremony on a sliver of North Carolina land where four English World War Two soldiers are buried.
Residents on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina’s Outer Banks first heard the sound on the night of 23 January 1942. It came from offshore and was almost loud enough to shake the house.
“You’d be sleeping in your room and would hear this dull roar,” said Joseph Schwarzer II, director of North Carolina’s Maritime Museum System. “The room would light up and you’d go out and see that a ship had been destroyed.”
That ship was the British tanker Empire Gem, which had been torpedoed by a German U-boat. Over the next six months, Ocracoke residents heard more noises and saw more debris, as the Germans launched their Operation Drumbeat blockade.
By Brian Carlton.
Full story at BBC.
No comments:
Post a Comment