When the War Came to Sea Isle

Photos courtesy of The National Archives of Norway and Paley Library, Urban Archives, Temple University.

EDITOR’S NOTE: It has been around six generations since Americans experienced war on their own soil. We’d have to look back to the Civil War to find a time when we, as Americans, faced war and conflict here at home. Even when Pearl Harbor was attacked, Hawaii was still a territory of the United States and was nearly two decades away from achieving statehood. Perhaps that’s what makes parts of World War II so intriguing for those of us who love the Jersey Shore. While major conflicts occurred in the European, Pacific, and African theaters, World War II was, at times, particularly close to our Cape May County resorts. Streetlights were kept off at night, and many homes near the beach had special blackout curtains. Numerous locations were strategically positioned throughout the county where trained spotters watched for any aerial attacks. Most beach homes in the county during the 1940s kept a container of kerosene by the front door. This petroleum product was used to remove tar from feet, as the tar washed up on the beaches from fuel lost by ships torpedoed off the coast. Believe it or not, this happened many times within sight of our beaches! German submarines, known as U-boats, were stationed just offshore all along the county. There is plenty of documentation about subversive crews coming ashore under the cover of darkness, along with countless stories of American product packaging often floating to the surface when a U-boat was destroyed. Bond Bread bags, American cigarette containers, and beer bottles were trophies brought back from their covert shore excursions. It was a cold January night in 1942 when the Norwegian merchant ship The Varanger was sunk by a German U-boat just off Sea Isle City’s beaches. Amazingly, all of the sailors were rescued by the city’s fishing fleet at the time. Today, you may recognize the Varanger as a popular fishing spot, known as the 28-Mile Wreck. But here is the story of original research by The Sea Isle Times of when World War II came to the sleepy town of Sea Isle City.

It was sometime after 2am on January 25, 1942 – after several days of unseasonably warm weather – the temperature had fallen overnight – and was now hovering just above freezing. The sea was choppy, stirred by a stiff 22 mph wind from the northeast.

Dewey Monichetti, 60, was a fisherman by trade. According to lure – he landed in Sea Isle City by chance after emigrating from Italy. With little left in his pockets, he asked a railroad clerk how far the few dollars that he had, would take him. The clerk checked his maps and rate schedules and pointed to Sea Isle City – so that’s where he landed. And it’s a good thing that he did – because today the Monichetti family carries on the family tradition and operates Mike’s Seafood.

The San Gennaro was the boat that Monichetti used to fish mostly for cod. Small by today’s standards, it was 32 feet in length, but less than six feet wide – hand laid plank that had weathered with time, there was a small enclosure for the helm – covered just enough to keep the elements out. On board with Monichetti on this day was his son John and Edward Elisano. Leaving their dock at just about the same time was Captain Dominic Constantino and Thomas Dentino aboard the Eileen – a boat just about the same size as the Dewey.

As Captains Monichetti and Constantino headed out to sea they may have thought about the danger associated with their trade. After all, commercial fishing has always been a dangerous line of work – but now, in 1942, it was even more dangerous. German U-Boats had begun to patrol the waters off the Atlantic. The war, which had been playing out in other parts of the world, suddenly had come home to Cape May County. The US Navy scrambled to calm fears – a difficult task since Germany had sunk six allied flagged merchant vessels in less than two weeks. Just two days earlier, the US Navy issued a statement promising that U-Boats, “…will not be making the return trips to their home ports.”

Boats from the Sea Isle fishing fleet recently had begun reporting sightings of U-Boats. Some were as close as one hundred yards. They would often surface under the cover of darkness – only to submerge once the sun came up. Some local fisherman even told stories of U-Boat crewmen waving, or even drying their laundry on deck.

The Varanger was a nine ton Norwegian flagged motor tanker. A crew of 40, including two Americans, they set sale with a load of 12,750 tons of fuel oil from Curacao on January 16. The ship supposedly made a stop at Coco Solo (Panama Canal Zone) - a US Naval base, and was now bound for New York Harbor.

Carl Horne, 50, was the Varanger’s captain. A Norwegian by birth, he had been at sea since he was 15 and captaining his own ships for more than 15 years. Horne was married to an American and resided in Philadelphia. There’s a good chance that Horne, like the fishermen from Sea Isle City, was aware of the U-Boat activity. Thankfully, this had been an uneventful cruise with good weather and now, his destination was less than a day’s cruising away.

U-130 was part of a two vessel U-Boat patrol off New Jersey’s coast. The Germans were creating havoc in shipping lanes off the coast of the US in what the Germans called “Operation Drumbeat”. U-130 was under the command of KrvKpt. Ernst Kals, considered one of Germany’s greatest U-Boat aces. He gained notoriety less than two months earlier when while captaining U-130 off Morocco, he attacked heavily guarded transport vessels and sunk three ships in less than five minutes. On this cruise, U-130 was about halfway through their mission, having departed Germany on December 27, for about 60 days at sea.

It was just after 3am when the two fishing boats from Sea Isle City passed under the new Townsends Inlet Bridge making their way into the night and on to the “low lands” just north of Sea Isle City where they’d drop hand lines in search of cod or halibut.

The Varanger in a photo taken by a crew member as they waited for rescue in lifeboats.

Suddenly, the silence of the night was broken by a bright flash off in the distance accompanied by a loud, long rumble. Despite the rocky seas, the boats shook. Following the explosion Monchetti noticed two large clouds in the distance that quickly rose to block what had been a starlit sky. The rumble of the explosion was loud enough to be heard on land from Atlantic City south to Cape May.

Second mate Wilhem Wilemson was on the bridge of the Varanger on what was a clear and quiet, yet cold January night. The Varanger was 28 miles off the coast of Sea Isle City on a course for Barnegat at about 3:02am when the crew was violently thrown from their bunks. A torpedo exploded into the port side amidships. The force of the blast forced hatches to slam shut; blowing in plates and destroying the radio – making it impossible to send a distress signal. The Varanger had been hit by a G7a torpedo fired by U-130. Wilhemson was quoted at the time as saying, “There was no warning of the attack. We thought that everything was ok as we sailed along.”

Captain Carl Horne, like most of his crew, was asleep when the first torpedo hit. The concussion threw him from his bed. Before he could stand-up and get out of his cabin, he was standing in ankle deep oil. The blond haired career sailor, with a complexion weathered from years on the high seas, reached the main deck to find that the torpedo hit the port side of the ship and ripped through the deck. He quickly scanned the deck for the ship’s four inch anti-submarine gun, which was its only form of protection. Unfortunately, the force of the explosion threw the gun overboard. The Varanger could not defend itself. The blast had also damaged two of the ship’s four lifeboats.

The ship immediately began to list. Plates that had been blasted open, thankfully now became escape hatches for the crew. Their quarters were located in the forecastle, or the front of the ship. The torpedo ripped apart the deck and separated the men from the remaining two lifeboats. In order to reach the boats the men were forced to swim through oil that was pouring from the ship’s holds. Amazingly, all 40 crew members made it to the boats. There was one casualty: a puppy born to the ship’s mascot jumped from the arms of a sailor and went down with the ship.

Through smoke and fire the crew managed to launch both lifeboats. Each crewman donned an Easco lifejacket – waterproof and equipped with an electric light – making it easier to be seen by rescuers.

The crew had barely settled into their lifeboats and was only about 50 yards from the sinking ship, when at 3:07am a G7e torpedo was fired by U-130. This torpedo failed. Several minutes later a third torpedo was fired and struck the aft between the poop and the mast. It was about five minutes later when a U-Boat surfaced and began circling the floundering ship. A second U-Boat fired a fourth torpedo at 3:24am hit the stern of the ship and set the cargo on fire. The Varanger broke into three parts with the stern still visible.

A second submarine surfaced a few minutes later and now both vessels were plainly visible by the light of the burning oil. Both submarines began to circle the lifeboats from a distance of only 50 to 100 yards. Captain Horne is said to have warned his crew not to insult – or shout at the crew members of the submarine, who were now standing on the deck – for fear that they would shoot at or sink the rescue craft. Finally, after about 30 minutes the two U-Boats submerged and apparently left the area.

The survivors reported hearing the engines of an airplane, perhaps from the Atlantic City or Wildwood Naval Air Stations – but they were unable to locate it in the sky -- probably because of a thick black cloud that now filled the skies from the burning oil. The survivors, covered in tar, began rowing west – away from the debris. As they moved along, the ship’s crew was able to start an engine in one of the two lifeboats. That boat towed the second lifeboat.

Monichetti reached the fishing grounds about 22 miles out to sea and began dropping his lines. Smoke was still visible off in the distance. According to reports at the time Monichetti noticed something unusual on the horizon. At first he couldn’t make out exactly what it was. Then, as they drew closer it became clear, it was two small boats – maybe even lifeboats.

Cold, wet, some injured and all covered in a sticky tar-like substance from the petroleum that spilled out from the Varanger, the crew pressed on – with sails erected heading west hoping soon to reach safety. The fact that the entire crew survived the sinking was unusual in itself. In fact, during this period – among the dozens of ships sunk along the coast of the eastern United States, the Varanger is believed to be the only ship sunk with no loss of human life. That was probably due at least in part to the fact that most of the ship’s crew was asleep at the time of the attack – away from amidships, where the first torpedo struck. And the time between the first and second torpedoes gave the crew just enough time to escape through openings created by the explosion, and into the two undamaged lifeboats.

Three boats from Sea Isle’s fishing fleet were in the area at the time that Monichetti spotted the survivors at about 8:45am. The Dewey and the Eileen quickly took both crammed boats in tow. The Dewey took on the boat with 18 survivors, the Eileen 22. A third boat, captained by Camille Bufalo, tended to the fishing lines left by both boats.

All four vessels arrived at the Townsends Inlet Coast Guard station at about 12:30pm. Dr. Alexander Stuart, a native of Italy with a practice on Landis Avenue tended to the crew. Dr. Alexander reported that seven members of the crew were injured seriously. One, Chief Officer Ansinn J. Krokerde, 39, suffered a broken rib and a badly broken jaw. He was transferred by ambulance to the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia. All 40 survivors were given kerosene baths at the Coast Guard station to remove the tar-like substance.

Since being awoken in the middle of the night no one in Sea Isle City knew the reason for the blast. That changed quickly as the boats docked in Townsends Inlet. As news of the sinking reached town, the Sea Isle branch of the Red Cross moved into action. It was immediately clear that the small resort town would not have enough supplies for the 40 men. A call was put out to other county branches. It’s said that in less than an hour enough shoes, clothes and blankets had been collected for each of the crew’s men.

Reports place the crowd of curious onlookers that surrounded the Coast Guard station “in the hundreds”. Armed Coast Guardsmen kept the crowd at a distance and no one was permitted access to the grounds or building.

The men were moved several hours later to the basement of St. Joseph Church where they were met by Rev. Edward Manton and Dr. Frank Dealy, who headed Sea Isle’s defense council. Rev. Manion reported that the men expressed their thanks and were extremely grateful for the attention and care that had been exhibited by the people of Sea Isle City.

The Varanger crew spent the night on emergency cots set up at St. Joseph, Messiah Lutheran and the Methodist Church – all designated emergency shelters.

The next day word spread around the world. News of the sinking of the Varanger made the front pages of most newspapers in North America. Mathias Moe, the Norwegian Vice Consul arrived in Sea Isle City late Monday morning. He escorted the crew onto two buses. Their first stop was the immigration center in Gloucester. They were then taken to the seaman’s home in Brooklyn.

Things settled back down after the Varanger’s crew left town but the fear of German U-boats off the coast remained for some time. Today, much like 1942 Sea Isle is a quiet, small town – especially in the winter – except for two days in January 1942 when the attention of a worn torn world was drawn to this part of Cape May County.

MEMORIES OF THE VARANGER

Former Sea Isle City resident Mike Davies still had vivid memories of the sinking of the Varanger when questioned back in 2006. “Absolutely I remember it,” he said while attending a gathering to celebrate the 65th anniversary of Sea Isle Boy Scout Troop 79. “It was the biggest thing to ever happen in Sea Isle City. We were on the front page of every newspaper in the country.” And what about those reports that although the sinking occurred almost 30 miles off shore, that the concussion was felt in Sea Isle City? “True, my bed shook. It was that strong,” he said. Jan. 25, 1942, was a Sunday, and the survivors were all brought from the Coast Guard station in Townsends Inlet to St. Joseph Church for shelter. Davies, who was about 14 at the time, was surprised when he walked into the church. “I was there to serve Mass,” he remembered. “I came in and the basement was filled with these men who I had never seen before. Many didn’t speak English. Even after all of these years, I still have vivid memories.”

THE LIFEBOATS STAYED

According to Sea Isle City native Lou Bufalo, the actual lifeboats from the Varanger remained in the area for many years. “I don’t think that many people knew what they were,” he said during a 2006 interview in his bayside workshop. “They sat at the foot of 82nd Street – by the Coast Guard station – rotting away for years. I think that what was left was finally moved away in the late ’80s – but they were right there for all of those years.”

IT’S A SMALL WORLD

Rev. John McKechnie, of Sea Isle City’s Methodist Church, stopped by the basement of the St. Joseph Church on Sunday, Jan. 25, 1942, to make sure that the crew members of the Varanger had everything that they needed. The crew consisted mostly of Norwegian nationals, but also included sailors from the United States, Finland, Great Britain and Scotland. Noticing the accent of the cabin boy, he asked him, “Where are you from, young man?” McKechnie smiled when the cabin boy responded, “Clyde Bank, sir.” McKechnie then asked the boy if he knew Andrew McKechnie. “I sure do,” he responded. “He lives just around the corner from my parents. Do you know him, too?” Much to the young boy’s surprise, McKechnie said, “I had better – he’s my brother.” The cabin boy quickly called over two other Scotsmen, who also hailed from Clyde Bank. McKechnie came to the United States in 1905 and returned to serve under the British flag in World War I. After the war, he came back to the United States and served many years in the New Jersey Methodist Conference. He had been in Sea Isle City only four months. In his conversation, McKechnie was about to learn much about his hometown. The war made communication difficult and the Germans had bombed Clyde Bank about nine months earlier. The sailors were able to tell McKechnie about friends and relatives – some who were safe and others who did not survive the bombing.

THE FATE OF U-130

U-130 is believed to be the U-boat that fired the first torpedo at the Varanger. U-130 would continue to ply the waters of the Atlantic for about 14 more months. It was sunk on March 12, 1943, west of the Azores, by depth charges dropped from the destroyer USS Champlain. At the time it was destroyed, there were 53 aboard. All hands were lost. U-130 was launched in March 1941. In its three years of service, U-130 sunk 21 ships – a total tonnage of 127,609 GRT; sunk three auxiliary warships and damaged one other ship. Famed U-boat ace Ernst Kals was not aboard U-130 when it sunk. Kals went on to retire after an 18-year naval career and died in Emden, Germany, a town near the North Sea, in 1979.

ONE SURVIVOR REMAINED IN TOWNSENDS INLET

She was the mascot on the Varanger, have taken up with the crew when the ship was in port in South Africa. The crew named the dog Pluto. And thanks to the quick thinking of Rolf Andersen, the ship’s cook, Pluto made it aboard one of two lifeboats. Once on shore, it took Townsends Inlet resident Jennie Swing more than an hour of scrubbing with kerosene before the friendly dachshund’s white paws and chest were visible. The crew, which was unable to take the dog with them on land, gave Pluto to Mr. and Mrs. Norman Howell – Howell was a Coast Guardsman in Townsends Inlet. Pluto, who had spent much of her life on the Varanger, had to learn a whole new language. Most of the crew members spoke Norwegian – so that was how she learned her commands. Now, with the Howells, she needed to learn them all over again – this time in English. It didn’t take long for Pluto to become comfortable on U.S. soil. The Howells fitted her with a new collar and her first meal was some leftover pork chop bones.

WE'RE LOOKING FOR MEMORIES OF SEA ISLE CITY

Do you have memories of Sea Isle City? Or do you know someone who has memories? We’d like to hear from you so that we can add to and preserve the memory of this historic city. You can email us at info@seaisletimes.com or write to us at Sea Isle Times, PO Box 134, Avalon, NJ 08202.

When the War Came to Sea Isle

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