How World War II Reached the Outer Banks

By Marni Patterson on Jun. 29, 2023

Many people picture World War II unfolding across European battlefields and Pacific islands. Fewer realize that one of the fiercest naval conflicts happened just beyond the Outer Banks shoreline. From January through July 1942, during the Battle of the Atlantic, German U-boats sank over 400 ships off the North Carolina coast.

The Dixie Arrow was among the numerous vessels lost near the Outer Banks in 1942 after U-71 torpedoed it. Photo Credit: National Archives

The Battle of the Atlantic centered on shipping and supply lines. German forces monitored the Eastern Seaboard, especially the coasts near New York and Florida and the waters around Cape Hatteras, in an effort to stop merchant ships carrying urgently needed food and military supplies to England.

Both sides paid a heavy price. Four U-boats failed to make it back to Germany, while the allies suffered 1,657 casualties, including 1,200 merchant mariners. The attacks were so relentless that the Outer Banks earned the name Torpedo Junction. President Roosevelt kept public attention away from the Battle of the Atlantic to avoid panic, but people who lived on the Outer Banks during World War II never forgot what happened.

The source page includes remembered accounts and attributed remarks from Outer Banks residents and witnesses, including Stanley Beacham, Frieda Gray French, Homer S. Gray, Cliff Perry, James Gray, Carroll Gray, Tom Pirozzi, and Lauren Pirozzi, with accounts cited from Coastal Review, Carolina Country, and the Virginian-Pilot. Together, their recollections describe the physical shock of offshore attacks, the grim duty of recovering bodies, the everyday pressure of blackout rules and military checkpoints, the strange appearance of wartime goods washing ashore, and the continued discovery of World War II relics on Outer Banks beaches.

Stanley Beacham was a young boy living along Currituck Sound in 1942 when a U-boat struck a vessel near Caffey's Inlet while he was on his porch. Frieda Gray French was six years old then, and her father, Homer S. Gray, led the Coast Guard base and was responsible for handling the bodies that came ashore.

Even in this lightly populated area, blackout rules were strictly applied. Cliff Perry recalled military patrols checking neighborhoods to make sure household light could not be seen outdoors. Families adapted by switching off lights and adjusting blackout curtains.

Blackout measures applied across the Outer Banks. Interior lights could not be visible from outside homes. Photo Credit: Outer Banks History Center

Kitty Hawk School, the K-12 school for the whole area, also reflected wartime security. People who attended during that period remembered bus rides through a security gate. One guard boarded to inspect the children’s faces, while another checked beneath the seats. Students expected the routine, but it still felt unsettling.

Life in an unofficial war zone sometimes brought surprising finds. After fighting offshore, residents could walk the beach once the Coast Guard had removed wreckage and bodies. Now and then, valuable food items appeared, including crates of oranges or lemons. Because fresh produce was hard to find and costly, these discoveries felt like treasure. Stanley Beacham and his brothers once found a stalk of bananas, which their mother hung in the pantry until the fruit ripened.

Tom and Lauren Pirozzi discovered a World War II helmet liner on the beach in Corolla, North Carolina. Photo Credit: Tom Pirozzi

Brothers James and Carroll Gray, ages 10 and 11 in 1942, came across thousands of small round containers that they initially mistook for snuff cans before realizing they held instant coffee. They also discovered five-gallon cans of oil and sold them to nearby stores for 50 cents each.

World War II artifacts still sometimes appear along the coast. In November 2021, Tom and Lauren Pirozzi were walking the beach in Corolla when they spotted a military helmet liner in seaweed. Helmet liners cushioned steel helmets, though sailors often wore them by themselves outside combat zones. The Pirozzis were thinking about giving the helmet to a local museum, possibly the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum on Hatteras Island or the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.

U-boat activity declined after the federal government built an Army radar installation and observation tower in Kitty Hawk, at the site many local people still refer to as Army Camp Hill. At the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, visitors can view objects recovered from shipwrecks off the Outer Banks, including a German Enigma machine from U-85. U-85 was the first enemy submarine sunk in US waters by a US Navy warship during World War II. Read more about Shipwrecks along the OBX here.

German Enigma machine recovered by divers from the U-85 submarine sunk off the Outer Banks coast. Photo Credit: The Virginian-Pilot

Author

Marni Patterson is a freelance journalist who writes about destination travel, local customs and cultures, and history. She has lived throughout the U.S., spent a year in Belgium as an exchange student, and now lives in Phoenix, AZ. https://mptravelwriting.com/