U-995, a German U-boat during World War II, on display in Laboe, Germany. A similar boat brought eight Nazi saboteurs to the East Coast of the United States during “Operation Pastorius,” an ultimately unsuccessful sabotage mission against the United States. (Wikimedia Commons/CrimsonUD)

“Operation Pastorius”: The Strange Tale of a Failed Nazi Sabotage Plot in America

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The operation—in which German saboteurs covertly entered the United States with plans to destroy vital infrastructure along the East Coast—was doomed from the start.

June 12, 1942. A German U-boat surfaced in the dark of night off the coast of Long Island. It launched several inflatable boats containing four men and their supplies, before submerging and leaving the area.

The men were German saboteurs, trained at a secret facility near Berlin. Their targets were carefully selected infrastructure hubs across the eastern seaboard of the United States, whose destruction would cause maximum chaos, slowing down the burgeoning American war economy.

Landing on the beach near Amagansett around midnight, the men began hurriedly unloading. They carried enough explosives and other equipment, including $175,000 in cash (about $3.6 million today), to operate for an estimated two years. The saboteurs wore regulation German Navy uniforms to provide some measure of protection, should they be caught on the beach—the point of greatest danger for the men. Uniformed soldiers were subject to military law and would be treated as prisoners of war. Without uniforms, the men could be executed as spies.

Unfortunately for the saboteurs, a 21-year old Coast Guard seaman named John Cullen was enjoying a nighttime stroll on the beach. Unsure of what was happening, but suspicious of the men’s sudden arrival, Cullen came to confront them. Their leader claimed that they were fishermen, but Cullen immediately noted that they lacked fishing equipment. That leader attempted to end the encounter by pushing a wad of cash into Cullen’s hand, telling him, “Take this and have a good time.”

At this point clearly alarmed, Cullen then heard another man by the water speaking German. Seeing the unfamiliar uniforms, and glimpsing the boats’ cargo, Cullen fled back to the Coast Guard station, suspecting he was lucky not to have been killed.

Meanwhile, the saboteurs buried their supplies, uniforms, and deflated boats on the beach and caught trains from Amagansett into the city. Some time later, Cullen returned with several Coast Guard officers and men, where they found footprints leading to the buried cache. Its contents confirmed Cullen’s story; the Coast Guard collected the materials and called the FBI.

“Operation Pastorius” Could Have Terrorized America

The man who spoke to Cullen was George Dasch, a 39-year-old US Army veteran who had arrived in the United States in 1922 after stowing away on a cargo ship in his native Germany. Dasch had returned to his homeland........

© The National Interest