A History of Submarine Warfare Along the Jersey Shore

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The ingenious people of the Garden State were instrumental in the early development of the submarine. The first American submarine sank off Fort Lee in 1776, and the first successful one adopted by the U.S. Navy was invented by Paterson's John Holland at the end of the nineteenth century. Today, the only surviving Union Civil War submarine, built in Newark, sits in the National Guard Militia Museum in Sea Girt. In 1918, the technology pioneered there was turned against the Jersey Shore when U-151 went on a one-day ship-sinking rampage. A World War II U-boat offensive torpedoed numerous ships off the coast, leaving oil-soaked beaches strewn with wreckage. The authors reveal the remarkable history of submarines off the New Jersey coastline.