In the opening months of 1942, German U-boats pushed Allied supply lines to the breaking point. In the month of January, Axis submarines claimed over 20 Allied vessels including a tanker just 60 miles off the coast of Long Island. How could German submarines operate at such long ranges along the nation’s coastline? The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) reasoned that freebooting American fishing vessels were resupplying these marauding subs somewhere off the coast of Long Island. But why?
The Navy hypothesized that these fishermen were either ex-rumrunners put out of business by the end of Prohibition or a massive conspiracy of enemy agents nestled within the port of New York. The task of uncovering the plot fell to 40-year naval veteran Captain Roscoe MacFall, chief intelligence officer of the Third Naval District, a region that encompassed New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
The captain needed to act quickly, for the Allied war effort was struck a $5 million blow on February 9, 1942. At 2:30 pm fire engines wailed and thousands of workers scrambled through dense smoke to Manhattan’s Pier 88. On that tragic day, a suspicious inferno devoured the French-built superliner Normandie.
Amid the toxic fog, fireboats dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of water onto the conflagration. The strategy proved disastrous, for the excess water pitched the groaning ship into a 30-degree list that panicked stunned onlookers.
