Historical Perspective

The Sand Pounders

By DAVID F. WINKLER

During the early portion of World War II, both the Japanese and German navies demonstrated they could operate submarines with relative impunity off the American coastlines. While these submarines posed a shelling threat to facilities ashore and could sink coastal shipping, another concern lay in the potential landing of saboteurs from these undersea craft.

To guard against such possibilities, the Coast Guard received the unenviable task of patrolling the approximately 3,700 miles of beaches and cliffs along the eastern and western seaboards. The mission was a familiar one for this sea service. One of the Coast Guard's predecessor organizations, the Life-Saving Service, used foot patrols in the last quarter of the 19th century to locate ships in distress. These walking lookouts kept an eye out for enemy warships during the Spanish-American War.

During World War II the Coast Guard operated under the Navy Department, and America's coastal areas were divided into Naval Coastal Frontiers, later renamed Sea Frontiers. Eventually, approximately 24,000 men were assigned to these frontiers, augmented by guard dogs and 3,222 horses transferred from the Army. By 1943, it was common to see Coast Guardsmen galloping down the beaches on their steeds.

Initially, there was some skepticism about the validity of the effort, even among those conducting the patrols. Saboteurs existed only in Dick Tracy comics--not in real life. However, German leader Adolf Hitler had other ideas. He ordered his military intelligence chief, Adm. Wilhelm Canaris, to train two teams to go ashore in the New World and wreak havoc with America's industrial war effort. The men selected all had lived in America and spoke English, so their training focused on the use of explosives and conducting clandestine communications.

After a crash course in sabotage, the teams embarked on U-boats for the trans-Atlantic journey. Arriving off Long Island on the foggy evening of 13 June, U-202 surfaced and Kriegsmarine sailors paddled a four-man team to the beach in a rubber raft. The team, led by "George Davis," offloaded explosives and $90,000 worth of bribe money.

Unfortunately, Davis had not counted on stumbling into Coast Guard Seaman 2nd Class John Cullen. Walking his beat through the fog, the 21 year-old "Sand Pounder" saw the lead saboteur and challenged him. "We are fishermen from Southampton, and we ran aground here," Davis claimed, but then one of his colleagues approached through the fog, unaware of Cullen and shouting in German. "Shut up, you damn fool!" Davis yelled back.

Alarm bells rang within Cullen's head. The Coast Guardsman offered to take the strangers back to his station. Refusing the invitation, Davis first threatened the young American, saying, "I don't want to kill you." He then switched tactics and offered Cullen $300 to forget they had met.

Outnumbered and armed with only a flare gun and a flashlight, Cullen accepted the bribe, as possession of the money would show his peers he was not making something up from a Grade B movie.

After rushing back to his station, Cullen returned to the scene with three of his buddies and heard an offshore diesel engine. U-202 was temporarily stuck on a sandbar.

The four Coast Guardsmen hid behind a dune, observing the sub's silhouette as she extricated herself. A beach search the following morning revealed buried explosives and incendiary devices. Within two weeks an FBI-led manhunt captured the Long Island saboteurs as well as the second German team, which had been placed ashore in Florida. Eventually six Germans were executed as spies and two were granted long sentences in exchange for their willingness to cooperate with authorities.

For the most part, beach patrols were tedious and seemingly unnecessary. But the saboteur case illustrates that the work done then, along with the hard inspection work being conducted today, served the cause of national security. n

Source: Dennis L. Noble, The Beach Patrol and Corsair Fleet, Coast Guard Historian's Office, Washington, D.C. 1992.

Dr. David F. Winkler is a historian with the Naval Historical Foundation.