The Night They Came
My OOD fell from his bunk when I (unintentionally) slammed the door open. After an apology I then (purposely) slammed my hand down, dropping the cash and letting it spill all over the desk. Officer-in charge Smith stood frozen with eyes and mouth agape till I said the word “Nazis.”
From that second forward, the station became alive with official-war action-for the very first time. Our commander lives on base and within fifteen minutes was in the station. Not long after he ordered me to lead him and my mates, who were also summoned to the station in the middle of the night, to the site where I encountered the enemy.
As we approached the location we could hear what sounded like a diesel engine coming from the beach. Over anxiously we all reached for our hips, where finally, an actual weapon was strapped, next to, of course, a flash light. We all ran to the top of the dune and like owls, scanned the vista for prey, and there it was, fighting a sandbar, heading for the open waters of the Atlantic, just like the photos we’d seen of them, a German U-boat.
Seaman Sullivan, the fastest runner of us all dashed back to the station to report the vessel, the rest of us began scouring the beach. Rather quickly the sand revealed several boxes the size of a very big shoe boxes, filled with Nazi uniforms, American money, explosives, detonation equipment, and Nazi booze.
Everything we saw, touched, heard and said (that part was reserved for just me) was classified “Top Secret.” Not even to my wife could I speak about what happened that night. It was tough keeping something like that inside. Luckily, I didn’t have to for very long, several months later the nation was informed about the landing, my role in it and that then man who I encountered was the leader of two groups of Germans and German Americans who were sent here to destroy buildings and factories for Hitler.
President Roosevelt signed the execution order for all except two; George John Davis, who was really George John Dasch and another American German who both turned them selves in and were sentenced to life with hard labor.
Seventy years later; although the seasons still battle one another to dominate the night, never again has an enemy landed on our beaches.
The End
The voice of seaman second class, John C. Cullen, as imagined by Leonardo
