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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| 90 years later, N.J. blast still shrouded in mystery |
| 2006-07-31 |
| German sabotage believed to be cause of deadly explosion NEW YORK -- The sound of the blast was unearthly, and the tremor was felt 100 miles away in Philadelphia. The night sky over New York Harbor turned orange. People were jolted from bed and windows within 25 miles shattered. The Statue of Liberty, less than a mile away, was damaged by a rain of red-hot shards of steel. Frightened immigrants on Ellis Island were hastily moved to Manhattan. The epicenter of the blast, a small island called Black Tom, all but disappeared in what was then the largest explosion in the United States, on Sunday, July 30, 1916, at 2:08 a.m. It destroyed about 2,000 tons of munitions parked in freight cars and pierside barges, awaiting transfer to ships and ultimately destined for the World War I battlefields of France. Evidence pointed to German sabotage, and some historians regard it as the first major terrorist attack on the United States by a foreign party -- 85 years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Marked today by a plaque in New Jersey's Liberty State Park, the blast site lies less than 2 miles from lower Manhattan and within sight of where the World Trade Center towers stood. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #5 Saw this book a couple of weeks ago but haven't got around to buying it. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-07-31 23:03 |
| #4 WWII was a bit different. After the Normandie fire, the NY FBI went to the heads of organized crime and convinced them to watch the waterfront. Nothing happened after that; a few German agents were rumored to have disapeared; it was pretty quiet after that. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2006-07-31 22:10 |
| #3 If the Germans did it then it was a legitimate military target except that Germany and the US weren't at war in 1916. Still, I can't blame them since we were helping their enemies. If Iran's reactors suddenly exploded one night with no apparent cause I'd be laughing so in the grand scheme of things this seems fair game. Act of war for sure, but the US didn't catch them (or didn't want to get sucked in at that time so didn't say anything about it). |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2006-07-31 17:04 |
| #2 Testing of the Tesla Death Ray... |
| Posted by: borgboy 2006-07-31 15:57 |
| #1 Terror is against civilians this seems to be a valid target. |
| Posted by: Clerert Uneamp2772 2006-07-31 15:48 |