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Jahnke was never apprehended, and he returned to Germany in 1921. Gilbert King He arrived in 1914 with a staff not of diplomats, but of intelligence operatives, and with millions of dollars earmarked to aid German war efforts by any means necessary. The Mixed Claims Commission declared in 1939 that Imperial Germany had been responsible and awarded $50 million (the largest claim) in damages, which Nazi Germany refused to pay. There wasnt nearly enough water supply to the island to fight the fires. They were being stored on rail cars sitting on barges, ready to be shipped to Russia to assist them in the war effort.That night, around midnight several small fires were discovered on the pier near the barges. They had been the victim of whats thought to be one of the first foreign terrorist attacks in the United States. That made munitions depots like Black Tom Island a major target for German saboteurs. Library of CongressThe damage from the Black Tom explosion stretched across the railroad yard and pier. The final payment was made in 1979, 63 years after the Black Tom explosion. They knew a fire had started the chain of events. And after the explosion, multiple smaller blasts continued to rip through the air, the shrapnel and flying bullets making it nearly impossible for firefighters to control the blazing inferno. Munition barges, freight cars, and warehouses were all damaged during the Black Tom explosion. Special Shoutouts 3 By David Pfeiffer Enlarge A shipment of horses at a New York City rail yard, 1918. Even the other agents from the German military didnt know about his secret orders. At least five people were killed, including a baby in Jersey City who was thrown from. After years of deliberating, the German-American Mixed Claims Commission ultimately ordered Germany to pay $50 million in reparations. Black Tom: A Novel of Sabotage in New York Harbor What happened to the Statue of Liberty in 1916? - Heimduo [16] The outer wall of Jersey City's City Hall was cracked and the Brooklyn Bridge was shaken. A lock () or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Privacy Policy. Captain Franz von Rintelen had arrived in the U.S. the previous year. It was heard and felt as far away as Philadelphia, and in Baltimore, people spilled from their homes, fearing an earthquake was underway. Authorities successfully recovered shells lost in the harbor during the explosion. But the stock of US supplies and financial support were offered to the Allies, and Great Britain welcomed the help. But the legacy of this explosion is deeper than just relegating tourists to Lady Libertys crown. After midnight small fires started on some of the piers and then began to grow. It took seventeen years for the MCC to find Germany responsible for the destruction of Black Tom Island, ordering the German government to pay the United States $50 million in damages. Following the explosion, the Jersey Journal warned of as many as 50 deaths. American authorities charged into the breach, ready to find out exactly what had happened. Black Tom -- 100 Years Ago Today, the Night New York Harbor Exploded One of the things that was blamed was the lighting of smudge pots to keep mosquitos away. The Black Tom explosion was an act of sabotage by agents of the German Empire to destroy U.S.-made munitions that were to be supplied to the Allies in World War I. [11] Jersey City's Commissioner of Public Safety, Frank Hague, later said he had been told the barge was "tied up at Black Tom to avoid a twenty-five dollar charge". Its thought that, had the Richter scale existed, the Black Tom Island explosions would have registered somewhere around a 5.5.It wasnt until the next morning that most of the city saw the devastation. Just after 2:00 am, slow burning pencil bombs planted by the German agents ignited an explosion so colossal it registered 5.5 on. A 1mi (1.6km)-long pier on the island housed a depot and warehouses for the National Dock and Storage Company. the-terror-attack-on-nj-that-america-forgot An explosion on Black Tom Island in New York Harbor in the middle of the night could be heard from miles away,. Employees on the island started frantically trying to fight the fires, and eventually called the Jersey City Fire Department for help. The Bureau of Investigation initially concluded the explosion was an accident, but doubts were widespread. Black Tom Explosion Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security, by Adrienne Wilmoth Lerner. According to Chad Millman, who wrote The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and an Epic Hunt for Justice," there were two main reasons that the investigation took so long. [3] It was one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions in history. Used as a munitions warehouse for the Allies, Black Tom Island in the New York Harbor rarely gained any attention during WWII. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Every episode ends by playing a gameshow-style quiz game with a celebrity guest. The nearby Statue of Liberty suffered severe shrapnel damage, closing visitor access to the Statues torch for good. Black Tom Island Explodes Explosions rocked the New York City region in the early hours of the morning of July 30, 1916. It's as if they didn't know the event existed either. Terms of Use Remember, this was an island with a history of being filled with rubbish and explosives with little protection from accidents and without the proper safety measures. The violent blast, one of the largest explosions on U.S. soil, occurred on Black Tom Island, a peninsula jutting out into Upper New York Bay situated across from the Statue of Liberty. [36][37] Irish socialist and labour union leader James Larkin asserted that he had not participated in sabotage, but admitted to having encouraged work stoppages and strike actions in munitions factories, in an affidavit to McCloy in 1934. "Black Tom is certainly not well known, even in the New York area," Jackson said. One of the largest examples of sabotage during World War I happened half a mile from the Statue of Liberty and hardly anyone knows the story. Shrapnel from the explosion even hit the Statue of Liberty. In early 1941, McCloy was named Assistant Secretary of War, and after the attack on Pearl Harbor, helped craft the policy to intern more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans in remote facilities for much of the duration of World War II. Today, the Black Tom site is part of New Jerseys Liberty State Park. The first blast started inside Johnson 17, a barge tied to the pier that contained 100,000 pounds of TNT and 25,000. [14] The explosion created a detonation wave that traveled at 24,000 feet per second (7,300m/s) with enough force to lift firefighters out of their boots and into the air. Very. Category:Black Tom explosion - Wikimedia Commons By the 1910s, Black Tom Island was a key shipping port. Smoke billowing from the Black Tom explosion, a German sabotage . At the Statue of Liberty, a passing of the torch For an event as big as the Black Tom Explosion, why did this well known Youtube channel with over a million subscribers completely ignore the event? Explosion at Black Tom: A forgotten history of sabotage during WWI 26 - Apr. The Black Tom event was the largest and the deadliest.We know all of this now, but without any sort of unified investigative body in 1916, this info took years to uncover. In July that year, the Black Tom explosion an extraordinary but mostly forgotten disaster rocked the harbor when saboteurs destroyed a munitions plant across the water in Jersey City, New . "[49] The explosion also played a role in how future presidents responded to military conflict. [52], A stained-glass window at Our Lady of Czestochowa Catholic church memorialized the victims of the attack.[53]. And the reason it was closed? [43] The final payment was made in 1979. In spite of the magnitude of the attack, Wilson had not wanted to get dragged into World War I. Explosion on Black Tom Island packed the force of an earthquake. And not so much as a fence guarded the two million pounds of munitions. According to historians, the Germans sabotaged the Lehigh Valley munitions depot in order to stop deliveries being made to the British who had blockaded the Germans in Europe. Black Tom had been a center for the production of armaments that were being shipped to Europe to aid mainly Britain and France, both of which were fighting Germany, during World War I though the United States was technically neutral at the time. In some ways, it's shocking that the explosion didn't cause more damage. The Black Tom Explosion: Proof of the Mandela Effect? Due to the blockade of Germany by the Royal Navy, however, only the Allied Governments were able to purchase American munitions. Shrapnel pock-marked the Statue of Liberty. Genevieve Carlton earned a Ph.D in history from Northwestern University with a focus on early modern Europe and the history of science and medicine before becoming a history professor at the University of Louisville. Flickr/Wavian. One of those newcomers to America was Count Johann Von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to Washington. The Black Tom explosion wasnt the only provocation. Books: The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and an Epic Hunt for Justice by Chad Millman, Little, Brown and Company, 2006. The island was temporarily closed. The Black Tom explosion did massive damage to the pier. [27] The former Black Tom Island is at the end of Morris Pesin Drive in the southeastern corner of the park, where a plaque marks the spot of the explosion. Their destination: Jersey City's Black Tom Island, at the time the largest ammunition depot in America. Now at this point in the war mid-1916 America was neutral, meaning that the munitions being stored at Black Tom Island could have been sold to the highest bidder, whether that be Germany, France, Austria, or Great Britain. Doctors and nurses arrived on the scene and tended to dozens of injured. The explosion damaged the torch of the Statue of Liberty, shown in the background. Summary and Definition: The Black Tom Explosion was an act of German sabotage in New York Harbor during World War One. The explosions, which occurred on July 30, 1916, in New York Harbor, "killed four people and destroyed some $20,000,000 ($500 million in 2022 dollars) worth of military goods." Listen to TONS of bonus content including: In the early 20th century, enemy attacks on American soil were so rare that many assumed the Black Tom explosion was an accident. The massive blasts obliterated Black Tom Island, the largest munitions depot in the United States, located in New York Harbor and connected by rail bed to Jersey City, New Jersey. (165-WW-280A-050) On a chilly November night in 1915, a dockhand crept silently through the darkness near the Newport News, Virginia, shipyard as he approached dockside corrals filled with horses destined to board British [9], On the night of the Black Tom explosion, July 30, 1916, about 2,000,000 pounds (910,000kg) of small arms and artillery ammunition were stored at the depot in freight cars and on barges, including 100,000 pounds (45,000kg) of TNT on Johnson Barge No. According to New Jersey City University, the quest for reparations began with the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which used a 1921 treaty between the U.S. and Germany to request reparations. Some guards fled, fearing an explosion. And what of the Black Tom saboteurs? Rail Heads Face Arrest in Pier Blast at N.Y. Chicago Daily Tribune, August 1, 1916. The German Christmas Pickle: Tradition or Marketing? Shrapnel from the explosion even hit the Statue of Liberty. The blast shattered windows across the harbor in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Survivors quickly evacuated the area around Black Tom Island after the 2:08 a.m. explosion. Jackson noted that given the massive destructive power of the explosion, it is fortunate that more people were not killed. 9." Watermark: Permalife, 25% cotton content. Cookie Settings, http://www.faqs.org/espionage/Bl-Ch/Black-Tom-Explosion.html, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no1/article02.html, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, Five Places Where You Can Still Find Gold in the United States, Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Otherand the Birds Loved It, Balto's DNA Provides a New Look at the Intrepid Sled Dog, The Science of California's 'Super Bloom,' Visible From Space, The True Story of the Koh-i-Noor Diamondand Why the British Won't Give It Back. 17 was packed with 50 tons of TNT, and 69 railroad freight cars were storing more than a thousand tons of ammunition, all awaiting shipment to Britain and France.