Dan’s Papers April 27, 2012 danshamptons.com Page 15
Edward Kerling, side and front view
George Dasch, side and front view
70th Anniversary
Plans to Re-enact the 1942 Nazi Landing in Amagansett By Dan Rattiner This is the 70th anniversary of that day in 1942 that four Nazi saboteurs bringing boxes of powerful explosives and sophisticated weaponry waded ashore through the surf to the beach at Amagansett intent on causing mayhem. It was a daring operation. A second one took place on a deserted beach at Punte Verde, Florida the next night with four more saboteurs. About a dozen more landings were scheduled for the rest of that summer of 1942, and they would have all taken place if the man who led this operation hadn’t betrayed these first four after landing with them at Amagansett. With a
seeds were planted for the capture right on the beach that foggy night because things went slightly awry. A 21 year old Coastguardsman named John Cullen, walking the dunes through the fog, stumbled upon the saboteurs burying their boxes of explosives on the beach, and was intercepted by the leader of the operation, George Dasch, who then, defying orders, decided not to shoot him dead. He instead threatened to shoot him dead unless the unarmed Coastguardsman accepted a $300 cash bribe—a lot of money in 1942—and promised he would run away and forget everything he had seen. Cullen accepted the money and did run away. But he immediately went to report his encounter to his superiors. There is a group of local residents who on this upcoming anniversary during the night of June 12-13, want to re-enact this successful landing through the surf, the meeting on the beach and the remarkable aftermath that night. The group will need to find a World War II coast guardsman’s uniform, the German
The seeds were planted for the capture right on the beach that foggy night...
Dan Rattiner’s second memoir, IN THE HAMPTONS TOO: Further Encounters with Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities, is available in hardcover wherever books are sold. The first memoir, IN THE HAMPTONS, published by Random House, is available in paperback. A third memoir, STILL IN THE HAMPTONS, will be published June 30.
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flood of saboteurs here, explosions would be crashing down bridges, blowing up railroad stations, railroad junctions, airplane factories, aluminum plants and even department stores that the Nazis knew were owned by Jews. The goal of it all was to terrorize the citizenry, cripple America’s economy, bring the United States to the bargaining table, and in the end make a treaty with the Germans that would allow Germany to take over the American government. With the Germans in power here, America would be part of the expanded Third Reich, which was already the master of Europe. There would be no more terrifying and crippling attacks on American soil after that. The capture of this first set of saboteurs took place five days later in New York City, but the
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