History

Col. Schwalg is the German National Liaison Representative at nearby Fort Monroe. The military officers are members of the Federal Government of Germany’s armed forces, serving at various U.S. installations in the Hampton Roads area. This ceremony, held annually, commemorates an unusual incident that occurred on April 14, 1942.

“The night was clear with many stars visible, the sea was very nearly calm, the water phosphorescent, a wind of force one was blowing from the southeast,” begins Capt. H.W. Howe’s report on the early morning hours of that day. The skipper of the U.S.S. Jesse Roper continues, “Bodie Island Light [on the southern end of Nags Head, at Oregon Inlet] and Bodie Island Lighted Bell Buoy #8 were [discernible] to starboard.”

The Roper, a World War I destroyer, had been on anti-submarine patrol the evening before. Howe was recounting, for the Commander of the U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, the sea and weather conditions when his ship had first made radar contact with an unidentified craft off the North Carolina coast a few minutes after midnight. The radar contact was followed by another alert: The ship’s sonar operator had picked up the sound of turning propellers. The two contacts coincided, providing the range and direction of the vessel. Sailors aboard the American ship then spotted the wake of what appeared to be a small vessel running away at high speed.

The Roper pursued. “When the distance had been reduced to 300 yards,” Howe’s report states, “the vessel cut sharply to starboard.” At this instant, using a 24-inch searchlight, Roper officers identified the vessel as a large submarine.

According to Capt. Howe’s report, the submarine continued to turn to starboard—circling inside the turning radius of the ship in an apparent effort to make itself a difficult target. The Roper aimed its searchlight at the submarine and opened fire, first with the machine gun battery and then with the ship’s largest deck gun. It was during this early action that the vessel, a German U-boat, fired a torpedo at the Roper. It missed, passing close down the port side of the American ship.