Before these weapons are loaded onto ships and sent across the Atlantic, they are stored at Black Tom Island in Jersey City, a munitions depot projecting into New York Harbor just behind the Statue of Liberty. By the 1910s, Black Tom Island was a key shipping port. And no one anticipated that the munitions depot might become the target of enemy agents. Von Rintelen is believed to have attacked 36 ships, destroying millions of dollars worth of cargo. [32] Von Rintelen used many resources at his disposal, including a large amount of money. Very. 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. On the night of July 30th, 1916, Black Tom island disappeared. 7. The explosions, which occurred on July 30, 1916, in the New York Harbor, destroyed some $20,000,000 worth of military goods. Library Guides: Black Tom Explosion: Black Tom Explosion There are a ton of people alive today who claim to remember visiting the statue of liberty and climbing the stairs all the way up to the torch, where they looked out over the New York Harbor. [38][39], The United States did not have an established national intelligence service, other than diplomats and few military and naval attaches, making the investigation difficult. Just a few months earlier, on July 30, 1916, the area shook with the horrific explosion at Black Tom Island in Jersey City, NJ, an act of sabotage that blew out thousands of windows and even damaged the Statue of Liberty. Authorities recovered munitions from the blast site without knowing whether they were live. The Second Explosion - The Lusitania Resource The Kingsland Factory Explosion (and the switchboard operator who saved It was 1939 and Germany had other plans happening at the time. 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. [12], After midnight, a series of small fires were discovered on the pier.
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