The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is taking comments until March 18 on its proposal to protect a big part of “Battleground Atlantic”—areas off Cape Hatteras, N.C., where German subs sank dozens of U.S. merchant ships during World War II.

A survivor of that frightening period, Capt. Rodney Callis of Gwynn’s Island, told the Gazette-Journal in 1977, “It was a nightmare sailing this coast and the Caribbean” in the summer of 1942. “The Navy didn’t have the ships to convoy us, but we had a lot of air coverage …You’d run up and down the coast and it was not unusual to see four or five ships burning and their masts sticking out of the water. Sometimes you’d run through black slicks of oil for five hours.”

Unprotected American merchant ships were sitting ducks in the first months of World War II. During this period, hundreds of local men, especially from Mathews County, were part of the U.S. Merchant Marine, and they paid the price. About two dozen were lost in attacks by German subs, and dozens more survived one or two sinkings.

Hatteras has been known for centuries as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” chiefly due to its geographic features that snared and wrecked ships in the age of sail. Even today, a storm sometimes exposes the bones of a three-master that was driven ashore.

The wartime losses stand as something different, something manmade, part of the terrible cost of war. Looking over the broad ocean, there is no sign of the ships that carried vital supplies, or of the men who made the ultimate sacrifice for America. Below the surface, divers have documented the losses.

A release from NOAA states: “The waters off North Carolina’s Outer Banks contain the single greatest concentration of World War I and World War II shipwrecks in American waters and include sunken vessels from U.S. and British naval fleets, merchant ships and German U-boats. Many of the wrecks lie in waters as shallow as 130 feet and serve as popular recreational dive sites.”

The proposal at hand would expand the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary where wreckage of the first Union ironclad came to rest. David Alberg, Monitor sanctuary superintendent, said, “The proposed expansion is the result of a collaborative public process and provides an opportunity for us to honor another generation of mariners who rose to the country’s defense when war erupted off America’s shores. Our goal is to protect these ships, these hallowed grave sites, and preserve the special stories they can tell about our maritime and cultural heritage.” 

James Delgado, director of maritime heritage at NOAA, has been quoted as saying the expansion would not interfere with diving or fishing, but is intended to honor the maritime battlefield just as one on land would be singled out.

The loss of local mariners will receive national attention with the release next month of “The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler’s U-Boats” by Viking. Written by Bill Geroux, the book tells the story of the men at sea who lost their lives, the German subs that hunted their ships, and the stoicism and suffering of families who waited for news at home.

Seventy-four springs ago the local losses began, and they happened in many places, including off Cape Hatteras. A sanctuary to honor their loss seems appropriate.

For more details on the sanctuary proposal, including information on how and where to make comments, visit http://monitor.noaa.gov/management/expansion.html