The Chesapeake Bay : History Happened Here
Shields of the Republic
In World War II more than 700,000 American men and women went to the conflict through the Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation. Over 900,000 more arrived, including the wounded, survivors of sea battles and prisoners of war.
The U-boat peril reached these waters when a submarine mined the entrance to the Bay in 1942. Eventually, air power and important new tools like radar defeated the menace.
The legacy of the 20th century for Hampton Roads was a more permanent relationship with the Navy. Norfolk became the Navy's capital, and remains so today. The region weathered the storms of the Cold War, like the Cuban missile crisis and Navy ships continued to deploy for a conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and other places.
A tug attempts to save S.S. Tiger (a Tanker), Tiger was torpedoed by the German U-754 just after midnight on April 1, 1942, after she had reduced speed to pick up a pilot before entering Chesapeake Bay. She sank during salvage efforts the next day.
On January 17, 1950 the Battleship USS Missouri went hard aground on Thimble Shoals to the west of here. Her momentum forced her well into the shallows. The efforts of many tugs, dredges and divers finally freed the dreadnaught on February 1.
Convoy GUS 15 arrives in the Bay from Gibraltar in World War II. Navy TBF Avenger torpedo bomber aircraft fly overhead.
Marker is on Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (U.S. 13), on the right when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
