Eastern Sea Frontier
government · 1941–1945 · no longer operating
Also known as North Atlantic Naval Coastal Frontier
The United States Navy command responsible for the coastal waters from Canada to Florida during the Second World War, constituted as the North Atlantic Naval Coastal Frontier in 1941 and reorganised and renamed Eastern Sea Frontier early in 1942. Its daily war diary — an Enemy Action Diary and a Patrol Log kept in serial order — is the record in which Ocean City appears: the sinking of the David H. Atwater on 2 April 1942 and the landing of thirteen of her dead at the Ocean City Coast Guard Station; the heavy gunfire the station heard offshore on the morning of 5 April; and a submarine reported off the town on 18 April. It worked through the Commandant of the Fifth Naval District at Norfolk, 'ComFive' in its own log.
In the record (3)
1942 · 1942-04-02
On the night of 2 April 1942 U-552 shelled the American freighter David H. Atwater to pieces twenty miles off Ocean City, and by the next evening thirteen of her dead were lying at the Ocean City Coast Guard Station.
The campaign has carried the Atwater for years without a primary source. It has one now, and it is the United States Navy's own daily log. The Eastern Sea Frontier War Diary for April 1942, Appendix VII, the Enemy Action Diary, Serial #73 for 3 April 1942, records at 2122 the previous evening: 'SOS from S/S DAVID H. ATWATER (U.S. cargo, 2438 tons) being shelled and sunk by sub at 38-00 N., 75-05 W. (hard on Winter Quarter). CESF asked Com 5 to investigate departure and routing of this cargo vessel. U.S.S. NOA and HERBERT were directed to scene, arriving 2400. At 0145 C.G. Cutter LEGARE landed 3 survivors and 4 bodies of crew of 29 at Chincoteague Island Coast Guard Station. Put out immediately for further search.' The following day, Serial #74 at 2355, the frontier wrote the rest of it down: 'Further in re DAVID H. ATWATER shelled and sunk by submarine off Winter Quarter Buoy at 2115 April 2. Total crew was 25. The 3 wounded survivors and 4 dead landed by C.G.C. LEGARE are at the Marine Hospital, Norfolk. 13 bodies picked up by C.G. lifeboats are at Ocean City C.G. Station. 1 body picked up by Eagle 56 is at Lewes, Del. C.G.C. LEGARE reported destroying 2 lifeboats and 1 life raft. 1 lifeboat had been machine gunned.' Read that last sentence twice. The Atwater was not torpedoed; she was shot to death on the surface with a deck gun for about half an hour, and one of her boats was machine-gunned in the water. Position 38-00 N, 75-05 W is on Winter Quarter Shoal, roughly twenty nautical miles south of the Ocean City Inlet and about ten miles off Assateague — close enough that Ocean City's own Coast Guard lifeboats did the recovering, and close enough that the thirteen bodies came back to the station on Caroline Street rather than to Norfolk. The Coast Guard cutter Legare had already been at sea a night and went straight back out. What the town saw of it is remembered only in local accounts, and they disagree: one says the recovered dead were laid out on the Coast Guard dock at South Division Street; another says they were carried by pick-up truck to the Ocean City ice plant at Philadelphia Avenue and Somerset Street and iced for shipment to Norfolk, and that the late George Bert Cropper, called in to help prepare them, said every one had died of gunshot wounds and the bullet wounds were plain.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1942 · 1942-04-03
On the night of 3 April 1942 — with thirteen dead men from a shelled freighter lying at its Coast Guard station — Ocean City was plunged into total darkness by an order that was never meant for the town at all.
'Ocean City, April 4 — An emergency blackout that plunged Ocean City into sudden darkness last night was lifted later with the explanation that the total blackout was a mistake in orders from the Fifth Naval District. Even town officials were taken' by surprise, the Salisbury Times reported under the headline 'Emergency Blackout At Ocean City Is Mistake' and the deck 'ORDER PLUNGES SEASIDE RESORT'. The man who explains it is the Commander of the town's own home defence corps: 'When Fifth Naval District headquarters heard Ocean City was blacked out, the city was called immediately to learn why, Corps Commander Jack Lynch said.' 'When informed that the black out order came from their headquarters, through the Coast Guard, naval authorities explained a mistake had been made, Lynch said. The instructions to "extinguish all lights seaward" was intended only for the Coast Guard station. The "dim-out" adopted by Ocean City last week was sufficient for the remainder of the town.' And: 'Lynch said, removes the possibility at first voiced that Ocean City may remain under blackout for the next several nights.' Two things in that story matter beyond the anecdote. The first is the date. The David H. Atwater had been shelled to pieces on Winter Quarter Shoal on the night of 2 April, and at 2355 on 3 April the Eastern Sea Frontier's own diary recorded that thirteen of her dead were at the Ocean City Coast Guard Station. The town went black on that night, and its officials did not know why. The second is the chronology of the dim-out itself: Ocean City had adopted one 'last week' — that is, in the last days of March 1942, five weeks before the Army's county-wide dim-out order and five weeks before the town's own council got round to passing a blackout ordinance. The resort dimmed itself before anybody made it.
Ocean City Home Defense CouncilUnited States Coast GuardJohn B. LynchCol. Henry S. Barrett
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1942 · 1942-04-05
Three days after the Atwater, the Ocean City Coast Guard Station heard heavy gunfire offshore again — and this time it went into the U.S. Navy's own war diary.
The Eastern Sea Frontier's Enemy Action Diary for Sunday 5 April 1942, Serial #76, records at 1005: 'ComFive informs that Ocean City, Maryland C. G. Station at 0945 heard 4 shots of heavy gunfire to east and south of station. At 0955 three more. Position about 38-15N., 75-00W.' Ten minutes apart, seven shots, in daylight, about eight miles off the beach. This matters for a reason beyond itself. On 22 December 1941 the town had heard gunfire offshore for an hour and a half, loud enough to shake houses and be heard eight miles inland at Berlin, and the Coast Guard would not comment — and the campaign has never been able to say what it was. Here, fifteen weeks later, is the same station hearing the same kind of thing and this time the report travels up through the Commandant of the Fifth Naval District into the frontier's log with a position on it. The diary records no follow-up identifying a target, and the campaign should not supply one. Later the same month, on the evening of 18 April, the diary logs 'SSSS from 104th Observation Squadron in 38-37N, 74-52W, of Ocean City, Md. PE56 and other craft dispatched to position' — a submarine on the surface at five knots about thirty-five miles east-north-east of the town — and at 2330 that night 'Army plane dropped 1 D.C. on sub in 38-45N, 74-43W. Results undetermined. Sub was sighted.'
Source · checked 2026-08-11