Ocean City Home Defense Council

In the record (9)

1. 1941 · 1941-12-11

   Measured negative for a second consecutive year: no person in Ocean City's 1941 council minutes is identified as Black, and no Black institution is named — but three Jacksons hold posts on the town's home defence council, and nobody has established who they were.

   All eighteen page images of all seventeen documents filed by the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City for 1941 and the first meeting of 1942 were read for any reference to a Black applicant, resident, business or institution. There is none by name or description. Charles C. Richards, refused a permit for a Colored Recreation Hall on 22 November 1938, does not appear, in a third consecutive year of looking. The colored dance hall of South Ocean City does not appear. The Henry Hotel does not appear. The Jackson Mission, which took the last permit of 1939 to raise its building twenty-four feet, does not appear. The 1940 census names — Wade Morgan, Stella Bowen — do not appear. What 1941 adds is a question rather than an absence. When the council named the eleven departments of its home defence council on 11 December, three of the twenty-two people it named were Jacksons: Gladys Jackson to the Red Cross, Chas. J. Jackson to Communication, and Bob Jackson as one of the two Air Wardens. A Chas. T. Jackson also stands on the clerk's March list of property owners notified of a building hearing. Ocean City's Black community had a Jackson Mission in 1939 and the 1940 pass noted that the only Jackson in that year's minute book was a man refused leave to put a windmill east of the Boardwalk, of whom the clerk recorded nothing but the surname. Whether the Jacksons of the 1941 defence roster are Black is NOT established by any document read this year, and the campaign should not guess in either direction — but it is now the single highest-value open question on this thread, because if they are, then a town whose minute book has never once named a Black resident put three of them on its war footing in one evening. — 1942 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [corrected]: The open question this fact exists to pose is now answered, and the answer is negative. All 62 manuscript sheets of the 1940 census for enumeration districts 24-22, 24-23, 24-24 and 24-25 have been read (the 1941 pass had 6 of 62). Six Jackson households appear across Ocean City and West Ocean City and EVERY ONE is entered in the race column as W: Alexander Jackson, 60, a lawyer of Atlantic Avenue, with his sons Lee, 25, and Robert, 26; Charles T. Jackson, 72, with his wife Mabel; Charles Jackson, 33; John T. Jackson, 85, living as a grandfather in another man's household; Lawrence Jackson, 50, a farm hand of West Ocean City, with his wife Clothilda and three sons; and William Jackson, 39, a pound fisherman of West Ocean City, with his wife Bertha and two sons. No Jackson in either district is entered Neg. The measured negative about the minutes stands unchanged and so does the value of the roster; what changes is that the campaign should stop carrying 'the three Jacksons might have been Black' as a live possibility. Two further gains: a Robert Jackson of 26 living on Atlantic Avenue is the likely 'Bob Jackson' made Air Warden, and Charles T. Jackson is now a distinct man from Chas. J. Jackson and is found again in 1942 as a judge of the town's election.

   Gladys Jackson

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

2. 1941 · 1941-12-11

   Four days after Pearl Harbor and on the day Germany declared war, the Ocean City council sat down and organised a home defence council — eleven departments, twenty-two names, and a Department of Evacuation.

   The 1940 minute book does not mention the war once, in the year of the fall of France. The 1941 book does not mention it either — until 11 December. The council met at 7:15 on Thursday evening with Mayor C. P. Cropper and Councilmen Harold Rayne and Raymond Bounds, granted a building permit to Chas. S. Powell for a two-apartment dwelling on the alley between 11th and 12th Streets, let the English Diner move to a site next to the Post Office on Dr. Chas. W. Purnell's ground, and resolved to borrow from the Bank of Ocean City to meet bonds and coupons due 1 January. Then: 'Mr. S. Earl Tromley, John I. Timmons and Miss Lena Riggin were present to help in organizeing home defence council and the following were selected to head the orginization.' Those three were not helpful neighbours. As the Worcester Democrat printed a week later, they were the entire executive of the Worcester County Council of Defense — Tromley its Executive Director, Timmons its Chief Air Raid Warden, and Miss Lena H. Riggin its Executive Secretary, all three of Snow Hill — going town to town. They were carrying an order. The same paper prints the telegram that sent them: 'Supplementing my telegram December 10, immediate arrangements must be made to hold blackouts just as quickly as possible. No delay in this matter, as conditions are very serious. Let me know when ready. Col. Henry Barrett, Director of air raid Precaution Service for Maryland.' The roster Ocean City adopted that night, verbatim from the minute: John B. Lynch, Commander. Harold Rayne and L. B. Cropper, Dept. of Public Safety. J. M. Mumford and Robert Allen, Dept. of Public Works. Dr. F. J. Townsend and Guy R. P. Dennis, Dept. Public Health. Archie Davis and Morris Peacock, Dept. Fire Protection. D. Trimper Sr. and Denard Baker, Dept. Transporation. Arthur Davis and Preston Laws, Dept. Gen. Supplies. Rev. Dewees and F. W. Truitt, Dept. Evacuation. Willie Ludlam and Gladys Jackson, Red Cross. E. M. Scott and Chas. J. Jackson, Communication. Bob Jackson and Wm. H. Purnell, Air Wardens. The council adjourned at eleven. Pocomoke City's mayor and council met specially the same Thursday evening and resolved to organise a Civilian Defense Corps of their own, and Pocomoke's published department list — Public Safety, Evacuation, Transportation, Communications, Public Works, Fire Protection, General Supply, Public Health — is the same scheme under the same headings. So the eleven departments were a template handed down, not a local invention; what Ocean City supplied was twenty-two names, and the names are the whole value of the document. By 18 December the county could report that Home Defense Corps in Snow Hill, Pocomoke City, Berlin and Ocean City were 'now complete in every detail', and Mayor Clifford P. Cropper sat on the county council himself.

   Worcester County Council of DefenseBank of Ocean CityClifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsJohn B. LynchS. Earl TromleyMiss Lena H. RigginGladys JacksonMorris PeacockWillie LudlamFrancis J. TownsendArchie DavisL. B. CropperRobert AllenJ. M. MumfordDaniel Trimper, Sr.W. Preston LawsF. W. TruittEdward M. ScottWilliam H. Purnell

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

3. 1941 · 1941-12-14

   Three days after naming them, Ocean City sent its mayor, its defence Commander and one of its two air wardens to a 'Council of War' with the Governor in Annapolis.

   On Sunday 14 December 1941 Governor Herbert R. O'Conor held a 'Council of War' in Annapolis for the counties' Local Directors, Chief air raid wardens, State and District defense council members 'and many county and municipal authorities'. Thirteen Worcester County men and women went. From Snow Hill: Mayor John O. Byrd, S. Earl Tromley, John I. Timmons, Samuel E. Shockley and Miss Lena H. Riggin. From Pocomoke City: Eldred C. Hill, Henry P. Walters, Fred U. Henderson, Lacey F. Dryden and William H. Hancock. And from Ocean City: 'Mayor Clifford P. Cropper, John B. Lynch and William H. Purnell' — the mayor, the man the council had made Commander of its home defence council seventy-two hours earlier, and one of its two Air Wardens. The roster written down in the municipal building on the Thursday evening was in the state capital by Sunday. It was the same weekend that the flashes appeared on the Atlantic horizon off the town they had left behind.

   Worcester County Council of DefenseClifford P. CropperJohn B. LynchWilliam H. PurnellS. Earl TromleyJohn I. TimmonsMiss Lena H. Riggin

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

4. 1941 · 1941-12-20

   Within a week the county reported itself organized 'in every detail': four Home Defense Corps — Ocean City, Berlin, Snow Hill and Pocomoke City — under a Worcester County Council of Defense on which Ocean City's mayor sat, waiting on a 'zero hour' for a total blackout.

   On Thursday 18 December 1941 the Worcester County Council of Defense announced that 'Organization of Home Defense Corps in Snow Hill, Pocomoke City, Berlin and Ocean City are now complete in every detail', and that its own members had been approved that week by the Board of Worcester County Commissioners. The Worcester Democrat printed the whole slate: Chairman, Maurice Costen of Pocomoke City; Executive Director, S. Earl Tromley of Snow Hill; Executive Secretary, Miss Lena H. Riggin of Snow Hill; Honorary Chairman, Charles L. Mason of Pocomoke City; Chief Air Raid Warden, John I. Timmons of Snow Hill; Chief of Public Utilities Service, R. Harlan Robertson; Chief of Public Information, Jack Culver; Chief of Emergency Service, G. Hale Harrison of Berlin; Chief of Police Service, J. William Hall of Berlin; Chief of Medical Service, Dr. Louis G. Llewelyn of Pocomoke City; and among the other council members Thomas F. Johnson, Samuel E. Shockley and Mayor John O. Byrd of Snow Hill, Dr. Thomas Y. Franklin and Mayor William Whaley of Berlin, Mayor E. Wilford Ross of Pocomoke City, and Mayor Clifford P. Cropper of Ocean City. Two days later, on 20 December, Tromley told the Salisbury Times that 'with defense in Worcester County completely organized', plans were almost ready for a complete air raid blackout across the county 'within the next few nights', which would 'press into action the four Home Defense Corps, now functioning in Ocean City, Berlin, Snow Hill and Pocomoke City, all to act simultaneously at a "zero hour".' The county's first blackout had already been rehearsed at Pocomoke City on the Wednesday night — 17 December — and 'the half-hour test proved successful'; Snow Hill's practice manoeuvre followed at one o'clock on the Sunday. After rumours of a surprise blackout, Tromley said, no test could be held in future 'without official sanction'. Nine days after the Ocean City council named its wardens, its corps was one of four in a county rehearsing for air raids, and its mayor was sitting on the body that ordered them.

   Worcester County Council of DefenseS. Earl TromleyMiss Lena H. RigginJohn I. TimmonsMaurice W. CostenClifford P. Cropper

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

5. 1942 · 1942-01-09

   Worcester County taught its people what to do in an air raid at seven meetings on one January night in 1942 — four for whites and three for the colored, and Ocean City was the only town of the four that got a white meeting and no colored one.

   Ten days before the county's first practice blackout, the Worcester County Council of Defense advertised across a full page: 'DEFENSE MEETINGS WILL BE HELD SIMULTANEOUSLY AT Snow Hill-Pocomoke-Berlin-Ocean City, Friday Night, Jan. 9 At 8 P.M. INSTRUCTIONS TO THE PUBLIC ON WHAT TO DO DURING AN AIR RAID WILL BE GIVEN AT EACH OF THE SEVEN MEETINGS... It Is Important That One Citizen From Every Home, White and Colored, Attend One Of These Seven Meetings.' The seven places, in the same advertisement and again in the news column: for whites, the high schools at Ocean City, Berlin, Snow Hill and Pocomoke City; for the colored, Stephen Long High School at Pocomoke City, Worcester High School at Snow Hill, and the Berlin (Flower Street) High School. Count them. Four white towns, three colored meetings, and the town without one is Ocean City. The county's own civil-defence machinery is on the record telling every household, white and colored, what to do when the bombs come — and providing no room for a Black resident of Ocean City to be told it in. Eight months later the same town's council would send its chief of police to stop the colored excursions. The instruction to attend was county-wide; the provision was not.

   Worcester County Council of Defense

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

6. 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.

   United States Coast GuardEastern Sea FrontierJohn B. LynchCol. Henry S. Barrett

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

7. 1942 · 1942-05-02

   Ocean City's air-raid wardens had to argue the council into it, and then the town passed a blackout ordinance on a Saturday night in May and put a man on the payroll at forty dollars a week to screen the lights.

   The war had been in the minute book since 11 December 1941, but the machinery took five months to bite. On the evening of Tuesday 14 April 1942 the Mayor and Council did something they had not done before: they met with the wardens. The clerk's sentence is careful and it records a disagreement. 'After listening to arguments about ordinance being passed to enable the enforcement of blackouts the council assured the wardens that they would submit such an ordinance to our attorney and when put in proper form would pass same and would support the wardens in any thing reasonable.' The wardens then retired, and the council turned to one-way streets. It took two and a half more weeks. On Saturday evening 2 May 1942 the council met specially: 'Ordinance relative to air-raid precaution and blackout in Ocean [City] were read and on motion by Harold Rayne Seconed by Raymond Bounds Ordinance was passed.' In the same sitting the council hired the enforcement: 'Bert Cropper was present and council agreed to employ him at $40.00 week beginning May 11th until June 15th to direct the screenin of lights where they had to be shielded.' Forty dollars a week was more than the town paid its captain of lifeguards ($25) and twice what it paid a lifeguard ($20). Five weeks of it, ending 15 June — which is to say the lights were to be shielded before the season opened, not after. The police got a five-dollar raise from 1 June. Set the calendar against the water: the Atwater was shot to pieces twenty miles offshore on 2 April, the wardens came to the council on the 14th, and the ordinance passed on 2 May.

   Clifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsWilliam H. ScottJ. M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

8. 1942 · 1942-05-08

   The Army dimmed out the Maryland coast in May 1942 to stop U-boats silhouetting ships against it — and inside Ocean City and Fenwick Island a car could show nothing but its parking lights.

   This is the order the campaign has been missing. On 8 May 1942 the Worcester Democrat printed it under the headline 'Eight Towns In Co. Fast Blacking Out'. 'All sections of Worcester County are complying fully with the dim-out orders issued last week by Major-General Milton A. Reckord, Third Corps Area Commander, as a precautionary measure to avoid silhouetting of ships at sea.' The eight towns, 'as far as street lighting is concerned', were Bishopville, Showell, Berlin, Ocean City, Newark, Snow Hill, Girdletree and Stockton. The chain of command is in the paper too: 'In Worcester County the official Army dim-out order is being carried out through Chief Air Raid Warden John I. Timmons, of Worcester County, and his staff of Senior Air Raid Wardens in county towns, with the cooperation of Home Defense Corps units at Pocomoke City, Ocean City, Berlin and Snow Hill. Chief Air Raid Warden Timmons receives his orders from Colonel Barrett, the State ARP Director.' And here is the rule that made the war visible from a car window: 'all motorists traveling along U. S. Highway No. 113 or east of said state road, must show only down beam headlights on all vehicles. And upon approaching the coastal area of Ocean City or Fenwick Island (Maryland Beach), all lights on vehicles must be limited to parking lights only.' Every car owner registering for gasoline rationing on 12, 13 and 14 May was to be handed a copy of the regulations. The preamble of the Army's proclamation says why: 'the seriousness of the situation along our Eastern Seaboard requires strict regulation and control of all lighting which may in any way assist the enemy, either in disclosing locations along the coast or creating silhouettes which might prove detrimental to shipping'. The Atwater had been shelled and sunk on Winter Quarter Shoal five weeks earlier. This is what a town does after that. One correction the same pass supplies: this was not the beginning. The Salisbury Times of 4 April 1942 records that a 'dim-out' had been 'adopted by Ocean City last week' - the last days of March - so the resort had dimmed itself more than a month before the Army dimmed the county, and before its own council passed a blackout ordinance on 2 May. — 1943 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The regime this fact describes now has a terminus. Army dim-out regulations at Ocean City were still in force and expressly UNCHANGED on 30 April 1943 ('Army regulations for the dimout at the resort remain the same as last year' — Salisbury Times, 30 April 1943, p5), and the Army-proclaimed coastal dim-out came to an official end on the night of Monday 1 November 1943 across Wicomico, Worcester and Somerset counties (Salisbury Times, 2 November 1943, p1). The 1942 order therefore ran roughly eighteen months. Col. Henry S. Barrett — already a personRef on the 1942 fact — is the source at both ends, which is a pleasing confirmation that the campaign has the right man on the right chain of command.

   Worcester County Council of DefenseJohn I. TimmonsMaj.-Gen. Milton A. ReckordCol. Henry S. Barrett

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

9. 1944 · 1944-01-18

   Ocean City put the pumps the Office of Civilian Defense shipped it into storage in January 1944, because the fire company had no men left to work them.

   At the first council meeting of 1944 a letter from the Office of Civilian Defense reported that the pumps it was furnishing had been shipped on 13 January. The council decided to store the equipment until it had more members of the Fire Company home, as they had all the equipment they could handle with present man power. Read from the page image of the 18 January 1944 minutes.

   Source · checked 2026-08-12