Off Vero’s Beach: 1942

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The tanker Java Arrow on the morning after being torpedoed eight miles off Vero Beach.

I was eight years old. I stood outside the kitchen door in the warm, early-morning sunlight, a cigar box full of marbles in one hand and my book bag in the other, ready to head down the dirt road to catch the bus to Vero Beach Elementary School. I had said goodbye to my mother; my father was not home yet.

That was unusual since, generally, before leaving for school, I would peek into their bedroom and see him snoring quietly. Mom wouldn’t say much about what he was doing every night other than he was out on his boat, the Kitsis, but I knew he wasn’t fishing.

Between marble games at school I had heard talk of ships blowing up offshore and Nazi submarines. One kid said a window shattered in his house because of an explosion off the beach. I didn’t believe him.

Read the entire article in the Summer 1998 issue

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