of over 100 pieces of World War II
era military ordnance on Assa-
teague, and the subsequent clean
sweep conducted by the Army
Corps of Engineers last weekend,
recalled the once-remote barrier is-
land's rich history as wartime mili-
tary test range and its genesis into a
national park visited by hundreds of
thousands each year.
Ocean Beach section of the Assa-
teague Island National Seashore
and was later assembled and deto-
nated in several planned explosions
by Army teams from Aberdeen. The
Ocean City Bomb Squad initially de-
termined the size, scale and type of
munitions discovered on the beach
were beyond its capabilities and the
(EOD) team from Aberdeen Proving
Ground was brought in.
and completed a two-day thorough
sweep of the island using sophisti-
cated instruments and gave the
okay on Saturday afternoon to open
the areas closed to the public in the
days following the discovery last
Monday. With the decision to open
the closed areas came the caveat
the island is in a constant state of
flux and more ordnance can, and
likely will, be exposed in the future.
prepared in 1994, Assateague saw
its share of wartime activity during
both world wars. During World War
I, the first successful German U-
boat attack in U.S. coastal waters
occurred just 30 miles southeast of
Tom's Cove and the last ship sent
down at the end of the war in 1918
teague. During World War II, sever-
al vessels were torpedoed and sunk
within sight of Assateague. The U.S.
Coast Guard manned stations on all
of the barrier islands in the mid-At-
lantic region during World War II in-
cluding Assateague and the island
was used for quarantine purposes
and "special training."
the end of the war when Assa-
teague was used most extensively
as a test range by the Navy and the
Army Air Corps for a variety or wea-
pons and munitions. It was during
those years from 1943 to 1947 that
much of the old ordnance still dis-
covered from time to time, including
the large cache found and detonat-
ed last week, was deposited in and
around Assateague.