under the Defense Environmental
Restoration Program for Formerly Us-
ed Defense Sites. The preliminary as-
sessment found Assateague had
been used by the War Department.
The War Department's use of Assa-
teague Island during the war was sub-
stantiated by a former Navy spotter
and, of course, by the actual ord-
nance washing ashore in 1988.
conduct a preliminary assessment on
Assateague. The focus of that as-
sessment was to determine the loca-
tion of the Stinger rocket range and its
accompanying burial trench. Further
research revealed Assateague Island
was used as a rocket, bombing and
strafing range in support to Air Station
Chincoteague and Air Station Manteo
in North Carolina during the war.
sweep of the island with particular at-
tention on the North Ocean Beach ar-
ea. The sweep was conducted from
February to March 1992 and over the
three-week period, 436 lanes and
over 570,000 square feet of beach
were searched. The investigation fo-
cused on the 17,552 acres of Assa-
teague believed to have contained
two rocket ranges known as Stinger
One and Stinger Two, and two ac-
companying burial trenches used by
the Navy and possibly the Army Air
discovered and disposed of, al-
though the resulting report warned
the more ordnance could be uncov-
ered in the future because of the
barrier island's ever-changing
shoreline and landscape.
Corps of Engineers as a formerly
used defense site. A Military Muni-
spection was completed in 2007
and the site inspection recommend-
ed that a Remedial Investigation
and Feasibility Study be performed
in the future. However, due to fund-
ing limitations and the prioritization
of activities ongoing at other sites,
the remedial investigation and feasi-
bility study for Assateague has been
pushed back to 2020.
maritime resources on Assateague
Island prepared by the Maryland
Historical Society in 2002, a site vis-
it was made in July 1991 and deter-
mined that while the southern end of
the island was relatively stable, the
erosion of the northern section is
moving the ordnance, which was
buried at the high water mark in the
1940s offshore and under the swim-
ming area.
large-scale sweep of the area using
ground penetrating radar and electric
pulse induction equipment to locate
and remove the five-inch shells with
lead alloy ballistic tips," the report
reads. "This was done in 1992, but
ordnance continues to appear spo-
radically. Notes in the NPS files at As-
sateague Island National Seashore
comment that the rockets only carried
sufficient explosives to detonate a
smoke bomb to show the results of
the tests, but the NPS prefers visitors
not to find these."
last week on Assateague Island Na-
tional Seashore.
Park Service when ordnance items
washed ashore at the North Ocean
Beach in July. The North Ocean
Beach area is believed to coincide
with the Stinger rocket ranges used
for testing during World War II.
inch rockets with at least one con-
taining a rocket motor. The following
day, the EOD team returned to the
site to recover and dispose of an-
other five-inch rocket that washed
ashore in the same area. According
to the report, it appeared at the time
that the ordnance was coming from
a hole roughly 15 yards offshore.
underwater survey of the area around
the hole. The results of that survey led
Navy EOD leaders to believe the hole
was actually a trench dug to bury ex-
pended shells and other munitions
found while clearing the range. It was
also believed that the trench was orig-
inally on Assateague Island, but was
now underwater due to the island's
natural migration.
motors, one of which was not expend-
ed; six five-inch shells, two of which
were live; and numerous ballistic tips
used to improve the aerodynamics of
practice rockets. According to the re-
port, no removal action was taken on
the majority of the suspected ord-
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