Which answer describes a failed German intelligence plan named Operation Pastorius in WWII?

Operation Pastorius was a failed German intelligence plan for sabotage inside the U.S. during WWII. The operation was named by German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (1887-1945), chief of the ‘Abwehr’, the German military intelligence service- named for Francis Daniel Pastorius (1651 - c.1720), leader of the first organized settlement of German immigrant in America.

The mission targeted a number of locations within the U.S. including the hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls, aluminum plants in Illinois, Tennessee and New York plus various railroad lines and bridges.

The plan was a staged sabotage effort requiring a landing ashore in the states of New York and Florida on the Atlantic coast.

On June 12, 1942, the German submarine U-202 landed at Amagansett, New York, about 100 miles from New York City. It carried 4 saboteurs who came ashore wearing German navy uniforms. If captured, they would be classified as prisoners of war rather that spies. Carrying explosives, primers and incendiaries, they buried these items along with their uniforms, changing into civilian attire, to begin a 2 year campaign of sabotage of American defense-related production and infrastructure sites.

Aother 4-member German team landed at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida without incident, south of Jacksonville on June16, 1942, transported by U-584.

Due in part to the U.S. Coast Guard Beach Patrol, Operation Pastorius failed.

More Info: en.m.wikipedia.org

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6 Comments

Lynne Zeman

The saboteurs detection, arrest and outcome was totally lacking in the "answer".

JRW

I've read about this operation, but didn't recall its name. Some, or all, of the following from the link could have been included above. "The plan quickly failed after two of the agents, George John Dasch and Ernest Peter Burger, defected to the Federal Bureau of Investigation shortly after being deployed, betraying the other six. A military tribunal – whose constitutionality was challenged to the Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin – sentenced all eight to death later that year. President Franklin D. Roosevelt commuted the sentences of Dasch and Burger, while the other six were executed. In 1948, Dasch and Burger were granted executive clemency, conditional on their permanent deportation to the American occupation zone in Germany by President Harry S. Truman."