Welcome to the American Story.

Stories about what it is that makes America beautiful

and worthy of our love.

This is Chris Flannery with the Claremont Institute.

I call this one

Boomsticks at Happy Time.

One evening in the summer of 1942, a group of army recruits training in New Jersey was

roused out of the barracks, issued broomsticks, and ordered to the nearby docks.

A German submarine, a U-Byrrhic. in order to the nearby docks.

A German submarine, a U-boat, was known to be in the neighborhood. And there were fears that the Germans might put a landing party ashore

to destroy nearby oil terminals.

Just offshore, an American merchant ship, probably an oil tanker, burned brightly, lighting up the night. If German commandos actually had come across the beach,

the recruits were not exactly sure what they would do with the broomsticks. They had

no orders on that point. But broomsticks were all they had at the moment.

They had been training with broomsticks in lieu of rifles because there was a shortage of weapons.

Some trainees across the country had given. because there was a shortage of weapons.

Some trainees across the country had guns, but not all.

The real weapons were reserved for real soldiers fighting in the Pacific,

and perhaps soon in a desperate attempt to invade German occupied France to keep

the Allied war effort from collapsing.

Fortunately the docks remained quiet, though the tanker burned for some time before giving up the ghost.

Many Americans were shocked to discover that foreign navies could operate with seeming impunity within sight of major U.S. cities,

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