Black Tom explosion

The Black Tom explosion was an act of arson by field agents of the Office of Naval Intelligence of the German Empire to destroy U.S.-made munitions awaiting shipment to the Allies during World War I. The explosions occurred on July 30, 1916, in New York Harbor, killing at least 7 people and wounding hundreds more. It also caused damage of military goods worth some $20,000,000 ($ million in dollars). This incident, which happened before U.S. entry into World War I, also damaged the Statue of Liberty. It is one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions in history.

Black Tom Island

thumb|alt=colour map|Black Tom Island, lying off Jersey City, 1915

The term "Black Tom" originally referred to an island in New York Harbor next to Liberty Island, named for a "dark-skinned" fisherman who inhabited the island for many years. The island was artificial, created by land fill around a rock of the same name, which had been a local hazard to navigation. Being largely built from city refuse, it developed a reputation as an unseemly environmental hazard. The island was the site of two different explosions. The first occurred on January 26, 1875, when an accidental explosion in a powder factory killed four people. The more famous and deadly explosion occurred on July 30, 1916. By 1880, the island was transformed into a promontory, and a causeway and railroad had been built to connect it with the mainland to use as a shipping depot. Between 1905 and 1916, the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which owned the island and causeway, expanded the island with land fill, and the entire area was annexed by Jersey City. A -long pier on the island housed a depot and warehouses for the National Dock and Storage Company. Black Tom Island is now part of Liberty State Park.

Black Tom was a major munitions depot for the northeastern United States. Until April 6, 1917, the United States was neutral in respect to World War I and its munitions companies earlier in the war could sell to any buyer. Due to the Royal Navy's blockade of Germany, however, only Allied governments could purchase American munitions. As a result, Imperial Germany sent spies to the United States to disrupt by any means necessary the production and delivery of war munitions intended to kill German soldiers on the battlefields of the Great War.

Explosion

thumb|Burning barges cut loose from the docks at Black Tom, NJ following the 1916 explosion.thumb|right|View of the Lehigh Valley pier after the explosion.

thumb|300px|Wrecked warehouses and scattered debris after the explosion.

On the night of the Black Tom explosion, July 30, 1916, about of small arms and artillery ammunition were stored at the depot in freight cars and on barges, including of TNT on Johnson Barge No. 17. All were waiting to be shipped to Russia. Jersey City's Commissioner of Public Safety, Frank Hague, later said he had been told the barge was "tied up at Black Tom to avoid a twenty-five dollar charge". A notable location for one of the first major explosions was around the Johnson Barge No. 17, which contained 50 tons of TNT and 417 cases of detonating fuses.

Fragments from the explosion traveled long distances: some lodged in the Statue of Liberty, and others in the clock tower of The Jersey Journal building in Journal Square over away, stopping the clock at 2:12 am. The explosion was the equivalent of an earthquake measuring between 5.0 and 5.5 on the Richter scale and was felt as far away as Philadelphia. Windows were broken as far as away, including thousands in Lower Manhattan. Some window panes in Times Square were shattered. The stained glass windows in St. Patrick's Church were destroyed. The outer wall of Jersey City's City Hall was cracked and the Brooklyn Bridge was shaken. People as far away as Maryland were awakened by what they thought was an earthquake.

Property damage from the attack was estimated at . On the island, the explosion destroyed over one hundred railroad cars, thirteen warehouses, and left a crater at its source.

There were several reported fatalities in the explosion: Lehigh Valley Railroad chief of police Joseph Leyden, and ten-week-old infant Arthur Tosson. One contemporary newspaper report estimated as many as seven deaths in the attack. Immigrants being processed at Ellis Island had to be evacuated to Manhattan Island.

Investigation

thumb|Newspaper headline about the Black Tom explosion.

Soon after the explosion, the police questioned two watchmen who had lit smudge pots to keep away mosquitoes but soon determined that the smudge pots did not cause the fire and that the blast was likely an accident. President Wilson remarked that the event was "a regrettable incident at a private railroad terminal", and Edgar E. Clark of the Interstate Commerce Commission was dispatched to investigate.

Soon afterward, Slovak immigrant Michael Kristoff was suspected, Kristoff later served in the United States Army in World War I, but admitted to working for German agents (transporting suitcases) in 1915 and 1916 while the U.S. was still neutral. According to Kristoff, two guards at Black Tom were German agents.

It is likely that the bombing involved some techniques developed by German agents working for Ambassador Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, who acted covertly as a spymaster while using German Foreign Office cover, and Captain Franz von Rintelen of the intelligence wing of the German Imperial Navy, using the cigar bombs developed by Dr. . Von Rintelen used many resources at his disposal, including a large amount of money. It is also believed that Kristoff, a 23-year-old Austrian immigrant who had served in the U.S. Army, was responsible for planting and initiating the incendiary devices that caused the explosions.

The United States did not have an established national intelligence service, other than diplomats and a few military and naval attaches, making the investigation difficult. Without a formal intelligence service, the United States had only rudimentary communications security and no federal laws forbidding espionage or sabotage except during wartime, sued the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company operating the Black Tom Terminal on grounds that lax security (no entrance gate existed and the territory was unlit) permitted the loss of their ammunition and argued that due to the failure to deliver them the manufacturer was obliged by the contract to replace them. The issue was finally settled in 1953 for $95 million (interest included) with the Federal Republic of Germany. The final payment was made in 1979.

The Statue of Liberty's torch was closed to the public after the explosion, due to structural damage. Access was not opened even after the 1984–1986 restoration which included repairs to the arm and installation of a new gold-plated copper torch.

Kurt Jahnke escaped capture. He later served as an Abwehr agent during World War II. Jahnke worked as intelligence advisor to Walter Schellenberg. He and his wife were captured by Soviet SMERSH agents in April 1945 and interrogated. In 1950, Jahnke was put on trial as a spy, found guilty, and executed the same day.

Witzke was arrested at the Mexican border on February 1, 1918, near Nogales, Arizona. U.S officials did not prosecute him for the bombing but rather as a spy. A military court at Fort Sam Houston found him guilty of espionage and sentenced him to death by hanging. While in custody, he tried to escape twice and succeeded once, but was recaptured the same day. On November 2, 1918, Witzke's death sentence was approved by the Department Commander. However, he was not executed because of the November Armistice. In May 1920, President Woodrow Wilson commuted Witzke's sentence to life in prison. In September 1923, Witzke, as a result of heroic conduct in prison and pressure for his release by the Weimar Republic, was pardoned by President Calvin Coolidge, and deported to Germany. Upon his arrival, Witzke was awarded the Iron Cross, First and Second Class, by the Reichswehr. Witzke later joined the Abwehr, and after World War II, lived in Hamburg. He was a monarchist who represented the German Party in the Hamburg Parliament from 1949 to 1952. Witzke died in 1961.

Kristoff was arrested by the Jersey City police on suspicion of involvement in the blast, but later released due to a lack of evidence. Over the next several years, he drifted in and out of prison for various crimes. Kristoff died of tuberculosis in 1928.

Legacy

The Black Tom explosion resulted in the establishment of domestic intelligence agencies for the United States. Then-Police Commissioner of New York Arthur Woods argued, "The lessons to America are clear as day. We must not again be caught napping with no adequate national intelligence organization. The several federal bureaus should be welded into one and that one should be eternally and comprehensively vigilant." The explosion also played a role in how future presidents responded to military conflict. President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the Black Tom explosion as part of his rationale for the internment of Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The incident also influenced public safety legislation.

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A stained-glass window at Our Lady of Czestochowa Catholic church memorialized the victims of the attack.

File:StatueOfLibertyFromBlackTomIslandToday.jpg|View of the Statue of Liberty from the site of the explosion: The explosion caused $100,000 worth of damage to the statue, and from then onward the torch has been closed to tourists.

File:ExplosionAtLibertyPlaque.jpg|Commemorative plaque

File:Our Lady of Czestochowa Catholic church in Jersey City - Black Tom explosion commemorative stained glass windows.jpg|Stained-glass windows from inside Our Lady of Czestochowa Catholic Church in Jersey City, NJ. The bottom stained-glass windows have text in Polish to commemorate the explosion in 1916.

File:Blacktom.JPG|Melted bottle from the Black Tom explosion

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References

Bibliography

External links

Black Tom Explosion (1916), Liberty State Park
Sabotage in New York Harbor, Smithsonian.com
The Black Tom Explosion, History.com
GenDisasters Black Tom 1916