Hidden History authors debut new book in Asbury Park
A History of Submarine Warfare Along The Jersey Shore uncovered
The Asbury Park Historical Society will host a meet and greet with two notable historians behind the Hidden History of New Jersey Series.
To be held 7 p.m. Sept. 1 at the Asbury Park Public Library, located at the corner of First and Grand avenues, the event will include a PowerPoint presentation by the two authors and a book signing.
In their new collaboration, “A History of Submarine Warfare Along The Jersey Shore,” Joseph G. Bilby and Harry Ziegler uncover the state’s important role in submarine development and warfare.
“The ingenious people of the Garden State were instrumental in the early development of the submarine,” Bilby said in a written statement.
The 128-page book, published by History Press, contains 62 photographs not seen in 70 years and features the history of submarines in New Jersey dating back to the Revolutionary War. It also uncovers German submarine operations off the New Jersey coastline during WWI and WWII.
The pair look back to the American submarine that sank off Fort Lee’s coast in 1776 and the first successful submarine adopted by the U.S. Navy, invented by Paterson’s John Holland at the end of the nineteenth century.
They tell of how submarine technology was turned against the Jersey Shore in 1918 when U-151 went on a one-day ship-sinking rampage. The World War II U-boat offensive torpedoed numerous ships off the coast, leaving oil-soaked beaches strewn with wreckage.
Today, the only surviving Union Civil War submarine [built in Newark] sits in the National Guard Militia Museum in Sea Girt.
“This is such a unique and eclectic topic and we think people will be very interested to learn more,” Historical Society President Don Stine said of the event in a written statement.
Bilby is an award-winning writer and editor who has published more than four hundred articles and nineteen books on New Jersey and military history. He served as lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam.
Ziegler, is a former Asbury Park Press staffer, who rose from reporter to bureau chief, editor and then managing editor. He is currently associate principal of Bishop George Ahr High School in Edison.
For more information, visit their website here.
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