Currently, there are on average over 30 shark attacks a year in the United States, with about one death every two years. These numbers were almost certainly lower over 100 years ago, but there's no way that there were no shark attacks in the years before 1916. Why was a shark attack thought of as an unlikely possibility?
This book comes up a lot in this subreddit and isn’t anything new, but if you love New Jersey and love the shore’s history, I think it’s a must read.
From a writing standpoint, the prose is wonderful and it’s literarily some of the most well written non fiction I’ve read.
Beyond that, the suspense of the shark attacks, the sadness, the tragedy, it’s all excellent.
The real hook of the story however is the vivid painting of 1916 New Jersey. It really feels like you are transported to that Victorian era shore landscape. You see the factors in which economics and class led to who the shore was accessible to. It’s interesting to see how sharks and the sea were thought of by amateurs and experts, and how these events transpired.
Overall I really recommend it. It’s a quick day read and very enjoyable.
I’m an amateur historian in Philly currently writing my first-ever book, Killing Shore: The True Story of Hitler’s U-boats Off the New Jersey Coast. I have contract offers from two publishers so far and I’m hoping to have the full manuscript submitted in a few months. There were hundreds of sinkings off the US coast from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, but I chose to focus on NJ-area sinkings to give the book a more “local” angle. I am also a scuba diver and have dived several of these wrecks, many of which are regular dive & fishing spots.
The book connects 12 separate ships sunk off NJ during 1942-1944 into a single narrative about how the German U-boat campaign against the East Coast began and how it was eventually defeated. Each sinking gets its own chapter.
Each chapter features multiple perspectives (U-boat captains & crews, merchant mariners, US military personnel, and ordinary New Jersey residents.) I’ve taken no creative license- although presented in a dramatic fashion, it’s 100% factual. The book strongly focuses on the human aspect of the men involved in these events: how did they end up in these circumstances , what did they experience, and what happened to the survivors in the years afterward?
I have an unrelated full time career, so this project has consumed almost all of my free time since I began it in March. I’m very excited to finally get the finished draft submitted.
There were reports of large sharks seen swarming the coasts of NJ and NYC by sea captains prior to the attacks, which were dismissed. I have heard rumors that bodies of dead WWI soldiers were dumped in the ocean which gave sharks a taste for human flesh.
Is there any truth to any of this, or is the shear number of people driven into the water by the heat wave generally believed to be the culprit?
There were reports of large sharks seen swarming the coasts of NJ and NYC by sea captains prior to the attacks, which were dismissed. I have heard rumors that bodies of dead WWI soldiers were dumped in the ocean which gave sharks a taste for human flesh.
Is there any truth to any of this, or is the shear number of people driven into the water by the heat wave generally believed to be the culprit?
There were reports of large sharks seen swarming the coasts of NJ and NYC by sea captains prior to the attacks, which were dismissed. I have heard rumors that bodies of dead WWI soldiers were dumped in the ocean which gave sharks a taste for human flesh.
Is there any truth to any of this, or is the shear number of people driven into the water by the heat wave generally believed to be the culprit?
