So this might be a little bit of an obscure or strange one, but for those who don't know, the Black Tom was a large island in the bay of New York City that was not far from Liberty Island, which had been developed into a shipping port, expanded through the use of landfill and eventually annexed by Jersey City. By 1916, it was home to a massive, mile long pier that was covered in warehouses that made the island into one of the most important ordnance storage locations for the entire north east of the United States, a place where any international buyer could come and pick up weaponry without limits.
But on the 30th of July, 1916, Russia was awaiting shipment of an order for some two million pounds of small arms and artillery ammunition, all of which was stored in the depot in the form of freight cars and on barges, including over a hundred thousand pounds of dynamite on a barge that was waiting at the pier just to avoid a towing charge.
But just after midnight, a number of fires were found, later determined to be the work of Imperial German saboteurs...and despite the best efforts of firefighters, there was an enormous explosion, so powerful that it was measured between 5 and 5.5 on the Richter scale and causing people in Maryland to be woken up in the middle of the night thinking that there had been an earthquake.
Shrapnel flew as far away as the Jersey Journal building and got lodged in its clocktower, stopping the clock at the time of the detonation, windows were shattered in lower Manhattan and metal fragments were even lodged in the Statue of Liberty, causing damage to the skirt and to the arm that has resulted in it being closed off to visitors ever since.
But what if things went a little bit differently that night?
What if there had been a clerical error or another order that caused another large shipment of ammunition to be at the Black Tom's pier that night, resulting in an even larger blast? Or what if the barge was underway and passing by the island when it was consumed by fire and detonated? Regardless of how it happens, what if the Statue of Liberty is destroyed in the process?
How will the American populace and the government of the United States react when they find out that one of their most iconic landmarks had been destroyed as the result of an act of German sabotage that had gone out of control? Could this be enough to bring the US into the war early, or to ramp up preparations, or could this sight of destruction at home somehow drive them further into isolation? How will the powers at war in Europe respond to the news, especially France who sent the statue and Germany whose actions would have been responsible for bringing the statue down?
I'll freely admit that this part of history is outside my field of knowledge, so I'll be happy to hear what anyone has to say!
But on the 30th of July, 1916, Russia was awaiting shipment of an order for some two million pounds of small arms and artillery ammunition, all of which was stored in the depot in the form of freight cars and on barges, including over a hundred thousand pounds of dynamite on a barge that was waiting at the pier just to avoid a towing charge.
But just after midnight, a number of fires were found, later determined to be the work of Imperial German saboteurs...and despite the best efforts of firefighters, there was an enormous explosion, so powerful that it was measured between 5 and 5.5 on the Richter scale and causing people in Maryland to be woken up in the middle of the night thinking that there had been an earthquake.
Shrapnel flew as far away as the Jersey Journal building and got lodged in its clocktower, stopping the clock at the time of the detonation, windows were shattered in lower Manhattan and metal fragments were even lodged in the Statue of Liberty, causing damage to the skirt and to the arm that has resulted in it being closed off to visitors ever since.
But what if things went a little bit differently that night?
What if there had been a clerical error or another order that caused another large shipment of ammunition to be at the Black Tom's pier that night, resulting in an even larger blast? Or what if the barge was underway and passing by the island when it was consumed by fire and detonated? Regardless of how it happens, what if the Statue of Liberty is destroyed in the process?
How will the American populace and the government of the United States react when they find out that one of their most iconic landmarks had been destroyed as the result of an act of German sabotage that had gone out of control? Could this be enough to bring the US into the war early, or to ramp up preparations, or could this sight of destruction at home somehow drive them further into isolation? How will the powers at war in Europe respond to the news, especially France who sent the statue and Germany whose actions would have been responsible for bringing the statue down?
I'll freely admit that this part of history is outside my field of knowledge, so I'll be happy to hear what anyone has to say!
