Photo By Erin Thompson | Aftermath of the Black Tom Pier Explosion on 30 July 1916.... read more read more
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by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian
JULY 1917
In July 1917, the Military Intelligence Division (MID) opened its New York City field office. Its staff included former New York Police Department (NYPD) Neutrality and Bomb Squad members, tasked with investigating domestic terrorism as America prepared for war in Europe.
Approximately 2.5 million German-born immigrants and four million native-born, second-generation German Americans lived in the U.S. in 1915. While most were loyal citizens, on the advent of war in Europe in 1914, the German Empire capitalized on the small percentage who sympathized with Germany. In April 1915, German Ambassador Franz von Papen and German naval officer Cpt. Franz von Rintelen were tasked with running a sabotage ring out of New York City. Within weeks of his arrival in New York, von Rintelen quickly recruited about eighty German-born sailors to create a bomb factory on the New York Harbor. Explosions aboard ships carrying American munitions and arson attacks at munitions storage and packing plants along the harbor between New York and New Jersey swelled throughout the year.
Prior to 1917, no federal laws covered espionage and sabotage operations during peacetime; these cases initially fell to unprepared local police departments. After a German U-boat sank the RMS Lusitania in May 1915, however, President Woodrow Wilson ordered the Secret Service to take over. The Secret Service also had no previous experience in such investigations and failed to detect von Rintelen’s sabotage ring before the captain left America. Although he was later captured by the British, the Secret Service did not obtain enough evidence to expel von Papen from the U.S. for several more months. Meanwhile, many other rings remained operational throughout the war.
The worst attack occurred on 30 July 1916, when the depot on Black Tom Island in New York Harbor, housing approximately two million pounds of small arms and artillery ammunition and 100,000 pounds of TNT, was set ablaze by German saboteurs. The resultant explosion was the equivalent of a 5.0 on the Richter scale, and shockwaves caused damage to the nearby Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Brooklyn Bridge. Four people were confirmed dead with more than one hundred injured. The incident dramatically affected American attitudes toward Germany and German American immigrants.
The final straw came in early 1917, when British cryptologists alerted the State Department of the infamous Zimmermann telegram. [See "This Week in MI History" #23 17 January 1917 and #129 1 March 1917] The telegram’s contents suggested the Germans intended to ally themselves with Mexico should America declare war. This would give Germany a foothold to enter the southern U.S. to continue its terror campaign. Soon after learning of the telegram, President Wilson declared war on Germany, and Congress passed the Espionage Act. [See "This Week in MI History" #95 15 June 1917] This made sabotage operations a federal criminal offense and gave the MID and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) responsibility for domestic sabotage investigations.
In July 1917, the MID opened its New York field office at 302 Broadway Street to conduct counterespionage operations against saboteurs. The MID justified its involvement in domestic investigations, stating, “the misbehavior, disloyalty, or indifference of native Americans is as important a material of military intelligence as any other.” The office was initially staffed by experienced NYPD Neutrality and Bomb Squad members under the direction of Deputy Police Commissioner Nicholas Biddle. He eventually employed twenty-five NYPD and fifty-two U.S. Army Corps of Intelligence Police (CIP) agents (approximately one-fifth of the entire CIP), fifty-one civilian detectives, and thirty-six clerical personnel. By the end of the war, Biddle’s office had arrested more than five hundred suspected radicals and saboteurs.
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| Date Taken: | 06.30.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 06.30.2023 17:12 |
| Story ID: | 448442 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 75 |
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