By NewsLine Staff
mail@floridanewsline.com
The St. Johns County Council on Aging celebrated VE Day with a recount of the day Nazi submarines attacked the First Coast.
Guests at the Council On Aging were treated to a Victory in Europe celebration that featured a talk by local historian, Scott A. Grant, who recalled the day in April 1942 when a German submarine torpedoed the SS Gulf America in front of a crowded beach of onlookers on the First Coast.
Grant said, “The U-123 trolled up and down the coast for over three hours, never losing sight of the St. Augustine Lighthouse, waiting for a target. No one on the beaches knew the Nazis were there until the fateful moment the seas erupted before their very eyes.”
Photo courtesy Jennifer Price-Easterling
