Survivors after a German torpedo hit and sank the Chenango in 1942 off the coast of North Carolina. (National Archives)

Agency seeks sanctuary for WWII shipwrecks off Cape Hatteras

Somewhere off North Carolina’s Outer Banks lies the wreck of a passenger ship, City of New York, sunk by a German U-boat on March 29, 1942.

Twenty-four people were killed in the attack. A pregnant woman who went into labor in one of the lifeboats survived, as did her baby. But the wreck has never been located.

Also off Cape Hatteras is the wreck of Dixie Arrow, a tanker, torpedoed three days earlier. The ship’s helmsman steered it into the wind, to keep the flames off survivors, but was himself burned to death.

Read story in Washington Post website: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/agency-seeks-sanctuary-for-wwii-shipwrecks-off-cape-hatteras/2016/02/15/67960be4-d370-11e5-b195-2e29a4e13425_story.html