In 1942, the Germans came up with a plan to disrupt American war industries and use terrorism to hurt American morale. On June 13, four men landed on Long Island in an inflatable raft. They were spotted by a Coast Guardsman who confronted them. He saw a sub off the coast and was very suspicious. He accepted a $260 bribe to look the other way because he was unarmed. He immediately ran back to his base to report. The next day a search found a cache of explosives and German uniforms, but the four were long gone. The FBI was informed and J. Edgar Hoover began the largest manhunt in FBI history. Soon, the leader of the saboteurs contacted FBI headquarters in NYC, but they thought he was a nut case. George John Dasch had lived in the U.S. for twenty years and was secretly anti-Nazi. It had always been his intention to sabotage the mission. He had convinced Ernst Burger to join him. Dasch took a train to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. to talk to Hoover himself. He was shuffled between offices until he got frustrated and dumped a suitcase full of $84,000 (money to be used by the saboteurs) on a desk. He was interrogated for eight days and revealed the targets of the saboteurs were the NYC water system and the hydroelectric dam at Niagara Falls. He also gave up the other two men and their contacts. Burger and the other two were arrested and Burger agreed to cooperate. He told the FBI about another team that landed in Florida. They were soon arrested. No act of sabotage had been accomplished. The other saboteurs were promptly executed on August 8, 1942. Dasch was sentenced to thirty years hard labor and Burger to life imprisonment. In 1948, President Truman pardoned the two and deported them back to Germany where they were greeted as traitors. Uncle Great Big pp. 419-423
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