War Zone: researcher to explore WWII of NC coast in Asheboro library talk

The merchant ship S.S. Dixie Arrow sinks after being torpedoed by
German submarine U-71 near Ocracoke Island on March 26, 1942
[National Archives] 

ASHEBORO – During World War II, an epic battle raged off the North Carolina coast as German submarines stalked merchant shipping, Allied navies hunted the U-boats, and lifesaving crews put to sea to rescue survivors.

Kevin P. Duffus

Award-winning author, researcher and filmmaker Kevin P. Duffus will talk about this confrontation in “War Zone! World War II Off the North Carolina’s Outer Banks,”

6:30  p.m. Thursday, March 9, at the Asheboro Public Library.

Duffus’s appearance, sponsored by the library’s Robert C. Taylor, Jr., Memorial World War II Collection, is free and the public is invited.

Duffus will explore six months in 1942, when 65 U-boats wreaked havoc on merchant shipping along the eastern seaboard, often in view of coastal communities — with the most intense action taking place off North Carolina.

For his talk, Duffus compiles a stunning collection  of eyewitness stories of merchant sailors, Coast Guard recruits and coastal residents who survived the battles. He recounts the U.S. Navy’s response to the attacks, and separates fact from fiction in legends that have grown around the events.

Duffus, who lives in Waynesville, has received a Peabody Award and an Edward R. Murrow Award among other honors. His research has led to the re-discovery of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse’s Fresnel lens, a national treasure, and to new understandings of the pirate Blackbeard and his crew — as well as to the discovery of Blackbeard’s treasure.

The library is located at 201 Worth Street. For more information, call 336-318-6803.