DELAWARE NATIONAL GUARD
COMES TO BETHANY BEACH
NOVEMBER 15, 1918
The San Jose Mercury
News of November 15th, 1918 brought Bethany Beach
Delaware to national
attention.
Today, during the week
that WW I ended, Bethany Beach , a coastal village
of thirty summer cottages
a post office and a drug store, open weekends in the summer
season mainly to sell ice
cream cones to the tourist, with a ocean front boardwalk about
a quarter mile long which
gets washed away during the winter storms.. No problem, the
area tax payers just vote
to have it replaced.
The last few months of
the war, the summer if 1918, the Bethany Beach inhabitants
lived in a state of
continual excitement as camouflaged ships and hydroplanes were
seen
at the ocean beaches. One
day thundering sounds were heard of the ocean, and the town
officials ordered the
towns lights blacked out for the raid they thought was about to
be
made on the American
coast. The next morning Bethany arose with the sun on the
peaceful cottages, the
undisturbed shore and disappointed small boys.
After WW I the 198th
Coast Artillery, Delaware National Guard, organized to
defend the Delaware coast
line from attacks from the sea. Land was traded and purchased
which ensured planes would
buzz the beach, assure gunfire from the dunes, and small boys
were not disappointed.
The 198th
Coast Artillery got federal recognition in 1921, drawing veterans
from
the 59th Pioneer
Infantry of WW I, and, Delawares 1st Infantry.
The years before 1921 the
national guardsmen drilled in local armories, simulating
firing the guns, tracking
miniature targets, on the armory drill floor, including the
machine gun battalion,
which needed more realistic conditions.
May 1, 1927, Delaware
Governor , Robert P. Robinson, and Secretary of State
Charles H. Grantland ,
exchanged land of the state with lands of William P “Phil”
Short,
of Bethany, 98 acres in
all, and there was now a permanent camp for the Delaware
National Guard. In
addition, the state leased 122 acres of Phil Shorts lands to
give the camp
a 2000 foot beach front.
As the National Guard
Regiment settled in the new camp at Salt Pond, soldiers
dwarfed the Bethany Beach
population. Years after, the annual encampment of the 198th
Coastal Artillery, live
firing were conducted day and nights of August.
3 Inch guns were
stationed four miles up the beach , the machine guns were placed
on the beach at the
discontinued Coast Guard Station. The excitement of these drills
did
away with the sleepy small
boys of Bethany Beach.
Abstract: September, 15,
2018, Harrison H. from Michael Morgan's Sussex Journal,
Delaware Coast Press,
Wednesday Sept. 5, 2018 for www.iinni.blogspot.com & Facebook
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