Amazing America 250: World War II history lies beneath waters, across ENC

MOREHEAD CITY, Carteret County — From a German submarine resting off the North Carolina coast to the site of a former prisoner of war camp in New Bern, reminders of World War II history can be found across Eastern North Carolina.

For this week’s Amazing America 250, News 12’s Alaina Laster explores those connections and the efforts to preserve their stories.

One piece of that history is the German submarine U-352.

The submarine was found in 1975 after a decade-long search by a group that included the father of Robert Purifoy, owner and operator of Olympus Diving in Morehead City.

“They looked for 10 years,” Purifoy said.

The search involved researching naval archives in Washington, D.C., including coordinates recorded when the submarine sank. Those coordinates relied on latitude and longitude measurements made using a sextant, long before modern GPS.

“The day they found it, it was a really rough water day, and they were like, ‘Ugh — here we go again,’ and they found it,” Purifoy said.

Today, divers can visit the wreck off the North Carolina coast. Purifoy has captured underwater video of the submarine during dives.

People who don’t want to make the dive can see a recreation at the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.

The aquarium’s Living Shipwreck exhibit includes a U-boat replica built at three-quarters the scale of the real submarine inside a 306,000-gallon habitat.

“We have thousands and thousands of shipwrecks off the North Carolina coast, and we refer to our area, especially around the Outer Banks, as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, and for good reason,” aquarium Dive Safety Officer Ethan Simmons said.

Simmons said the habitat also contains fish similar to those divers encounter along the North Carolina coast.

“You’ll see a lot of species of jacks in here, like our jack crevalle, that school together in here, but then we have some fish that are more individual that you’ll see kind of by themselves, like our great barracuda,” Simmons said.

Eastern North Carolina’s World War II history also extends inland to New Bern.

Glenburnie Gardens was once home to Camp Battle, a German prisoner of war camp. At one point, the camp housed more than 380 German prisoners who worked in logging operations and local fields.

Today, a sign at the site commemorates that chapter of local history.

The sites offer two very different connections to World War II — one beneath the waters off the North Carolina coast and another on land in New Bern.