[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 78 (Wednesday, May 20, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S3187]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. TILLIS (for himself and Mr. Burr):
  S. 1401. A bill to provide for the annual designation of cities in 
the United States as an ``American World War II City''; to the 
Committee on Armed Services.
  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation to 
direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to designate one city each 
year as a World War II city, beginning with Wilmington, NC, as 
America's first World War II City.
  The names of the 10,000 Tarheels, who paid the ultimate price in 
World War II are memorialized on the bulkhead of the battleship USS 
North Carolina in downtown Wilmington.
  During World War II, the USS North Carolina, known affectionately 
throughout the Navy as the ``Showboat'', ``participated in every major 
naval offensive in the Pacific area of operations and earned 15 battle 
stars. She steamed over 300,000 miles. Although Japanese radio claimed 
six times that North Carolina had been sunk, she survived.
  After serving as a training vessel for midshipmen, North Carolina was 
decommissioned June 27, 1947 and placed in the Inactive Reserve Fleet 
in Bayonne, New Jersey, for the next 14 years. In 1958 the announcement 
of her impending scrapping led to a statewide campaign by citizens of 
North Carolina to save the ship and bring her back to her home state. 
The Save Our Ship, SOS, campaign was successful and the battleship 
arrived in her current berth on October 2, 1961. She was dedicated on 
April 29, 1962, as the State's memorial to its World War II veterans
  At home, North Carolina's coast was a war zone. On April 13-14, 1942, 
the first U-boat, German U-85, was sunk off the North Carolina Coast. 
Mr. President, 397 ships were sunk or damaged and nearly 5,000 people 
were killed within sight of our shores. For 6 months at the beginning 
of America's war, 65 German U-boats hunted Allied merchant vessels 
practically unopposed. The greatest concentration of these attacks came 
off North Carolina.
  During World War II, Wilmington was the home of the North Carolina 
Shipbuilding Company. The shipyard was created as part of the U.S. 
Government's Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Workers built 243 ships in 
Wilmington during the five years the company operated.
  The city was the site of three prisoner-of-war, POW, camps from 
February 1944 through April 1946. At their peak, the camps held 550 
German prisoners. The first camp was located on the corner of Shipyard 
Boulevard and Carolina Beach Road; the old Confederate post Fort Fisher 
housed German prisoners and also served as a training site for the 
Coastal Artillery and anti-aircraft units. A smaller contingent of 
prisoners was assigned to a smaller site, working in the officers' mess 
and doing grounds keeping at Bluethenthal Army Air Field, which is now 
Wilmington International Airport. Bluethenthal Army Air Field was used 
by the United States Army Air Forces' Third Air Force for antisubmarine 
patrols and training.
  I want to thank my colleague Senator Burr for bringing this idea to 
establish a process to recognize Wilmington and other American cities 
for their efforts during the war years, to the Senate. But I also wish 
to single out Wilbur Jones, a Wilmington native and military historian 
who has poured so much of his time and soul into ensuring that the 
people of southeastern North Carolina never forget the contributions of 
our state to victory in the Atlantic and the Pacific.
                                 ______