Replenishment Project on the South End of Ocean City Dredges up World War II Artifact

A 12 year-old from Vineland discovered something Saturday you don’t usually find amid the seashells and other detritus on the beach. Jack Levari found a shell casing from World War II on the 55th Street beach. A family friend who owns a house in the south end of town, Lee Cummins, researched the casing and concluded it came from a .50 caliber machine gun and was manufactured by the St. Louis Armory in 1944.

“It was buried under the sand and that’s why it was in pristine condition,” Cummins said in a phone interview. “That’s kind of cool.”

Credit the unearthing of the casing - along with other World War II artifacts - to the beach replenishment project underway by Great Lakes Dredging Company in the south end.

Cummins online search yielded plenty on war activity off the coast of New Jersey during the war that raged in Europe. German U-Boats regularly patrolled the coast looking to sink supply ships headed for Europe, he noted. In response, the U.S. Navy patrolled the coastline looking for U-Boats. And the Navy maintained air stations in Atlantic City and Cape May.