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"The Beacon on
Kill Devil Hill" is a story of intrigue, action, and romance set
in 1942 during the opening days of World War II along the Outer
Banks of North Carolina. The German U-491 submarine used in "The Beacon on Kill Devil Hill" was in fact a real boat with its keel laid down on 31 July 1943 at the Deutsch Werke Shipyard in Kiel , Germany . Save for the approximately 1,288 submarines manufactured throughout Germany during World War II, 135 U-boats were never finished. The U-491 was one of those boats. On 23 September 1944, with seventy-five percent of the U-491 completed, work was cancelled and the boat was broken up into salvage. The authors chose this boat because they liked the number.
The fictional
mission surrounding this submarine and its crew is purely the
creative imagination of the authors. The military freighters and
tankers torpedoed by the U-491 were imaginary ships, but the
attacks themselves are loosely based on real events. The actual procedures depicted in this story for operating the U-491 such as submerging, surfacing, releasing a torpedo, and other functions as well as its replenishment of fuel, supplies, and torpedoes are based on factual information researched by the authors and should be considered accurate. The repair of the head (toilet) in the water closet on the U-491 by civilian Mr. Webber is purely fictitious. However, it is true that some Allied individuals, retrieved from the sea, were at times taken aboard German submarines, interrogated, and later released with alcohol and cigarettes and safely returned to their lifeboats. The mention of all other U-boats, U.S. warships, and merchant ships, and the officers and sailors, who were aboard them, are true-to-life characters as are their stories. Historical characters mentioned in the upper echelon of the United States Navy, the Coast Guard and the Kriegsmarine, (the German Navy), are real and well-known figures. All other characters in the story are fictitious and any similarities between actual persons living or dead are purely coincidental. |
About Tom Morrow:
Tom graduated from high school in Seymour, Iowa, and through the years earned three college degrees.
For the past 38 years, he has enjoyed life as a newspaper reporter and editor, with the past 13 years spent as the daily community columnist for the North County Times in Oceanside, just north of San Diego, California.
He maintains his Nebraska roots through his sister, Linda Morrow Johnson, who is a retired elementary school teacher living in Kearney. Other than the leading German and American historical figures, all characters are fictional. As an award-winning newspaper reporter and columnist, Tom interviewed dozens of Allied and German combat veterans of World War II while doing research for his books.
About Jim Martin:
A native of Charlotte , North Carolina , Jim Martin attended Hargrave
Military Academy and Brevard Junior College . After college and chasing
a childhood dream, he went to work for his father in the textile
industry for 26 years eventually taking over the firm and managing it
for the last 13 years.
With the advent of
worldwide outsourcing of textile products, the firm was forced to close
in early 2001. Jim then moved to Rocky Mount where he began pursuing
another dream of writing. Jim’s first book was a biography of his
father’s war experiences in Europe during World War II.
Although this is Jim's first challenge in crafting fiction, he has been Morrow's editor on two previous novels, "Nebraska Doppelganger," and "The Secret at Beckham Manor."
Jim’s writing abilities have come to life in the telling of “The Beacon on Kill Devil Hill,” a story that takes place right in his backyard – the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where German U-boats sank or damaged 285 Allied merchant cargo ships and tankers in the first seven months of 1942.
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