On April 10, 1942, German submarine U-123 torpedoed the oil tanker SS Gulfamerica off the coast of Jacksonville Beach. The tanker exploded and eventually sank. Nineteen Americans lost their lives in the attack, including U.S. Merchant Marine crewmen Carl William Albrecht, John Bartholemew Albert, Robert Jerry Banks, Manuel Rufino De Brito, Jesse Gerald, Jr., Horace West Jones, Lucius Joseph Lastrap, Jr., Manuel Johnson Medina, Michael James Monaghan, Howard Benjamin Pittman, Joseph Edward Russo, Hugh Horace Sanders, Alton Upshaw, Richard Andrew Van Pelt, Augusta Domingo Viotto, James Kyron Walker, and Willie Rodman Welch, and U.S. Navy apprentice seamen James N. Montgomery and William Glenn Rhodes.
