On the night of May 5, 1942, eight miles off this coast, German submarine U-333 attacked the US tanker Java Arrow, killing two of her crew. Coast Guard Auxiliary volunteers Kit Johnson, Ottie Roach, Harry McDonald, and Ward Lockwood of Vero Beach picked up 22 survivors in their thirty-foot fishing boat and took them to the Fort Pierce Coast Guard station. The overloaded boat, the Kitsis, almost sank entering the inlet. That same night U-333 torpedoed two other ships, the Amazone and the Halsey off Fort Pierce.