Military
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During World War II, Harbor Island held the fourth largest coastal oil storage facility in the United States. There was concern that a German U-boat might enter the channel and use its deck cannon to shell the storage tanks, causing a major fire and seriously damaging the U.S. war effort. Although this was considered unlikely because the water was too shallow for a submarine to approach submerged and the route was too long to traverse entirely under cover of darkness, a similar attack had occurred in deeper Caribbean waters, and the risk of leaving the site undefended was too great. Arnasas Pass was stabilized here when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredged the channel and built jetties between 1890 and 1919. Commercial shipping began to Harbor Island in 1912, and it became an oil terminal soon afterward.
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Port Aransas, Texas · United States
