Deadly catch: shrimp boat captains as United States Naval Intelligence informants, 1942–1945

Abstract

During World War II, the United States Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) created a confidential fishermen informants program to ensure the security of the fishing industry vital to the U.S. and its allies and to relay intelligence on enemy military and espionage activity along the coasts. In the Sixth Naval District, headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, the program relied on shrimp boat captains who volunteered to be confidential observers. Those deemed loyal were indoctrinated, equipped with confidential grid charts and the means and procedures to communicate with case officers, and assigned code names to protect their identity as they fished the Atlantic. Although aspects of this secret domestic counterintelligence program were inherently flawed and provided limited intelligence, it reveals how ONI recruited Americans to engage in domestic spying and provide early warning without devolving into vigilantism.