Massive 1940 Hercules Explosion - an Act of Domestic Terrorism?

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

On September 12, 1940, twenty-five tons of freshly manufactured gunpowder exploded at the Hercules Powder Plant in Kenvil, N.J., leaving a 13-foot-deep crater in the ground. It generated a shock wave felt 90 miles away and leveled nearly one thousand acres of the plant. Fifty-two workers were killed in the blast, and several hundred more were injured. Victims were laid out on the lawn of Dover General Hospital because there were too many to fit inside.

 

The FBI, under Herbert Hoover, was in charge of the investigation. There were local rumors that the explosion was the work of German undercover agents. One contemporary news article reported that the FBI was already investigating these rumors when Hercules blew up. That account said that the FBI already collected information on everyone who worked at the plant before the blast. The article then mentioned that there was a large pro-Nazi, German-American Bund organization operating out of Camp Nordland in Andover, New Jersey. This was true, but was there a connection?



Early into the investigation after the explosion, the FBI informed the press that the explosion was most like the result of an industrial accident. Most newspapers didn’t mention that the FBI already had an open investigation into an alleged plot to blow the Hercules plant. Rumors of German American sabotage remained just that… rumors.

Exactly two months after the huge Hercules explosion, three smaller U.S. military-industrial plants were blown up within twenty minutes of each other. One was in New Jersey and two in Pennsylvania. These plants manufactured torpedoes, signal flares, and ammunition. Sixteen more workers were killed in these apparent attacks.

This did not appear to be a coincidence. The whiff of sabotage now seemed unmistakable. Today, we know that America was under attack, but who was responsible for killing 68 workers at four of our military manufacturing plants? Where are the FBI’s findings? Why was no one brought to justice for these murders?

A fog settled over these questions leaving a memory gap for everyone who lived through it. To this day, if you ask area residents what caused the Hercules explosion, they echo the same response as those who lived through it eighty years ago… It was either an industrial accident or German sabotage. Even as recently as 2015, Roxbury Township, New Jersey, posted a tribute to those who died in the Hercules blast and gave a description of the event. It concludes:

“Still unanswered is the real cause of the fatal 1940 explosion: Industrial Accident or Nazi Spies?”

But, a fresh review of the evidence points to domestic terror as the most likely cause. This makes the Hercules explosion the seventh deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history. If you search the internet for U.S. domestic terrorist attacks, however, you won’t find Hercules on that list. The fascist extremists who carried out this attack were never publicly identified or brought to justice.

Rachael Maddow reported new details and took a fresh look at the Hercules explosion in Episode 3 of her podcast, Ultra. Her review points convincingly to a terrorist attack by American fascist extremists. The chain of evidence pointing to a domestic attack at Hercules begins in Los Angeles, California, and runs through the United States Congress. Among the principal suspect organizations that planned the attack is the German American Bund in California. 

The German American Bund was originally founded in Buffalo, New York. It was led by Fritz Julius Kuhn. Another suspect organization was the Silver Legion founded by William D. Pelley in Ashland, North Carolina. Both these groups openly aspired to take over the United States government before the United States entered World War II. Both organizations had active branches in California and New Jersey. 

Los Angeles was a hotbed of antisemitic propaganda and pro-Nazi paramilitary groups in the 1930s. These right-wing groups shared a cluster of ideas, values, and actions with the Klu Klux Klan, enough so that political resistance to investigating the Klan helped shield pro-Nazi groups as well. Like the Klan, pro-Nazi groups considered themselves to be true American Patriots as they actively recruited conscripts, raised funds, purchased weapons, trained militia members, and organized military-style marches and demonstrations in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and many other towns and cities across the country. They held large rallies to indoctrinate the public. They coordinated with pro-Nazi organizations in other states to create a large national network determined to overthrow American democracy. 

While they denied it at the time, it was later shown that these right-wing pro-Nazi groups secretly took instructions and money from Hitler’s Germany. By the late 1930s, their violent rhetoric and extreme anti-semitic propaganda became so strident that it alarmed many ordinary citizens.

Leon Lewis was a World War 1 veteran active in the Disabled American Veterans organization. He was a resident of Los Angeles. In 1938 he became alarmed by the violent rhetoric and threats being made by the German American Bund and other pro-Nazi groups in the area. Seeing that law enforcement agencies were reluctant to investigate these groups, he set up his own private spy operation. He recruited four men from Disabled American Veterans and two of their wives to join fascist hate groups, gain the leader's trust, rise up the ranks, and report back to him every day about what these groups were doing. Lewis kept careful logs of what they saw and heard and accumulated detailed records of their plans and operations. It was through Lewis' spy operation that one of his private spies, Neil Ness, learned of plans to target Hercules Powder Company in Kenvil and several other munitions manufacturing plants for an attack.

A year earlier, Martin Dies, was a Democratic Congressman from Texas when he and Samuel Dickstein created the House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities, (HUAC). The Committee was initially called the Dies’ Committee, and Dies was its chairman. The committee was created to root out right-wing and left-wing subversives in the government and other organizations. The committee mainly targeted communist infiltrators and left-wing sympathizers, but also right-wing pro-Nazi organizations. Some members of the Committee were reluctant to investigate the "Klan". When the committee’s Chief Counsel announced that the Dies Committee would not be investigating any KKK activities he said, "The committee has decided that it lacks sufficient data on which to base a probe", to which the ranking Committee member John E. Rankin added: 

"After all, the KKK is an old American institution."

Lewis wrote to Congressman Dies about the trove of information he had collected on the activities of right-wing groups. In 1939, Martin Dies invited Leon Lewis to come to Washington D.C., to testify before his Committee. Lewis accepted the invitation and brought with him Neil Ness who had direct eyewitness information about the plot to sabotage the Hercules and other manufacturing plants.

In October of 1939, Neal Ness testified under oath before the HUAC in Congress. He detailed his involvement and high position in several German American and right-wing pro-Nazi groups in Los Angeles. He provided shocking testimony on how these groups were making plans to blow up military defense plants. He said specifically, “We talked about blowing up the Hercules Powder Plant.” These coordinated attacks were referred to as Der Tag. The phrase "Der Tag" (The Day) was a popular German toast to an imminent military engagement.

Ness’ testimony was so shocking the Committee found it hard to believe. Nevertheless, the Committee made a criminal referral to investigate the reported plot and sent the transcripts to the FBI.  Eleven months later Hercules blew up. 

After the explosion, Congressman Martin Dies, the Chairman of the HUAC, gave a statement to the press in which he said:

"Everyone laughed when a man named Ness testified before our committee a year ago about plans to blow up the Hercules Company. When the plant blew up, it happened the way he said it would.”

While the FBI managed to interrupt many death threats against Jews, Jewish organizations, and other targets of right-wing fascist extremists during this period, its eleven-month lead in the Hercules plot was not enough time to stop it. Nor did an additional two months of investigation foil the three additional attacks. Eighty-four years later there is still no vindication for the victims. We end up today with the same questions people asked from the start. Who was responsible for killing 68 workers at four of our military manufacturing plants? Where are the FBI’s findings? Why was no one brought to justice for these murders?

We have a few additional questions to ask ourselves today. Where did all the fascist extremists go after Pearl Harbor? They seem to have disappeared into the woodwork. What became of the children they were grooming in German American Bund camps to be their movement's future leaders? Is there a link between these fascist youth camps from the past and the dangerous parallels that exist today with this dark history?  Most critically, what lessons from the past can we apply to help understand and navigate the resurgence of fascist extremism today?