DescriptionThe Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and an Epic Hunt for Justice. By Chad Millman. NY & Boston: Little, Brown & Co., [2006.] First edition. 8vo hardcover, dustjacket. pp. xviii, 330, photos. Includes source notes, bibliography and index. Relates early German espionage and sabotage in the United States prior to its entry into World War I and is mainly the story of the Black Tom explosion on July 30, 1916. While the docks where the destruction took place were in Jersey City (near Ellis Island), it impacted on Hoboken. Also a person who was among the important German bombmakers, Walter Scheele, was based in Hoboken. It covers in great detail the event and the aftermath which went on for several years. Also on pages 4-5, Millman relates that the German crews were forced to stay aboard their vessels that were interned in Hoboken after the start of the war were very crowded and supplies ran low. "By the fall of 1914, it was common for German naval officers and merchant marines setting sail from Germany to shout, "I'm going to heaven, hell, or Hoboken."' This appears to be an earlier use of the phrase "heaven, hell or Hoboken" than the one usually attributed to General John J. Pershing in September of 1918. Millman's source notes attributes the German origin of this phrase to information in an interview with Norman Brouwer on March 3, 2003 [Brouwer was then the Curator at the South Street Seaport Museum, N.Y.] 8vo hardcover