Beachcomber finds trove of 'Nazi rubber' at San Luis Pass

Reporter

GALVESTON

One man's trash is another man's treasure, at least for Christopher "Beachcomber" Davis, who may have found a large chunk of Nazi rubber on island shores.

Mounds of Nazi cargo from World War II have been washing up on Texas beaches in the past few months. Mustang Island State Park officials found stacks of raw rubber in piles of seaweed May 10.

Davis has been searching Galveston beaches for years in hope of finding one of the rubber bales, which are believed to have been part of the Nazi war effort, he said.

The rubber bales are believed to be from the SS Rio Grande, a German blockade runner that was sunk off the coast of Brazil in January 1944, according to Padre Island National Seashore.

The bales have been showing up on Texas shores since 2020 and in Brazil since 2018.

When Davis, an avid beachcomber, heard about the Mustang Island incident, he knew he had to be on high alert, he said. Davis told his friends who frequent the beach to also be on the lookout.

A West End resident, Davis was combing the beach near San Luis Pass when his dream came true, he said.

"I told myself that one of these days in the next several years we have to find one of these," Davis said. "And sure enough, just a couple days before Memorial Day, I found one sitting on the water's edge fully intact."

Davis called his friends to help him carry the wad, which he estimates weighed more than 150 pounds. It took four of his friends to lug the package to his car, he said.

"I told my wife I felt like a 10-year-old boy in a candy shop with a $20 bill and I could buy whatever I wanted. I had tears in my eyes because I was so overjoyed."

Davis said he wasn't so much happy about finding a Nazi artifact as about finding an historical item.

The find caused a stir and neighbors and friends took turns posing for photos atop "Hitler's trash," Davis said.

Davis and his friends cut the wad of Third-Reich rubber open in hope of finding gold or other of Hitler's treasure, which has been rumored to be hidden in the rubber bales, he said.

They tried cutting into the rubber bale with a knife. They made little progress. A neighbor eventually provided a saw.

Davis has been cutting cautiously, in case of striking gold.

"If there were any gold bars at the center of this, I didn't want to cut it," Davis said.

By Monday, the sawing had produced nothing but small cubes of opaque, amber rubber, which Davis has been giving to neighbors, he said.

"We didn't find anything. It smelled so bad, we got to a point where we decided to stop."

Davis would like to sell the Nazi rubber to a sandal maker, he said.

"You can buy a pair of shoes that won't last you a year," Davis said. "But this rubber is still spongy and pliable. It's 100 percent intact. We don't have that rubber today."

Davis has reached out to a Florida sandal manufacturer about the rubber, he said.

"I said, ‘Wouldn't this be cool to send this to them, cut it up and make at least 200 pairs of sandals?’" Davis said. "They would probably never fall apart, ever."

Companies have responded to his queries, but the cost of shipping 150 pounds of rubber across the nation would be too expensive, he said.

Davis told The Daily News he had tried contacting The Bryan Museum and the Galveston Naval Museum to have a historian look at the rubber bale, but was told Nazi rubber wasn't in their wheelhouse, he said.

The Bryan Museum focuses on the settlement of Texas, not World War II, said Kate Gray, collections manager of the museum.

Whether or not there's interest among sandal makers or museums, the rubber bale is important, Davis said.

It's a reminder of the brave men who served during World War II, he said.

"There was a bigger significance to me that we had found it during Memorial Day weekend," he said.

"The only reason we have this rubber bale is because they blew that ship up, and now we’re able to look at it."

José Mendiola: 409-683-5230 or [email protected]

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