Over the course of the First World War a number of nation technologies like airplanes,
or radio developed to the point that they were much more mature technologies that would then
go on to transform the world. And one of those technologies that developed during the war was
the technology of submarines. While military submarines had been developing rapidly over
the course of the 19th century, they really only became a practical tool of warfare in
the Great War. On September 5th 1914, the Imperial German Navy submarine U-21 sank
the British Scout Cruiser HMS Pathfinder, and became the first submarine in history
to sink another ship using a torpedo that was self-propelled. And the German U-boats
would go on to sink more than 5,000 ships over the course of the war. By the end of the war,
German U-boats were able to operate off the coast of America, which itself represented a significant
development in the technology over what submarines have been able to do even at the beginning of the
war in 1914. And resulted in a little remembered event, where the Imperial German Navy was able
to attack the shores of America itself. It is history that deserves to be remembered.
In July of 1916, a notable event occurred. The German submarine Deutschland arrived in Baltimore.
The Deutschland was an interesting novelty, it was a merchant submarine. While submarines, which
had seen limited practical use before the First World War were primarily known as weapons of war,
the Deutschland was instead a non militarized response to war. While the US still remained
neutral as the Great War raged in Europe, a blockade by the powerful British Royal Navy
had essentially cut off trade between the United States, and the Central Powers. The Deutschland,
with the length of 315 feet, and a cargo capacity of 350 tons, was the largest submarine ever built.
But unarmed, lacking both torpedo tubes, or a deck gun. In fact, the US Coast Guard was
allowed to inspect the boat for weapons to ensure that it met the definition of a merchant vessel,
under the Rules of Neutrality. The Deutschland was a blockade runner. The submarine was used
to evade the British blockade, and in this case, trading chemicals used for industrial
dyes. Something at which Germany excelled, and which had been in short supply in the US since
the beginning of the British blockade in 1914. And while crowds in Baltimore greeted the visit
of the Deutschland, whose successful journey was indeed remarkable, enthusiastically, the visit
to the United States by the world's largest submarine was an action steeped in politics.
The British and French had objected to the US allowing the Deutschland’s
trip. Arguing that submarines were by nature, weapons of war, but the US had rejected that
claim. British and French warships waited just outside American territorial waters,
hoping to sink the blockade runner the moment it left the protection of American neutrality.
While the sympathy of the US public largely favored the Allied powers in the war,
there was a large population of German Americans in Baltimore. And the choice of Baltimore Harbor
by the Deutschland was clearly intended to remind the administration of Woodrow Wilson that support
for the British and French side in the war was far from universal in the United States. Moreover,
the overwhelming attitude was one of maintaining American neutrality. Wilson was in fact running
for re-election on a campaign that touted, “He has kept us out of war.” The Deutschland was intended
as evidence to support the case that America could continue to remain neutral, as Germany hoped to
forestall the US entry into a war, in which they saw their opponents near exhaustion and collapse.
Its voyage also offered hope to the Germans back home suffering under the British blockade. But
finally, and maybe most importantly, the voyage of the Deutschland was a warning. Germany had
responded to the British blockade with submarine warfare. If the US did decide to enter the war,
the voyage of the Deutsche Line was intended as a message to President Wilson, and the American
public, that Germany could bring their submarine war directly to America's shores. On August 1st
the Deutschland departed, submerging and escaping the British and French blockade. The Deutschland
arrived in the German port of Bremerhaven laden with supplies. Nickel, tin, crude rubber critical
to the war effort. In Germany, the message was one of hope. In America, the message was one of,
stay out of the war. The Deutschland repeated the feat in November, carrying cargo to the port of
New London Connecticut. But the Imperial Navy sent an even more direct message,
as the U-53 of the German Imperial Navy appeared in Newport Rhode Island, making a courtesy visit
to the US Navy officials there. After the brief stop that was allowed by the Rules of Neutrality,
the SMU-53 left American waters, and commenced war operations. Sinking vessels carrying contraband,
or flagged by nations at war with Germany, within sight of America's shores. American naval vessels
rescued the crews of the vessels, but had no legal right to interfere with the U-53's attacks. But of
course if the goal was to keep America out of the war, the effort ultimately failed. There
are many reasons that US public opinion shifted, and the US chose to enter the war, but none more
than the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. In January of 1917, the German Empire,
trying to starve Britain as effectively as the British blockade had starved the central powers,
declared that they would sink any ship in the war zone, even if they were from a neutral country.
Regardless of whether they carried contraband, and without warning. The sinking of American merchant
ships under these rules changed public opinion, and on April 6th 1917, the US declared war.
There is some indication that the German High Command actually expected that resuming
unrestricted submarine warfare would draw the United States into the war,
but they saw that as being nearly inevitable at that point, and they
thought that they could actually win the war with their submarines.
At the time that war was declared there were three merchant submarines of the Deutschland
design afloat. A fourth had been sunk by the British, and four more under construction.
With the US in the war there was no longer a need for an unarmed blockade runner,
so the submarines were pressed into the Imperial German Navy as the type U-151 long-range
submarine. They were outfitted with four torpedo tubes, and two 15 centimeter SKL 45 deck guns,
and numbered U-151 through U-157. The class, with a cruising range of some 25,000 nautical miles,
was successful. The Deutschland, renamed the U-155 made three war cruises, and sank 44 ships.
But her sister ship, the U-156 would become a unique piece of history.
The U-156 set sail on June 14th 1918, with a crew of 78 under the command of Captain
Richard Feldt. The submarine was sent to patrol and attack shipping along the US East Coast,
and caused schrecklichkeit, or roughly chaos. The boat passed through the North Sea,
and the northern passage, around the north of England. The submarine sank one British,
and two Norwegian ships along the way. The submarine laid a minefield in the shipping lanes
off the south side of New York's Long Island. The US Navy armored Cruiser, USS San Diego,
apparently struck a mine on June 18th of that year and capsized, with the loss of 6 crew. It was the
only major warship lost by the United States in World War 1. The mine was thought to have been
one of those laid by the U-156. The U-156 then headed south with the goal of wreaking havoc on
the US and Canadian fishing fleet in the western Atlantic. On July 21st, the submarine was off the
coast of Cape Cod Massachusetts, and the tiny fishing town of Orleans. Being along an exposed
section of coast, Orleans had already been a target in war, having repelled and attacked by
British Marines in 1814, during the War of 1812. 104 years later war was again coming to the town.
At 10:30 a.m. the tugboat Perth Amboy was hauling four barges along the coast to the Chesapeake Bay,
completely unaware that a German U-boat was nearby. The U-156 opened fire with its deck
guns on the tug and barges which had all told, sixteen men, twelve women, and four children
aboard. The captain of the tug, James Tapley, raised a white flag hoping to prevent firing,
but it was the submarine's job to sink shipping. Three of the barges went down quickly, but the tug
and forth barge refused to go down. The submarine was firing rapidly, eventually more than 150
shells. By now the attack was attracting a crowd of locals who contacted the local station of the
US life-saving service. Under fire, the service launched a boat to rescue the crew of the tugboat.
The station commander, Robert Pierce, contacted Chatham Naval Air Station less than 10 miles away,
where officers could already hear the firing. The Navy dispatched a seaplane, a Curtiss HS-1.
The crew of the U-156 was so intense shooting, that they didn't notice the plane until it was
almost on them. The plane managed to strike the submarine with its hundred pound bomb, but
it didn't explode…a dud. A second plane, an R9C plane, arrived and attacked again. A second bomb
failed to explode. The pilot was so frustrated that he threw a wrench at the submarine. The
U-156, concerned that the planes would make a more coordinated attack, finally retreated,
and submerged. The four barges and their cargos were lost, but the tug survived and was repaired
to return to service, eventually serving in the second world war. While there were some injuries,
there were no fatalities among those aboard the tug and barges. Some shells had gone long,
landing along the beach and marshes. They had caused no casualties, but they represented the
only Central Powers attack on the contiguous United States during the first World War. And
the first time a foreign power had shelled the United States since the siege of Fort
Texas during the opening stages of the war with Mexico in 1846. The event was dubbed,
the Battle of Orleans. There was speculation that the target may actually have been the station for
a Transatlantic Cable that went from Orleans to Brest France. The tug and barges had either been
a target of opportunity, or had simply stumbled into the line of fire. Having wreaked havoc,
and created some panic along the coast, the U-156 then swung north and attacked the American
and Canadian fishing fleet. Sinking more than two dozen fishing trawlers at barks. They seized one,
the Canadian steam trawler Triumph, and placed 16 members of the U-boats crew on board. She
acted as a surface raider, sinking another half dozen fishing boats, before the ship
became too well known, and they abandoned and sunk her. The U-156 sunk so many boats
that the fishing captains refused to go to sea, essentially shutting down the western Atlantic
banks fishing fleet. They sunk another half dozen boats in August. In all accounting for 34 vessels,
for a total of 33,582 gross tons. Running out of munitions, and with her batteries running low,
the U-boat then evaded the American and Canadian warships pursuing it, and headed for home.
But the boat's luck ran out. That summer the US Navy had been laying a massive minefield, north
of Britain's Orkney Islands, called the North Sea Mine Barrage. The U-156 had radioed as it
reached the barrage, indicating the route it had planned to take, but the message was intercepted,
and the British had sent a submarine of their own to intercept them. The U-156 had managed
to avoid the trap, but it submerged to do so. In traversing the minefield submerged,
she had apparently struck a mine. The U-156 never made it home. A presumed victim of the minefield.
Submarines transformed the nature of warfare during the Great War, and offered a challenge
that navies found difficult to counter. The Imperial German Navy's 340 U-boats
tied up thousands of Allied military vessels and airplanes, and still managed to sink thousands of
Allied merchant ships, and significantly disrupt commerce and supply between the United States
and Great Britain, for a loss of a hundred and seventy eight U-boats. The guns of the
U-156 didn't do a lot of damage to the state of Massachusetts, but its voyage did a lot of
economic damage to the United States and Canada and transformed Americans' perceptions of the
war. And that was just a small taste of what we would see with the U-boat attacks that would come
during the Second World War. The voyage of the U-156 is history that deserves to be remembered.
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