What Sank San Diego?
THE ONLY SHOTS FIRED at U.S. soil during World War I landed near the small town of Orleans, Massachusetts, on the east coast of Cape Cod, on the morning of Sunday, July 21, 1918. The bombardment came from two massive guns mounted on the deck of German submarine U-156. More than 100 shells were aimed at the steel-hulled tugboat Perth Amboy and the barges she had in tow, as part of the German effort to sink as many ships in as little time as possible. The tug was badly damaged and the barges were sunk, but the shells that went long did no harm on land, falling into a marsh and onto Nauset Beach, a 10-mile stretch from Orleans to Chatham. To rescue the men, women, and children who had been on the tug and barges, Station No. 40 of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, a precursor of the Coast Guard, deployed an unarmed surfboat. To provide cover for the rescue and target the enemy vessel, U.S. Navy single-engine Curtiss HS-1L floatplanes, which patrolled for subs, were deployed from the recently established naval station in Chatham. Small, fast boats called submarine chasers stationed at New York Naval Base or moored at Gravesend Bay were summoned off patrol. All 32 people on board the tugs and barges were saved.
About 1,000 residents watched from the beach as one floatplane experienced engine trouble and had to return to the naval station. Another floatplane dive-bombed the submarine. On its first attempt, the bomb release failed, on the second, the bomb release made by Captain Phillip Eaton in his open-cockpit Curtiss R-9 seaplane was similarly unsuccessful—his bomb also failed to explode. Frustrated, he threw whatever he could lay his hands on, including a monkey wrench, other tools, and even his toolbox, out the plane windows at the sub. It likely didn’t matter—about 90 minutes after the attack on Orleans had begun, slipped quietly underwater and was gone.
