OPERATION DRUMBEAT

U.S. Navy officials knew something else was coming. British intelligence on Jan. 12 warned U.S. Navy headquarters that a group of U-boats was headed to Newfoundland and another to the American coast between Portland, Maine, and New York. The attacks would begin on Jan. 13, 1942.

Adm. Karl Donitz, mastermind of the U-boat attacks.

Admiral Karl Donitz, the capable commander of Hitler’s U-boat fleet, began planning the U-boat attacks as soon as Germany declared war on the United States in December 1941. He called it Operation Paukenschlag, or Drumbeat.

Donitz thought the U.S. military was ill-prepared and unequipped to fight the well-trained U-boat fleet. He was right.

On the evening of Jan. 11, 1942, Reinhardt Hardegen, the audacious captain of U-boat 123, jumped the gun. He spotted the big British freighter Cyclops, carrying Chinese sailors and cargo to the British Isles, 300 miles east of Cape Cod in Canadian waters. U-123 sent a torpedo into the Cyclops that cut her in two.

FIRST SINKING

The Cyclops lost 87 passengers and crew. The 95 survivors spent 20 hours enduring cold and wind in lifeboats before they were picked up. Two days later, the Navy made a cryptic announcement: An unidentified merchant ship had sunk off Canada.

Hardegen headed south, toward the Rhode Island Sound. He didn’t have good charts, but that didn't matter. The Montauk Point lighthouse beamed a helpful navigational aid.

Shortly after midnight on Jan. 14, Hardegan’s lookout spotted the Nornesssilhouetted against the brightly lit coast. The huge tanker carried 12,200 tons of crude oil from New Jersey to Liverpool.

U-123 sunk the Norness with three torpedoes. Hours after the Norness sank, a blimp spotted the hull sticking out of the shallow water. Several hours later, 39 survivors in lifeboats were taken to Newport, R.I.

By the early morning of Jan. 15, U-123 approached New York Harbor. From the bridge, Hardegan could see the lights of Manhattan skyscrapers. “I cannot describe the feeling in words,” he said “but it was unbelievable and beautiful and great. . . We were the first to be here, and for the first time in this war a German soldier looked out on the coast of the USA.”

TIGHT LIPS

Later that night, U-123’s lookout saw the bright lights of the Coimbra bearing down on the submarine. The British tanker, like the Norness, transported oil to Britain. She made an easy target against the brightly lit coast. U-123 torpedoed the tanker, and within minutes the explosion sent a fireball 650 feet into the sky.

Thirty-six crewmen were killed; six survived. People in the Hamptons called to report the fire 27 miles away. The U.S. military did not respond. No airplane, no Coast Guard cutter, nothing. Hardegen didn’t even bother to submerge the U-boat.

Throughout Operation Drumbeat, the military said as little as possible about the U-boat attacks along the East Coast. Only if the enemy knew of sinkings, or if they were witnessed by people along the coast would the Navy disclose successful U-boat attacks.

On Jan. 23, an unnamed Navy spokesman told the press the U.S. had sunk some of the U-boats. It was a lie.

HEMORRHAGE

In the first three weeks of January, U-123 would destroy eight ships and damage a ninth. During that time the nine German U-boats in the Atlantic destroyed 35 Allied merchant ships and a British destroyer and killed 1,219 crew and passengers.

In February, the killing continued. Sixteen U-boats destroyed 34 more Allied merchant ships and a warship between Nova Scotia and Venezuela and 15 more vessels, mostly oil tankers, in the Caribbean. The cargo ship Dixie Sword sank on Feb. 12, 1942 near Monomoy Island off Cape Cod.

The United States fired nary a shot in their defense.

But by then, the U.S. military began to take some defensive measures against the U-boat attacks. Mine fields were laid in the harbors and mobile artillery was positioned to protect the harbors. Shore craft and planes were ordered to be ready for combat.  It was something, at least.

In March, the U-boats attacked 48 ships, and almost all sank. They were easy prey as the U-boats could spot them easily against the lighted cars, buildings, streetlights and billboards along the coast. Ships continued to operate with all their lights on.

The U-boat attacks were destroying ships faster than the British and Americans could replace them.

CONVOY

The British Royal Admiralty, exasperated with U.S. incompetence, sent a commander to Washington to plead with naval officials to start a system of convoys. The British had learned from experience that the most effective tactic against U-boat attacks was to escort groups of merchant ships with warships, luring the submarines into a battle they would probably lose.

Finally, on March 26, the U.S. Navy responded to a U-boat attack. U-71 torpedoed the tanker Dixie Arrow and stayed around to watch it burn. The USS Tarbell dropped depth charges, but the U-71 escaped and the Tarbell picked up the survivors.

It wasn’t until the night of April 13-14 that the first U-boat was sunk. The destroyer USS Roper used its new radar technology to detect U-85 off the North Carolina coast. The Roper sunk the submarine and then dropped depth charges for good measure.

FINALLY, A PLAN

By April, the U.S. finally had a plan and a fleet of 65 antisubmarine vessels. At the end of the month, all tankers were ordered into port. No tankers hauled oil around the Atlantic Ocean until the they had escorts. From then on, most merchant ships traveled in escorted mini-convoys known as bucket brigades along the coast. At night, merchant ships put into sheltered harbors.

Flying Minutemen exercising at Civilian Air Patrol Base # 20 in Trenton, Maine.

The Civil Air Patrol, one-fifth of which were women, began sorties. Pilots in small, privately owned aircraft patrolled the coast from bases stretching from Trenton, Maine, to Lantana, Fla.

Though they weren’t effective at sinking U-boats, the little planes prevented attacks. The U-boats were under orders to submerge at the sight of an aircraft.  From March 5, 1942 to August 31, 1943, the Coastal Patrol flew 86,865 missions, sighted 173 U-boats, reported 91 ships in distress and 17 floating mines and rescued 363 survivors of U-boat attacks. Ninety planes were lost on those missions, and 26 people died.

HOOLIGAN NAVY

Less effective than the ‘Flying Minutemen’ was the auxiliary patrol comprised of luxury yachts and small fishing boats known as the Hooligan Navy. Some, including Ernest Hemingway, volunteered. Some were requisitioned.

The Hooligan Navy didn't sink any U-boats. The crew of one cabin cruiser was shocked to see a U-boat coming at them off the Florida coast.  A German crewman yelled at them, “Get the hell out of here, you guys! Do you want to get hurt? Now scram.”

The Hooligan Navy, however, did rescue hundreds of survivors of vessels sunk by U-boat attacks.

By the second half of April, Allied shipping losses fell by half. On April 17, a Coast Guard cutter sank U-175 with depth charges while escorting a convoy south of Iceland. On May 9, another Coast Guard vessel sunk U-352 in the North Atlantic.

In May and June, there were only 87 U-boat attacks on U.S. shipping. By July and August, the government finally ordered the coast blacked out, and U-boat attacks fell to 26 on the East Coast.

Military air defenses were getting stronger, and on July 7 the first Army Air Corps bomber sank U-701 with two bombs.

On July 19, German Admiral Donitz ordered the U-boats redeployed. Operation Drumbeat was over.

U-BOAT ATTACKS: EPILOGUE

The U-boat attacks didn’t end completely. The submarines moved to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, attacking fuel tankers and freighters.

On April 16, 1944, U-550 was sunk by USS Joyce off Nantucket.

U.S. sailors firing after a U-boat attack during the Battle of Point Judith.

The last U-boat was sunk in American waters during the Battle of Point Judithoff the Rhode Island coast. U-853 sank a collier ship on May 5, days before Nazi Germany surrendered. The U-boat was sunk that evening by four warships, Coast Guard cutters, a destroyer, frigates and two blimps.

During the week of May 15, 1945, the sensational surrender of four Nazi U-boats at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard was witnessed by thousands. (Read the story here.)

Operation Drumbeat was a little-known victory for Germany. Not just in battle, but on the home front. The Northeast, which got 95 percent of its oil from the Gulf of Mexico, was starved of fuel through 1943 as a result of U-boat attacks in 1942. The fuel shortages slowed wartime production and forced gasoline rationing, one of the most unpopular restrictions of the war.

With thanks to The Burning Shore by Ed Offley. This story was updated in 2018. 

A lot of the attacks and sinking were around the Cape Hateras (North Carolina) area.  The subs were also roaming freely off the coasts of Canada's maritimes Provinces and even ventured up the St. Lawerence River. One bold German U boat crew came ashore for the evening in one of the fishing villages on the coast of Nova Scotia and attended a movie show before returning to their sub. When some of the sub crew were later captured one member still was carrying the ticket stubs for the movie on him. 

They had later bragged about having dinner first with some of the locals before the movie. ( It may have been with German relatives living in the area)

I think Admiral King deserves a mention here.

I think Admiral King deserves a mention here. Was it he that they send over to talk to the Americans about using convoys?

Admiral King was the Brit hater who refused to take any advice from those who knew how totackle this, because they were British. His hatred of Britain cost the USA thousands of lives and how many ships agin?