Orleans, and Nauset Beach (pictured above) in particular, don't really scream "battleground" at you. However, 100 years ago today, that's exactly what it was.
World War I wasn't a lot of fun for anybody, aside from people who look at the French countryside and say "You know what this needs? Trenches, bomb craters and barbed wire. " Millions died, economies were ruined and it all worked out well enough that we got Hitler, the Holocaust and Hiroshima within 30 years.
One of the few good points, at least to an American, is that it took place Over There. Verdun and la Somme are in France. There is also an Orleans in France. Orleans was the battleground that made Joan of Arc famous, and was a prominent enough battle that one has to add to their Google search before the computer even thinks of giving back Battle of Orleans answers with Cape Cod in them.
America was neutral for much of the war, trying to trade with both sides. Germany, eager to trade with America but blockaded by the English, designed submarines with large storage capacities. Once we chose a side in the war, Germany used those storage areas for storing extra fuel, allowing the subs to stay at sea much longer. Many aimed towards America to hunt merchant ships.
One of those subs, U-156, rose out of the sea off of Cape Cod on July 21, 1918. Three miles off of Nauset Beach, the Huns spied the tugboat Perth Amboy and the 4 barges she was towing to Chesapeake Bay.
The Germs fired torpedoes at the tugboat, then started shelling the wooden barges.
The American vessels were unarmed and helpless. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, except that fish would be underwater and harder to hit. Each barge and the tug were hit and heavily damaged.
A crowd of nearly 1000 watched from the beach as the barges sank and the tug was under heavy distress. One boy ran to the end of a pier and defiantly waved an American flag at the Krauts. Another boy, rescued from a barge, got hold of a flag and waved it at the future Nazis as the lifesavers took him to shore. It may have been the same kid.
Life-saving station #40 went into action, rowing out to save the sailors. The Germans fired on the surfmen, who were more used to nor'easter surf than artillery. They rescued everyone, and got back to shore safely. They saved all 32 men on the vessels.
Either by bad aim, a desire to destroy a lighthouse or the trans-Atlantic cable station ( many people believe that the cable station was the real object of the attack, and that the barges and Tugboat just were in the wrong place at the wrong time), or just wishing to scare the Yanks, U-156 then began to fire upon Nauset Beach. Three mIles proved to be a bit far for them, as they hit nothing other than beach and marsh.
There was an airbase in Chatham, and they sent bombers after Das Boot. The bombs they had were duds, so they didn't get to sink any Huns. The sub, not knowing if all the bombs were duds, slunk back under the sea and got ghost. One airman, Captain Eaton, was so mad about the dud bombs that he threw a wrench at the sub as she fled.
The battle, more of a raid, was a victory for the Germans. They sank 4 barges, damaged the tugboat, scared the citizens and got away without a scratch. The whole affair lasted 90 minutes.
It was historic in many ways. It was the only attack on American soil in WWI. It was the first attack on American soil since the War of 1812, depending on how you score Pancho Villa or the Confederate army. I may be wrong, but I believe it was the first use of bombers on an enemy vessel in the western Atlantic. A doctor called the Boston Globe and did play-by-play as the battle went down, thus becoming the first live-blogger in history.
All of the barges were lost, but the Perth Amboy survived. It was later Lend-Leased to the Brits, who used it to evacuate Dunkirk.
She outlasted U-156. The sub sank many more ships, but she zigged when she should have zigged while negotiating a minefield off of Norway and that was all she wrote for that particular bunch of future Nazis. They were Sour Krauts anyhow, and I waste little pity on them.
So, if you go to Nauset Beach today, have a good look at the sea and remember the day that World War I came to Cape Cod.
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