German U-boat brought WWI home to U.S.

ORLEANS, Mass. — Over 3,000 miles from the trenches and battlefields of the Western Front, where many hundreds of thousands had already died, residents of Orleans, Mass., were enjoying a typical summer morning on July 21, 1918, waiting for the fog to lift off the shore.

Then suddenly, a German U-156 submarine broke the surface and brought World War I home. Orleans became the only part of the United States to be shelled by the enemy. For a brief moment, “over there” had become “over here.”

Just after 10.30 a.m., the heavy thump of something hitting land signaled the first attack on American soil in 100 years.

“I don’t know if it was the first shot or the sound of my feet hitting the floor,” the late Ruben Hopkins, then a 22year-old guard at Orleans’ lifesaving station No. 40, said in a recording. “I was out of my bunk up there in seconds flat.”

To this day, it remains a mystery why such an advanced submarine would attack a target that had no real value. While instilling fear in the American public by attacking shipping was a tactic, going so close to shore seemed an undue risk. One theory is that the sub had hoped to cut the underwater communications cable that ran from Orleans to France.

A commemoration is planned for Saturday afternoon on Nauset Beach to mark the 100th anniversary.

The Perth Amboy tug, towing four barges, took a direct hit to the pilothouse. While no one was killed in the attack, two crew members were sent off to a Boston hospital badly injured.

Richard Feldt and his U-156 continued attacking ships running up through Canada and Newfoundland. However, just two months before the Nov. 11 Armistice, the sub failed to clear the Northern Barrage minefield between Britain and Norway. It was never heard from again.

Orleans Historical Society Survivors of a German submarine attack arrive in a lifeboat in Orleans, Mass., on July 21, 1918. The town was the only place on U.S. soil to receive enemy gunfire during World War I.