U-boats off the Atlantic Coast

And Hitler’s 8 U S Terrorists

Operation Drumbeat, in theory at least, was planned as early as 1897.  It seems that the nation of Germany was fascinated at the time with the challenge of attacking America, a land protected by no less than two oceans. Thus, in 1897, when Adolph Hitler was a lad of only eight years; German military planners first proposed an offensive naval operation against the East Coast of the United States.  Such ‘planning’ continued and by 1898, a more detailed concept or vision had been put together which focused primarily on a naval bombardment, preceded by landing troops on Long Island along the Bay of the Chesapeake.

Although planning for this military operation was on the ‘table’, so to speak, for several decades; Drumbeat was not initiated until 1942, shortly after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii which hurried along war being declared upon the United States by Germany, as it was quite clear by everyone (especially Germany) that the U S was assisting Britain in her war effort.

A little American WW II history regarding Hitler’s terrorists may be in order now: On June 13, 1942 just past midnight, German U-boat 202 crept closely to a beach near Long Island, NY.  Four German navy soldiers deployed a collapsible boat from the sub and quickly paddled onto America soil; they were, it turns out, part of a larger plan to place saboteurs / terrorists who spoke perfect English within the country.   In fact a few days later, on the evening of June 17 a second German sub (U-584) dropped off four (4) more sailors a bit south of Point Vedra Beach, Florida.

A young Coast Guardsman, named John C Cullen, stumbled-upon the first four men while on his early morning ‘watch’ on the beach, but they slipped quietly away when he departed the beach area in search of assistance as he was only armed with a single flash-light.

About a week later, one of the first 4 saboteurs, Georg Johann Dasch, who was a German national that had also been a US resident for several years as well as being married to a US citizen, turned his self in!   Fortunately for the American team, following multiple attempts at surrendering, he soon shared the secret information about the other three in his group, as well as the four that were dumped in Florida; all were captured within two weeks.

The attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent German declaration of war on the United States had an immediate effect on the over all Drumbeat campaign, especially for the United States and her Allies. German commanders promptly planned to attack Allied shipping off the American East Atlantic Coast.  But there were only 12 sub-marines in the German fleet that were capable of reaching U.S. waters; half of which had been diverted by Hitler to the Mediterranean. One of the remaining six was under repair, thus leaving only five boats for Operation Drumbeat; they were very effective.

Since the U.S. had no previous experience regarding modern naval warfare on its own shores, either by simple foolishness or ignorance a black-out was not deployed among the many costal cities. The results: U-boats simply ‘lay in wait’ off shore at night and knocked off U S ships silhouetted against city lights.  The American quick response was simple: Keep such events quite from the majority of the U S population; you see, it was said that such knowledge would only deflate the American will to fight; so surely the war would be lost if this little secret was not kept.

Just as you would not expect today, the government’s efforts in 1942 to keep the U-boat successes on the ‘QT’ were very effective indeed.  I would venture to guess that the majority of U. S. citizens have not a clue about how close the war actually was to American shores, much less having knowledge about saboteurs.

Before Operation Drumbeat was finally deemed to have been defeated, about 40 U-boats are believed to have participated in the program.   In the German view, I expect, hunting had been good through June of 1942 as more than 400 ships had been sunk and 2,000,000 tons of war material went to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean including 5,000 sailors.  Overall, Drumbeat was very cost effective for the Germans, only seven U-boats were lost; which poses the question: How would have the Allies faired if the Germans had not stopped?

Sources …                                                                 http://perrya.hubpages.com/hub/Operation-Drumbeat-Nazi-U-boats-Off-the-American-Coast--1942

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic_(1939%E2%80%931945) 

http://www.thepeoplenews.com/February10/page18.html