Narratives of Attacks on US



Narratives of Attacks on US

U-boat attacks on ships of the North Carolina coast during WWII

The East Coast of United States went through tremendous amount of activity, in 1942 during the World War II. This was the time when up and down the coastline; German U-boats were spotted. However, the outer banks remained the most active areas (OBX History, 2006). The residents of North Carolina were far closer to war in the starting months of 1942, as compared to the overseas troops. The details of this event are narrated below:

Fifteen-year-old Gibb Gray was a resident of Outer Banks village of Avon in 1948. It was the morning of January 19, 1942 when he felt an earthquake-like rumble (Duffus, 2008). All the glasses and knickknacks rattled, furniture shook, and books fell from shelves. Gibb's father went near to the window, under surprise and had a look toward the ocean from the east of house. The fire on the horizon, outside was clearly visible to him. The night sky was further darkened by a towering column of black smoke.

The reason behind the fire was a German U-boat which torpedoed the City of Atlanta, the 337-foot-long U.S. freighter, only 7 miles away from the village Avon (Duffus, 2008). The word U-boat is an abbreviation of unterseeboot, which means undersea boat or submarine. However, the U-boats were not true submarines, as they were mostly used as warships and spent their most of the time on the water surfaces. These ships could submerge only for short periods, serving the purpose of enemy detection or fighting against bad weather. As a result of U-boat attack that night, the ship was sunk and all the 47 men onboard were killed. Few hours later, the same U-boat attacked two more ships. On America's East Coast and North Carolina's beaches, the hostilities of the Second World War had arrived in less than six weeks time after Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. German U-boats had the previous history of coming to United Stated water during the World War I; when ten ships sank by the U-boats. The threat of U-boats for US ships had increased significantly by 1942 because by that time, these boats had become more deadly, bigger and faster. The presence of these boats in US waters during World War II was clearly for helping the Germans.

Right after few hours of Avon U-boat attacks, on all the beaches, Oil and Debris began washing. The scene was repeated continuously. Along the Gulf of Mexico and East Coast 65 more German U-boats attacked British and American merchant ships during the period of next 6 months. These attacks posed a serious risk to the country's economy as most of these ships carried vital ingredients including raw vegetables, citrus products, gasoline and oil, aluminum for aircraft construction, cotton for clothing and rubber for tires (Duffus, 2008). More than 5000 people had been killed as a result of damage or sinking of 397 ships by July ...