In 1917 and 1918 Germany made her first attempt to wage long range submarine warfare against the faraway shores of the US, Canada, and West Africa. In that deadly last chapter of the Great War the Germans sent giant submarines to prey upon Allied shipping far distant from the main naval war zones around Europe in a desperate gamble to save the faltering unrestricted U-boat war. This is the first time the whole story has been told from the perspective of Imperial Germany in the English language. The U-156’s experiences in this barely known saga of World War I epitomize the whole campaign.
The U-156 raided commerce, transported captured cargo, and terrorized coastal populations from Madeira to Cape Cod. On 19 July 1918, the USS San Diego was headed into New York harbor when an explosion occurred and the ship quickly sank close to the Long Island coast. The attack was the opening salvo in a series of record-breaking firsts undertaken by the U-156 against the US and Canada. Over a month later, after waging a humane but unrelenting war just off North America, the crew of the U-156 sailed toward home and into history.