This Cape Cod Town Was Shelled By Germany During WWI

Were you aware that Germany attacked Cape Cod during World War I?

It happened on July 21, 1918, in Orleans, some 65.2 miles east of New Bedford. The attack, involving a German U-boat, was the first on the US mainland since the War of 1812 and the only attack on US soil during World War I.

The National Park Service (NPS) says, "During the attack, some of the shells fired from the submarine landed on Nauset Beach."

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Boston.com says, "A lone German U-boat attacked just off the coast of Orleans, raiding a tugboat and its four barges – and even incidentally shelling the beach where eyewitnesses gathered in awe."

Author Jake Klim tells the story in his book, Attack on Orleans: The World War I Submarine Raid on Cape Cod.

Klim writes, "On the morning of July 21, 1918--in the final year of the First World War--a new prototype of German submarine surfaced three miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts."

"On land, lifesavers from the US Coast Guard launched a surfboat under heavy enemy fire to save the sailors trapped aboard the tug and barges. In the air, seaplanes from the Chatham Naval Air Station dive-bombed the enemy raider with payloads of TNT."

Klim says the Germans attempted to incite fear and anti-war sentiment along the Eastern Seaboard. Boston.com says the German U-boat "had already sunk one 500-foot US Navy ship off Long Island before reaching Cape Cod."

The German U-boat sank three barges off Orleans that day, and German gunfire injured several US sailors. Despite the barrage from the air, US forces could only chase the sub away.

The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, nearly three years after World War I started. A ceasefire and armistice was declared on November 11, 1918.