Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, volume 5 [Extract: letter U]

              U-BOATS   449
U-190 being brought to St. John's, after surrender at Bay Bulls
U-BOATS. The appearance of the German submarine, commonly called a U-boat {Unterseeboot), as a naval weapon in the North Atlantic during World War I and World War II had not only military but also psycho¬ logical and social ramifications for Newfoundland. Militarily, Newfoundland's exposed mid-Atlantic lo¬ cation, its traditional lack of defences, and its strategic significance for the Allied war effort made it vulnera¬ ble to U-boat raids. Psychologically, the U-boat sym¬ bolized the ubiquity, surreptitiousness and immorality ofthe enemy and enemy agents. It nurtured persistent rumours of spying, sabotage and landings. By fuelling the spy fever, the U-boat scare also had social conse¬ quences; it induced in local society the stigmatization, arrest and expulsion of a range of innocent suspects.
Long declassified government records reveal that in neither world war did U-boats intend to attack New¬ foundland or to invade any part of the Island. Their objective in 1917-18 and in 1941-44 was to break Britain's maritime blockade of Germany and to para¬ lyze the Allied war effort by sinking merchant vessels to prevent supplies from reaching the British Isles. Since the Allied supply routes and convoys from Can¬ ada and the United States passed by the Newfoundland Banks, Newfoundland witnessed some U-boat activity off its shores, and there were some losses of New¬ foundland vessels and lives.
In World War I, initial limits in range and underwa¬ ter endurance kept U-boats from staging attacks in the western North Atlantic until 1917. The only long- range U-boats capable of reaching North America by 1918 were Germany's six submarine freighters, refit¬ ted in 1917 for combat use. With their limited speed and uncertain diving performance, these lightly-built U-cruisers were difficult to manoeuvre and hence un¬ suited to operations in shallow waters, against con¬ voys or in areas near an even moderately patrolled coast. The first combat U-boat to pass through the Newfoundland Banks on a friendly visit to the neutral
United States was U-53 in October 1916. (On its re¬ turn trip it sank five Allied vessels near Nantucket after their crews had abandoned ship, including the Newfoundland sealing vessel Stephano qv, with the tacit approval of American warships).
U-boat warfare did not come to Newfoundland wa¬ ters until August 1918 when two refitted U-cruisers (U-117 and U-156) staged raids against small vessels on and near the Grand Banks. On August 20, 1918, U-156 captured the Canadian steam trawler Triumph some 30 miles south-southeast of Cape Canso, Nova Scotia, and then sent its crew ashore, armed and manned the trawler and used it as a decoy to capture 23 small vessels. These vessels were sunk after their crews were ordered to abandon ship. Before heading home, U-156 sank two more vessels, including the Newfoundland-chartered SS Eric 70 miles west and south of St. Pierre. U-117, after scuttling nine Amer¬ ican schooners on Georges Bank, sank two Canadian schooners some 140 miles southeast of Cape Spear on August 30, 1918. Their crews, the German war diary notes, turned out to be German-speaking fishermen from Nova Scotia. In most cases the U-boat crews were doing their best to avoid loss of life and, as the St. John's Evening Telegram (Sept. 2, 1918) acknowl¬ edged with regard to the Eric, gave the schoonermen "the very best and kindest treatment" before being cast adrift.
From the beginning of World War I, the news ofthe U-boat warfare around the British Isles inspired appre¬ hensions in Newfoundland that Germans might use a sheltered bay as a refuelling station and a base to inter¬ cept transatlantic commerce. The U-boat scare was fu¬ elled both by the entry ofthe United States into the war in April 1917 and by Canadian apprehensions that a victorious Germany could take possession ofNewfound¬ land. The Newfoundland government tightened press censorship and alerted officials as well as the public to watch the coastline for anything suspicious. The