Attack on Orleans: The World War I Submarine Raid on Cape Cod

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. The vessel attacked an unarmed tugboat and its four barges. A handful of the shells fired by the U-boat's deck guns struck Nauset Beach, giving the modest town of Orleans the distinction of be...