The merchant freighter submarine U-DEUTSCHLAND became the first undersea boat in history to ever make an unassisted crossing of the Atlantic Ocean when she hauled into the Chesapeake Bay on the 9th of July 1916. But was she actually the first submarine to ever across the Atlantic?
The building of warships for a belligerent in a neutral country is little known history today but during the World War One, 1914-18, a breach of neutrality was made by the United States with regards to constructing war submarines for the British.
The administration of Woodrow Wilson evaded responsibility in the matter by allowing the parts of submarines to be built in American shipyards and sent to Canada to be assembled in a Canadian shipyard.
The extent of the traffic was kept secret but the following contemporary press dispatch explains what actually happened:
"Boston, October 3rd. 1915. A flotilla of four American built submarines which ventured across the Atlantic to join the British naval forces at Gibraltar made the passage safely under its own power and without extraordinary discomfort, according to letters received from men who shared in the expedition. The flotilla formed part of a group of ten submarines for which the British Admiralty had contracted in the United States."
The parts were shipped to Canada. Right? Well, sort of. What actually happened, to make it all legal-like, was that the American railroad cars, containing submarine parts, were shoved out onto a bridge spanning the Niagara river. Once the locomotive from the American side was detached, a Canadian engine was dispatched to haul the special shipment cars from the center of the bridge over into Canada proper.
Once the shipments reached the Canadian side of the river they were forwarded to where the assembly of the submarines could be completed, in the yards of the Vickers Maxim Company.
Assembled on the order of the American-designed Holland 602 type submarines, the hulls were Canadian-built, but the machinery and equipment were American. They were known as the British H-class submarine in the Royal Navy.
None of the ten submarines, thus constructed, possessed the range to cross the Atlantic on their own, so they were convoyed with escorts that carried a resupply of fuel to complete the voyage.
DEUTSCHLAND, therefore holds the distinction of being the first submarine to ever make an unassisted solo crossing of the Atlantic between Bremen and Baltimore.
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by rogge16
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