Afresh breeze blew across the harbor at Newport, Rhode Island on the afternoon of 7 October 1916, and the blue water was flecked with white caps. Narragansett Bay sparkled in the sunlight. The slender black ships of the U. S. Destroyer Force rode easily at anchor.
A submarine was sighted standing in the East Passage at 1400. She was flying the German man-of-war ensign and was identified as U-53.
World War I was in its third year, but the United States was still neutral. Friendship and sympathy for the Allies ran high, however, and the officers and men in the destroyers watched the submarine pass with surprised and unfriendly eyes.
On board U-53, officers and crew stood at attention in clean blue uniforms—the officers in white shirts and starched collars—-as the ship moved up the harbor to an anchorage. As if by previous arrangement, a small boat went alongside, and the commanding officer, Lieutenant Hans Rose, Imperial German Navy, wearing the Iron Cross, went ashore.
Rose followed protocol exactly, calling first upon the Commander, U. S. Destroyer Force, and then upon the commanding officer of the Naval Station. Although his submarine was 17 days out of Wilhelmshaven, he requested no supplies, no fuel, no repairs. Visiting the town, he bought that day’s New York Times. Later, when American officers returned his call, they noticed that the Times was on the wardroom table—opened to the shipping page.
At 1730, the U-boat departed for sea. Her complement of four officers and 33 men had two torpedoes ready for firing. The brass gleamed on her two 4-inch guns. Her mission was obvious—to destroy enemy merchant ships taking their departure from Nantucket Shoals Lightship en route from New York to Europe.
Early the following evening, U-53 torpedoed the Dutch ship Blommersdyk, a neutral, after first signaling, “Abandon ship.” The vessel sank with her masthead lights still burning. Some survivors were rescued by one of six U. S. destroyers standing by; the others reached Nantucket lightship.
Then with a cool formality, using shellfire, torpedoes, and even time bombs placed on board from a collapsible boat, the submarine sank the heavily-loaded steamers Westpoint and Stephano, the Norwegian ship Christian Knudson, and the British merchantman Strathdene. Some sank stern first, others capsized, but all disappeared under the dark sea.
The U-boat maneuvered carefully to avoid the destroyers, even sending them an arrogant pre-emptive signal: “Do not interfere with this German submarine and her legitimate prey.” Tons of grain, caseloads of munitions, hundreds of crates of medical supplies and food, were dispatched that night to the bottom of the Atlantic. Lieutenant Rose executed his mission with coolness and efficiency, but without ruthlessness. First the warning, then the sinking. No lives were lost. No neutrality had been violated.
It was an awkward moment for the U. S. Navy. Because of our neutrality and the fact that U-53 operated carefully in international waters, the American skippers were powerless to prevent the destruction of ships only a few miles off our coast. Had the commanding officer of any of the American destroyers taken aggressive action that night against U-53, the United States might have entered World War I on 8 October 1916 instead of 7 April 1917.
A graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy in the Class of 1911, Admiral Lowry served in destroyers in World War I. In 1927, he resigned and entered the investment banking business. With the advent of World War II, he entered the U. S. Naval Reserve and served as Operations Officer, Staff, Commander Western Sea Frontier from 1941-46. At the time of the event described in this article, he was a lieutenant in USS O'Brien (DD-51), based at Newport.