September 13th was an unlucky day for the Deutschland, for in a gunfire contest with the armed British merchantman Newby Hall, she was struck by a shell which exploded and temporarily put out of action her forward gun. For the next week she seems to have devoted her attention to mine-laying, off Halifax and the Nova Scotian coast. Then she sank a small steam trawler, the Kingfisher, and on Sept. 29th unsuccessfully attacked the British steamer Reginolite. On October 3 and 4, she sank the Italian steamship Alberto Treves and the British schooner Industrial.
At 10 a. m., Oct. 12th, the Deutschland attacked the American steamship Amphion, formerly the German Köln. Her second shot carried away the steamer's wireless. Then ensued a gunfire contest that lasted more than an hour, the submarine firing some 200 shots and the Amphion 72. The Amphion was hit time and again, her lifeboats were riddled, and her super-structure damaged, but she gradually drew off and the U-boat abandoned the chase.
The last American steamer sunk during the war was the Lucia, known as the "non-sinkable" ship—and the reports indicate that it was the Deutschland that sank her. The Lucia, a U. S. Shipping Board vessel used as an army cargo transport, had been fitted up with buoyancy boxes. There was considerable interest in this experiment, proposed and carried out by the Naval Consulting Board, accounts of which had been widely published. These boxes did not render the vessel unsinkable, but it is a significant fact that she remained afloat twenty-two hours after she was torpedoed.
It was 5:30 p. m., October 17, when the torpedo struck in the engine-room, killing four men. Though the submarine was not seen, the naval armed guard stood at their guns, which were trained in the direction from which the torpedo came. The civilian crew took to the lifeboats as the vessel settled slowly. The gunners remained aboard until 1:30 o'clock the next afternoon, when the seas were breaking over the gun platform. The Lucia did not finally disappear beneath the waves until 3:20 p. m., October 18th.
After sinking the Lucia, the former Deutschland cruised towards the Azores, and did not reach Kiel until November 15, four days after the armistice.
There was one other submarine assigned to operate in American waters, and which started out from Kiel, late in August, for this purpose. This was the U-152, a large craft of the Deutschland type, commanded by Kapitän-Leutnant Franz. Though she never got within hundreds of miles of our coast, on September 30th she sank the animal transport Ticonderoga, and caused the largest loss of life any of our ships sustained in action. But this took place in the Eastern Atlantic, latitude 43°-05' north, longitude 38°-43' west, nearer Europe than America. It was the U-152 with which the U. S. S. George G. Henry had a two-hour running fight on September 29th, in which the Henry came off victor. This was not far from the point where the Ticonderoga went down.
The nearest point she came to the United States was on October 13th, when she sank the Norwegian bark Stifinder, in latitude 37°-22' north, longitude 53°-30' west, 600 miles or more from our coast.
Next to attacking vessels, the most menacing activity of the U-boats was mine-laying. They sowed mines at various points from Cape Hatteras to Nova Scotia and mine-fields were discovered off Fire Island, N. Y.; Barnegat, N. J.; Five Fathom Bank, near the entrance to Delaware River; Fenwick Island, off the Delaware Coast; Winter Quarter Shoal and the Virginia Capes, and Wimble Shoals, near the North Carolina coast. Single mines were picked up at other points.
Every protective measure possible was employed against them. A fleet of mine-sweepers was constantly engaged in sweeping channels and entrances to harbors, and every point where there was reason to believe mines might be laid. Fifty-nine vessels were engaged in this duty, most of them assigned to the districts which handled the largest volume of shipping.
Naval vessels and the larger merchantmen carried paravanes, which swept up mines and carried them off from the vessel, where they could be destroyed. But even the paravanes were not always effective.