On June 2, 1918, after months of telling the American people there was no threat from U-boats, the U.S. Navy admitted the U-151 was attacking shipping off the Jersey Shore, including the sinking of the liner SS Carolina, bound from Puerto Rico for New York City. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels later remembered, “One of the liveliest days of the whole war for the Navy Department was Monday, June 3, 1918. It will be many a year before I forget it.

“Sunday a U-boat had suddenly bobbed up about forty or fifty miles off the New Jersey coast.