New York Times - Aug 22, 1918, Thursday Page 1 A CANADIAN ATLANTIC PORT, Aug. 21.--The operations of the steam trawler Triumph, manned by a crew from a German submarine, have resulted in the sinking of four fishing vessels and probably others, according to reports at hand tonight http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D00E1D61739E13ABC4A51DFBE668383609EDE Old News: U-boat sinks schooner off Cape Porpoise Five German U-boats cruised the Gulf of Maine during the final months of World War I. The U-156 first appeared in July of 1918. She sank 35 ships before succumbing to a mine off the Norwegian coast. Twenty of those ships were commercial fishing vessels. The folks at Cape Porpoise had heard rumors that the enemy was near and they were suspicious of every foreigner that came through town that summer. Their apprehensions were validated when a dory carrying three exhausted fishermen from Gloucester, Mass., appeared in the harbor on the evening of July 23, 1918. Keep reading ........ ! The U-156 surfaced again in late August. She captured the Canadian steam trawler Triumph and converted her into a surface raider. Her captured steward later told a reporter for the Kennebec Journal, "The Germans were so polite that it started getting on our nerves. They offered us brandy and cigarettes while they used our trawler to blow up fishing boats all around the Bay of Fundy." When the Triumph's coal was depleted, she was blown up and her crew was released. On the way home to Germany on Sept. 25, 1918, the submarine U-156 tried unsuccessfully to run through a mine field. All but a few hands perished. http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20081218-LIFE-812180356
