[url=https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/local/207/veterans-navy-honor-crew-torpedoed-off-maine-during-world-war-ii/97-5d39eebf-2c5d-4b1e-939b-41c75ffbb32c}News Article[/url]

USS Eagle 56 Wikipedia page

Excerpt from News Article
"Veterans, Navy honor crew torpedoed off Maine coast during World War II
Forty-nine members of the crew of the USS Eagle died in a U-boat attack on April 23, 1945.

CAPE ELIZABETH, Maine — In the final days of Nazi Germany, far from the European theater, a German U-boat torpedoed an American warship within eyesight of Portland Head Light.

That sacrifice in Maine waters was buried for decades and people are making up for lost time.

At 11 a.m. Tuesday, a small crowd including veterans and active-duty Navy members gathered on the sprawling lawn next to what might be America's most beloved lighthouse. By accounts of organizers, it was the largest such gathering on this solemn anniversary.

Seventy-nine years to the day, and nearly to the hour, the USS Eagle PE-56 was towing target buoys 5 miles from shore when it was hit April 23, 1945. The vessel split in two and sank. Forty-nine of the 62 crew members died.

Michael Dery helped organize Tuesday's event. A retired Naval chief petty officer, Dery recalled walking by the lighthouse's small granite memorial to the Eagle and wanting to do more.

"I'm extremely proud. You know, shipmates, it's what we do," Dery said through tears. "It's Maine history and it's Navy history, and it should be recognized and not forgotten."

That's because for decades, the wrong history was written.

After the wreck, the the Navy designated the event an accident, caused by a boiler explosion inside the ship, meaning none of the sailors were  designated as killed in action.

That description remained, despite surviving crew accounts of seeing a submarine, and the sheer force of the explosion.

"They don't explode as a result of a boiler explosion," said Paul Lawton of the Eagle's model. "That stuff happened in the 1800s." Lawton is a naval historian specializing in U-boat activity in New England and investigated the wreck.

Indeed, US forces tracked and eventually sunk the suspected U-boat, U-853, just south of Port Judith, Rhode Island, on May 5, two days before Nazi Germany surrendered.

Lawton said the Eagle's encounter was far from the only U-boat activity in the Gulf of Maine and New England during both world wars. He said the U.S. military and government kept reports from reaching the public.

"They kept the news media from reporting it to avoid any type of panic," he said.

Lawton submitted his findings to the Navy and in 2001, the secretary of the Navy changed the cause of the incident to a U-boat attack and issued 51 Purple Heart awards, 49 posthumously.

Naval Commander Carne Livingston gave the keynote address Tuesday, acknowledging the Navy's delay and calling on those gathered to honor the Eagle's crew.

"It's our responsibility to ensure their service and sacrifice is remembered," he said.

Another Naval officer read each of the names of the 49 who died aloud, while another sailor chimed a bell, once after each name. Veterans gave a 21-gun salute as Livingston placed a wreath at the memorial and saluted it.

In 2018, a group of New-England-based divers called Nomad Exploration Team tracked down one last piece of the puzzle. Five miles out from shore, 300 feet down, they found the wreck of the Eagle. Its bow and stern settled far apart on the bottom. But the team discovered what they were looking for: the ship's boilers, still fully intact.

Definitive, haunting proof."

A documentary about it.

A lot of people have no idea of the U boat war that occurred off of our eastern shoreline, often within sight of land.

Torpedo Junction and U Boats off the Outer Banks are good reads.
Torpedo Junction was written by Homer Hickam, the subject of the “Rocket Boys” movie.

The Germans called their U-boat campaign in 1942 off the coast of America as "The Happy Times" as the American Navy was not prepared for Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and American coastlines were not blacked out - resulting in ships being easily spotted & sunk while silhouetted again bright coastal lights.

It was a massacre of the Merchant Marine.from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico.  

Bigger_Hammer

Absolutely. I remember in the BBC series “The World at War” they had a gentleman who had ties to the shipping companies or what have you, mentions that after Germany declared war, it took a long time for these companies to change up the routes they were taking to England. German uboats were sinking ships non stop and many times within miles of the American coast.

The first campaign in the ETO was the Battle of the Atlantic Ocean.

It didn't help that the Navy and our government went to great lengths to conceal how bad things were in the early part of the war. We were damn lucky the Germans only had 5 Type IX boats available to throw at us at the start of Operation Paukenschlag (Drumbeat).

Homer Hickam (Rocket Boys) wrote a book (Torpedo Alley) about the German U-boat campaign off the East Coast of the US. Basically it was open season on US shipping until the advent of the convoy system.

beat by 18 minutes by hockeysew

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/operation-drumbeat-u-boat-marauders-on-the-american-coast/

While I do not recall reading about any naval vessels being sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, there was a decent handful of private vessels sunk.  IIRC one was within a few miles of Galveston - people could see the smoke from town.  There is discussion that they even sent subs up the Houston Ship Canal - but I have my doubts.  It's not that deep and the goverment would have had a lot harder time hiding any attacks (and none were noted).