us navy photo
U-140 was a Type U 139 German submarine, designed for long-range missions, launched in November 1917. She only served at sea for six months, but in that time she destroyed more than 30,000 tons of Allied shipping. This photo was taken after the U-boat had been turned over to the United States after the war. Diamond Shoals saw another lightship.4 The use of lightships grew steadily, and by 1917 there were 53 lightship stations in United States territorial waters. One of those lightships was first stationed off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in 1889. That year, Congress had appropriated $200,000 for the construction of a lighthouse on Outer Diamond Shoal. Efforts to build the lighthouse at that location were unsuccessful, so the remaining funds were diverted to construct lightship No. 69 and establish a lightship at what would be called Diamond Shoals. That lightship was swept off station by a hurricane in late summer 1899, and grounded near the Creeds Hill Life-Saving Station. The crewmembers all survived and were taken to the station, and lightship No. 69 was later refloated and placed back in service. Lightship No. 71 was built at Bath Iron Works Ltd. in Maine in 1897. Just under 123 feet in length with a beam of 28.5 feet, she had a steel frame and topsides and a wood bottom. She carried two masts with lantern galleries and a stack amidships. Her original station was to be off Overfalls Shoal in Delaware Bay; however, when LV No. 69 on Diamond Shoals needed repair, lightship No. 71 took her position. Lightship No. 71 would alternate with lightship No. 69 on that station until 1900. From 1900 to 1918, No. 71 would alternate with lightship No. 72 at three-month intervals. She would serve as a floating lighthouse, sound signal station, and navigation beacon for twenty-one years, marking the treach-
erous waters of Diamond Shoals off North Carolina to ensure other vessels could navigate safely. She was equipped with a wireless telegraph in 1904, and an eighteen-inch searchlight was added in 1905. In 1912 lightship No. 71 was modernized again and fitted with a two-way radio. When the United States entered World War I on 6 April 1917, five days later LV No. 71 became one of four lightships to come under the control of the US Navy. Besides her usual mission as an aid to navigation, the lightship was tasked to maintain a lookout and report by radio. In July of 1917, lightship No. 71 received equipment from the Navy and the US Weather Bureau for recording and reporting weather observations twice daily by radio. The United States became concerned about the possibility of German submarines reaching the Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf Coast. The Germans had demonstrated that their submarines were capable of distances up to 12,000 miles, and shortly before the war the Deutschland, Germany’s first large merchant submarine, had visited the east coast of the United States. No German submarines had been sighted off the East Coast until 21 May 1918. On that night, U-151 became the first enemy ship to invade US waters since the War of 1812, as it cruised on the surface at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. U-151 had departed Germany in April and was well supplied with mines, ammunition for her two deck guns, torpedoes, and a cable cutting device. Af-
ter depositing her mines and completing her cable cutting assignment, U-151 headed south to inflict what damage she could on coastal shipping. Other large, heavily armed German submarine cruisers would also sail to American coastal waters. The Kapitänleutnant Weddigen (U-140), one of the very few German submarines to receive a name, was named after the commander of U-9, who had startled the world at the outbreak of World War I by sinking three British cruisers in quick succession. She was more generally known simply as U-140. She carried thirty-five torpedoes and 4,000 rounds of ammunition for her two deck guns—a six-inch gun forward and a four-inch gun aft. With an overall length of 302 feet and beam of almost thirty feet, U-140 could reach 15.8 knots at the surface and 7.6 knots submerged. She carried a complement of sixty-two men. U-140 was commanded by Korvettenkapitän (LCDR) Waldemar Kophamel, who had entered the German Navy in 1898 and the submarine service in 1906, serving in U-1. At the outbreak of WWI he had been assigned to command SM U-35 until November 1915, when he was appointed commander of the submarine flotilla at Pola. From July 1917 until March 1918, he commanded the large cruiser U-151, which would later be the first U-boat to enter US coastal waters. He had commanded U-140 since its commissioning on 28 March 1918. Departing Germany’s Baltic coast on 2 July 1918, U-140 reached
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