and Germany when American passengers traveling aboard Allied nations' vessels fell victim to Germany's U-boats.Īfter war was declared in 1914, Great Britain used its powerful navy to blockade German ports in order to limit food, supplies, and war material from reaching Germany.

However, tensions began to arise between the U.S. When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Navy recruiting poster depicts a German soldier brandishing a bloody sword as he wades in a tide of women's and children's bodies.

Visit these shipwreck webpages to learn more about these World War I vessels resting off the North Carolina coast.Ĭheck out our other shipwreck pages. If you are an educator, be sure to check out our newest curriculum guide for grades 6-12, World War I - Discovering and Exploring the Great War off North Carolina's Coast. If you want to dive a little deeper, read the full document, The Enemy in Home Waters - How World War I Came Home to North Carolina. Here on this site, learn the history, discover the shipwrecks, and visit often as new data and images are added. To honor the anniversary and the men who fought and died during World War I off our shore, Monitor National Marine Sanctuary actively conducts research on World War I and the ships that sank off our coast. June 2018 marks the start of the 100th anniversary of World War I off the North Carolina coast. World War I had come home to North Carolina. East Coast in May 1918, it was the first foreign enemy naval vessel to invade U.S.

By the end of the war in 1918, three German U-boats, U -151, U -140, and U -117, had sunk a total of 10 vessels off North Carolina alone. These German submarines, or U-boats, sunk scores of ships with the loss of hundreds of lives, but many Americans did not believe the U-boats possessed the range to reach the United States eastern seaboard. The people of North Carolina felt they had little to fear from Germany's new Unterseeboot (undersea boat) fleet that was prowling the North Atlantic. During the war's early years, the battles happened far from American shores and there seemed to be no direct danger to the United States.

When World War I began in 1914, neither the United States Navy nor American coastal shipping vessels were directly affected.

World of warship submarines