U-boat on parade at NYC’s Liberty Day in 1917
In an effort to promote every citizen to get behind World War I and support it financially, Liberty Bonds were sold.
A third of this war’s financing was to come from the federal government; twothirds from selling Liberty Bonds to the American people.
Is the following true or false? A captured German U-boat was pulled down Broadway, New York, in a parade of mainly women pushing to sell Liberty Bonds and stand for their own rights on Oct. 25, 1917.
President Woodrow Wilson
President Woodrow Wilson did not want a war with Germany.
In fact, in 1914 when Europe was at war with Germany, he told the American people that our country would not go to war. Most of the general public figured Europe and Germany were another world and the United States should not be mixed up in the mess.
President Wilson followed this train of thought for three years until so many merchant ships were shot down and U.S. men were killed, that he asked Congress for “A war to end all wars … A war to make the world safe for democracy.”
On April 6, 1917, the U.S. Congress declared war on Germany, too. It was optimistically deemed The Great War, one that would not last long and solve problems for decades or centuries to come.
By adding submarine warfare, Germany had pushed the U.S. in a corner. And themselves too.
According to University of Rochester professor Hein Goemans, “The Germans were well aware that the U.S. could not and would not accept unrestricted submarine warfare, but launched it anyway. The U.S. declaration of war was thus already taken into account when the final
decision for unrestricted submarine warfare was made in January 1917. Indeed, Hindenburg explicitly admitted the day before ‘We count upon War with America.’ ”
It was a stupid decision and philosophy by Germany; one they would never forget.
U-boat warfare
Germany was determined to build up an unbeatable Navy.
One of the country’s decisions was to construct inexpensive submarines which could cut off the United Kingdom from receiving and shipping out supplies. Some were finished in five days and sent off to take down ally ships of any type.
“Undersee” boats, as they were called in German, not only could cross the Atlantic, but were also able to navigate up and down the East Coast with ease. They took down most anything they could see. It is mindboggling to think that these German U-boats were haunting our waters over a hundred years ago.
Their actions surprised both Germans and Americans.
U-boats could go to depths of 165 feet, speed along on the surface at 16 knots, 8 knots underwater, and had a range of 25,000 miles.
Stories from both wars describe German spies on shore looking around, meeting other sympathizers, or just going
cigarette and food shopping. No one has ever had specific proof of these men ashore; they were mainly in newspapers and passed along from generation to generation.
Where did these German men come from? If these stories and Coast Guard reports are real, the men came from Uboats and returned to them directly offshore.
The German submarines had deck mounted guns, and 16 or fewer self-propelled torpedoes. If the torpedoes or surface guns did not finish off a merchant ship immediately, the crew of the U-boat sometimes had time to steal supplies and valuables before the ship actually sank.
U-boats were everywhere from England to the U.S. coast.
Perhaps the worst and saddest World War I story is the sinking of the Lusitania.
Two books are highly recommended on this subject: “Into the Danger Zone: Sea Crossings of the First World War” by Tad Fitch and Mike Poirier, and “Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania” by Erik Larson.
Captured U-boats
When the U.S. entered the war, Uboats were fair game for the Coast Guard or Navy.
Those the U.S. attacked were either sunk or captured. Those captured off the coasts of New Jersey and New York were literally taken into New York Harbor for inspection and evaluation.
According to an article in the New York Times, “Freight ships to lighters … were brought to a pier at 131 Street. Here, a powerful wrecking crane transferred these sections to heavy horse drawn trucks. It took 42 big draught horses to haul the heaviest section from the pier.”
Some of the captured ships during World War I ended up in Central Park, where they were being kept as there was no more slip or land space for them in and around New York. Others were carefully taken apart by officials looking to see how the U.S. could build better submarines and other ships. Many had fallen apart during the move from the water to the park. Both U-boats and tanks ended up in Central Park for observation by the American people.
Liberty Day
Liberty Day was a government way of financing the massive war effort.
Held on Oct. 25, 1917, it was a parade down 5th Avenue with thousands of people, mainly women, determined to sell war bonds to everyone who saw the parade.
Unlike the wars after Korea, the American people joined together to support their country. Hundreds of thousands of war bonds of all denominations were purchased by ordinary Americans from farms to cities.
For the New York parade, there was an added addition of a few more incentives. There was a large group of military motorcycles going up 5th Avenue, a threeengine Caproni bomber plane flying above the spectators, the British Mark 5 tank, Britannia, and a captured U-boat taken from Central Park.
It was supposed to have been the SM UC–5 (which took down 29 ships), but no one is sure if it wasn’t parts of different U-boats temporarily put together.
Two separate parades crossed each other, adding to the excitement.
So, the answer to the beginning of this
article is YES: a German U-boat was pulled down the streets of New York on a flat bottom platform with wheels on boards by a crane and pulled by horses.
The parade turned into a federal holiday, with everyone leaving their jobs to watch, and buy, buy, buy.
The German submarine had signs attached to it proclaiming, “Submarines take lives, Liberty Bonds save them,” and “You Buy A Bond.”
It was planned as a fundraiser to finance World War I, and it was a huge success. Once people started buying bonds, others followed suit from the cities to the farms.
Our government’s publicity stunt to sell bonds and get men to join the armed forces was a campaign never seen before or after. New York, which has had many parades before, and many after, was shocked at the inspired response.
American was united as never before.