Hitler's Master Plan: Did Nazi U-Boats Plot Against the U.S. East Cost in 1945?
In March 1945, the Allies intercepted a message from German Admiral Godt dispatching seven long-range submarines to “attack targets in American coastal zone.”
The U.S. Navy responded with overwhelming force against a potential threat to the continental United States—but proved too willing to bend its principles on the treatment of prisoners of war, escalating the use of torture when the prisoners did not confirm the interrogator’s incorrect assumptions, as often happens.
Ironically, it would actually be two U.S. submarines that first tested submarine-launched cruise missiles two years later. The weapon: an American copy of the V-1 buzz bomb.
Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring.
This article first appeared in 2016.
Image: Wikimedia Commons