In the opening months of America’s participation in the war, almost all commercial shipping halted. Pouring salt on the wound was that the wartime gathering of men and materiel was concentrated on the east and west coasts, which were logical and natural departure points for convoys heading across their respective oceans. But this left the ports along the Gulf of Mexico high and dry—at first. From a revenue standpoint, that was a drag, but it may have saved lives. Few Americans are aware of just how dangerous the Gulf of Mexico was by the summer of 1942. Earlier that year, night skies often lit up with explosions along the Atlantic coast as German U-boats picked off freighters, targeting their silhouettes against the bright skylines of coastal cities. Once the United States caught on and shifted tactics to restrict night navigation and to assign escorts to freighters and convoys, the Eastern Seaboard hunting grounds of the U-boats dried up. Undeterred, they went stalking in the Gulf of Mexico.
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| U-166 in 1942. Destination: The Gulf of Mexico. |
At one point, a dark joke circulated that there were more U-boats in the Gulf than anywhere else and that it was a wonder they didn’t torpedo each other. American losses supported this assertion. In May alone, U-boats sank 56 merchant vessels. Germany also entered into a secret agreement with Mexico for fuel, and it was speculated that U-Boats were being refueled at Mexican ports on the Gulf. It was also speculated that at least a few espionage agents were put ashore at some of Texas’ more remote coastlines. Records are scant, but there were very deep incursions into U.S. waters by U-boats.
The last encounter with a German submarine in the Gulf was when U-166 sank the passenger freighter SS Robert E. Lee 50 miles south of New Orleans. The event took place on the evening of July 30, 1942. U-166 fell in behind the vessel and fired. Accounts say that the submarine surfaced and apologized to the passengers and wished them luck. Not long after, the Robert E. Lee’s escort, Coast Guard vessel PC-566, dropped six depth charges, destroying U-166, which now rests at the bottom of the Gulf.
