Word: u-boats
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...citizens, who had given little thought to submarines since the almost-forgotten U-boat raids off the Atlantic coast in 1918, began to see them as menaces once again. From Washington came an announcement that enemy subs were active off both coasts. But Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox announced that in the Atlantic the Navy had "probably sunk or damaged at least 14 enemy submarines." In the Pacific, he added, "our naval forces have already effectively dealt with several Japanese submarines." Off the Pacific Coast, 200 miles north of San Francisco, a submarine sank the tanker Emidio by gunfire...
...Operating in the same area, the cruiser Devonshire, "hoodoo ship" of the British Navy, surprised a raider as it was putting fuel into small boats probably for submarines. Placing a fatal shot in the raider's magazine, and fearing the presence of a U-boat, it sped away without picking up survivors...
...move in with increasing numbers of armed merchant ships. Allied convoys were larger and better escorted. Germany had admitted that Britain's greatest tactical advantage lay in Iceland, where convoys put in to regroup their ships according to speed and value before the last dash to British ports. U-boat wolf packs were still extracting heavy tolls,* but improved depth charges and Allied defensive technique were growing more effective...
Conceding that Britain's July-August losses were "relatively low," Germans talked knowingly of a sudden upward spurt, boasted of a vastly augmented submarine fleet, "new weapons" and improved tactical methods, new fully trained submarine crews. They promised additional and expanded U-boat wolf packs, and pointed out that long winter nights are a prime U-boat advantage, since subs usually remain submerged during the day, fight from the surface at night...
They had three consolations. Only one of Ark's 1,575 officers and men was lost. After all the Axis claims, the Ark's loss was announced to the world, not by the Axis but by the British Admiralty. And she had been sunk by a U-boat,† had not suffered the final indignity of being sunk by an Italian submarine...