In October 1916 the depredations of U 53 off the American coast were hailed by the population of Berlin and other German towns as a sure prelude to peace. She was the first armed U-boat to cross the Atlantic, but the German nation saw her multiplied by scores, if not by hundreds. Many optimistic folk held the belief, based on the wonderful tales that were told of huge Allied shipping losses, that the war would be over before the dawn of a new year. Britons are not the only people who have hugged delusions. After having put in at Newport News for a few hours and been visited by various notabilities, U 53 took up a position off the Nantucket Lightship, so well known to all Atlantic voyagers. She then calmly proceeded to sink half a dozen ships—British, Dutch, and Norwegian—under the nose of U.S. destroyers. According to accounts that were published in American newspapers at the time, the submersible had four torpedo-tubes, one 4–in. gun forward and one 3–in. gun aft, three periscopes, wireless apparatus, and engines of 1200 h.p. that enabled her to travel on the surface at eighteen knots. Her submerged speed was understood to be some four knots less. U-boats were built at the Vulkan and Blohm and Voss shipyards of Hamburg; at Hoboken, in the former yards of the Société John Cockerill;[20] at Puers, near Termonde; and at the great naval bases of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. Here the parts were assembled, for it is fairly evident that the thousand and one units of a modern submersible were constructed on many lathes in many parts of the Fatherland. For example, it is believed that UC 5, the small mine-layer of 200 tons displacement captured by the British Navy and exhibited off the Thames Embankment, was brought in sections to Zeebrugge and put together there. When German liners were compelled to keep in American ports owing to the pressure of British sea-power, there seemed not the slightest likelihood that the United States would become an active participant in the war. In 1917 these selfsame steamers were traversing 3000 miles of ocean with armed tourists bound for Germany, giving the lie direct to the Imperial Chancellor’s hopeful message that Uncle Sam could not “send and maintain an army in Europe without injuring the transport and supply of the existing Entente armies and jeopardizing the feeding of the Entente people.” The mercantile marine of the United States is small, but with the aid of former German vessels and British ships her troops defied the submarine menace and were landed by the hundred thousand in France as America’s splendid contribution toward the liberation of the world. The spectacular appearance of the _Deutschland_ and U 53 fade into insignificance before this amazing triumph.