In 1917, San Diego was ordered to the Atlantic Ocean to serve as a convoy escort. She accompanied ships leaving New York on the first leg of their transatlantic journeys, passing them off to ocean escorts in Nova Scotia.
After a year of safely conveying her charges through âsubmarine infestedâ waters, San Diego was passing near Fire Island, New York on July 8, 1918, when a massive explosion well below the waterline rocked the ship, immediately flooding the port engine room and quickly flooding fire room 8 as well.
This caused the ship to list to port far enough that water next began to flood into the gun deck. Once the gun deck flooded, the ship rolled over and sankâand all of this occurred within 28 minutes! Most remarkably, nearly 1,200 Sailors abandoned ship in less than 20 minutes, and in the end, it was determined that âonlyâ 6 men lost their lives. The overturned hull of the San Diego serves as their final resting place. She was the only major warship lost by the United States during World War I.
U-156, built by the Atlas Werke in Bremen, was originally one of seven Deutschland class U-boats designed to carry cargo between the United States and Germany in 1916. Five of the submarine freighters were converted into long-range cruiser U-boats (U-kreuzers) equipped with two 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 deck guns, including U-156. They were the largest U-boats of World War I. A mine laid by U-156 is credited with the loss of the cruiser USS San Diego on 19 July 1918, ten miles southeast of Fire Island, New York.
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