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Originally Posted by noodle
samurai007, i'm not gonna say anything against the who attacked first, cos lets face it, i wasn't there and you weren't there... but its interesting how an american author wrote that the german's attacked first, where as european history books say america attacked first!!
I guess we'll never know, but oh well............
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Here's more exacting, minute by minute account, if you're interested:
USS Greer
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The "Greer Incident" occurred 4 September At 0840 that morning Greer, carrying mail and passengers to Argentia, was signaled by a British plane that a Nazi submarine had crash-dived some 10 miles ahead. Forty minutes later the DD's soundman picked up the underseas marauder, and Greer began to trail the submarine. The plane, running low on fuel, dropped four depth charges at 10:32 and returned to base, while Greer continued to dog the U-boat.
Two hours later the German ship began a series of radical maneuvers and Greer's lookouts could see her pass about 100 yards off. An impulse bubble at 12:48 warned Greer that a torpedo had been fired. Ringing up flank speed, hard left rudder, Greer watched the torpedo pass 100 yards astern and then charged in for attack. She laid a pattern of eight depth charges, and less than two minutes later a second torpedo passed 300 yards to port.
Greer lost sound contact during the maneuvers, and began to quarter the area in search of the U-boat. After 2 hours, she reestablished sound contact and laid down a pattern of 11 depth charges before discontinuing the engagement. Greer had held the German raider in sound contact 3 hours and 28 minutes; had evaded two torpedoes fired at her; and with her 19 depth charges had become the first American ship in World War II to attack the Germans.
When news of the unprovoked attack against an American ship on the high seas reached the United States public feeling ran high. President Roosevelt seized this occasion to make another of his famed "fireside chats," one in which he brought America nearer to outright involvement in the European war. Declaring that Germany had been guilty of an act of piracy, President Roosevelt in effect unleashed American ships and planes for offensive action as he stated `'in the waters which we deem necessary for our defense, American naval vessels and American planes will no longer wait until Axis submarines lurking under the water, or Axis raiders on the surface of the sea, strike their deadly blow—first." The period of "undeclared war" in the Atlantic had begun.
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Perhaps the Germans mistook the British plane dropping its depth charges for the US ship's? Or the fact that the ship was tailing them and keeping them in sonar range as a hostile act?