Hello Volken,

The San Diego lies less than 15 miles South of Fire Island. In the hours following her sinking, six German nautical mines were located and destroyed by U.S. Navy warships in the vicinity of the sinking. Based upon the limited underwater range of the Deutschland Class boats, the fact that the area was heavily patrolled immediately following the sinking and for days afterward, there is no way the U-156 was in the area, able to loiter there until evening then make it Southeast to clear Nantucket Shoals and make it to the backside of Cape Cod that following Sunday morning, where she attacked the tug Perth Amboy and sank her four towed schooner barges. Clearly, she was well on her way toward Cape Cod when the San Diego struck on of the U-156's mines. Furthermore, aside from confused witness statements following tense moments, there is no evidence to support the idea that she actually employed any valuable torpedoes on lowly targets like towed coal barges. The evidence is clear that she employed her 150mm (5.9 inch) deck guns in an extensive shelling of the Perth Amboy and her barges, during which several shells fell in the marshes and beach of Orleans, (Cape Cod) Massachusetts, making it the first enemy attack on U.S. soil since the War of 1812.

Regards,

Paul