Before the WTC Towers, Another 9/11 Sent America to War: The 'Greer Incident' of 1941

If this sounds familiar and confusing simultaneously, 9/11 is a date that bears an older war-waging significance than the 2001 collective shock. Precisely 60 years to the day before the Twin Towers fell, America set to war against a very different opponent. Albeit, terrorism was invoked on both dates to unleash the hounds of hell.

This is a brief report on how the United States of America got involved in the Second World War. In 1941, a skirmish in the North Atlantic between a German submarine and one U.S. Navy destroyer eventually opened the path for American involvement in the single most destructive armed conflict in the history of humanity.

Known as "The Greer Incident", the September 4 live fire engagement between a Navy destroyer and a Nazi U-boat off the coast of Iceland allowed President Roosevelt to take a decisive step towards pushing the U.S. troops on the European front.

Although technically, the U.S. entered WWII when the Congress declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941. Two days later, the Empire’s European allies, Germany and Italy, declared war on America. The reality of chronological battlefront occurrences varies from diplomatic chronology.

Following the September 1939 invasion of Poland by the German armed forces – a short battle that began with a battleship bombardment – Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. Consequently, the Kriegsmarine (the German Navy) instituted a total naval blockade on the British Isles, sinking supply ships and convoys that sailed toward the U.K.

The vast majority of supplies came from the U.S. due to the Lend-Lease act of March 1941. American and British warships escorted commercial vessels to secure the Atlantic crossings from German naval attacks.

On the morning of September 4, 1941, the destroyer USS Greer received the information that a German submarine had been spotted ten nautical miles ahead of the ship’s position. The U.S. warship was sailing to Iceland, carrying mail and personnel. The notification was delivered by a British submarine hunter bomber. This airplane spotted the U-Boat crash-diving to avoid detection.

The American destroyer immediately commenced a sonar search of the submersible, finally making contact 40 minutes after the initial alert. The Greer initiated a pursuit of the U-boat, reporting the German ship’s course to the British plane.

Due to being in a state of neutrality, U.S. Navy ships were prohibited from engaging in direct combat with German ships. However, they aided in signaling the British forces the locations of whatever German activity they would detect. This is what the Greer set on doing on that September morning.

Things would take a very different turn – which would ultimately impact the fate of all humankind – some 50 minutes after the Americans started shadowing the submarine. Low on fuel and at the far end of its operational range, the British airplane had to return to base.

Before leaving, it dropped four depth charges on the submerged enemy (Britain and Germany had been at war against each other since September 3, 1939). This is where history marks one of its most significant controversies. The depth charges detonated, but failed to harm the Kriegsmarine ship.

The U.S. destroyer continued trailing the sub using the sonar for more than two hours. About 50 minutes after midday, the submarine launched a torpedo at the destroyer, missing its mark by some 100 yards, according to observations noted by the American sailors.

The Greer immediately retaliated with a salvo of eight depth charges – the first attack by a U.S. Navy warship on German armed forces. A second torpedo passed by the American vessel within two minutes, but didn’t make contact.

Losing sonar contact during evasive maneuvers, the destroyer established a search pattern. It kept looking for the submarine for two hours. Upon identifying it, it launched eleven depth charges but failed to inflict any damage.

It is yet a matter of dispute among historians if the German submarine (U-652) believed that the initial four underwater bombs – launched by the British bomber – were fired from the American destroyer, subsequently torpedoing the Greer in an act of defense.

Another theory is that the Germans mistook the USS Greer for one of fifty American warships transferred under the Royal and Canadian Navies’ flags (also under the Lend-Lease Act). Nonetheless, the casualty-less skirmish allowed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to issue his famous order.

Effective 9/11, 1941, all American warships were to shoot on sight on any German ship encountered “in the waters which we deem necessary for our defense.” The Fireside Chat, in which Roosevelt publicly announced his decisions, was broadcast on September 11, 1941. You can listen to it in the video.

Three months later, the war officially broke out between Nazi Germany and the United States. The Battle of the Atlantic - the most extensive battle in the Second World War, lasting just two days less than the entire war – unfurled to its full scale.