re: WW II buffs: How were the Germans able to infiltrate the Gulf of Mexico so successfully??

It is a big ocean

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But it was mostly civilian boats. After we started caravaning with battleships and the like, they lost that edge.

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Battleships were rarely used for convoy duty. Destroyers like the USS Kidd were used because they had the speed and maneuverability to chase a sub and drop depth charges on top of them

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We didn’t have as many oil baws out on the platforms back then who could spot them when they surfaced.

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or cell phones to post youtube videos of them

My great grandfather was a merchant marine sea captain out of New Orleans. They actually had one of worst causality rates of any service branch.

Incredible as this sounds our prewar admiral in charge of protecting our shipping was a complete Buffon and and Anglophobe (hated brits and ignored all their warnings updates on U boats. )

We did nothing to protect them. Not a damn thing, no increased patrols, no air cover, no radar no conveys. So in first year of the war the U boats feasted on our Merchant ships. They would use up all their torpedos, shells and actually ram boats at the end. It was a shooting gallery. They sunk oil tankers right outside of Houston New Orleans Miami New York. Trouncing around on barrier islands etc without so much as bad look. Finally, there was a big fair in ft launderdale I think in 1943 with thousands of people in Beach etc. Suddenly U boat torpedos an oil tanker that goes up like a Roman candle 1/2 mile of the beach. As everyone is watching the outline of the u boat becomes visible as it passes between the beach and the burning tanker, only a few thousand yards from packed fairgrounds on the beach. Newspaper etc get pictures, everyone freaks out as it could have shelled the Beach etc easily. News media discovers that u boats are off every Coast.

People call for action. The fire retire the dumb Mfer and start with convoys, arm the coast guard, deploy ring of destroyers spotter planes etc. start listening to the British who know exactly where all the U-boats are as they have cracked the engima code and basically wipe out most of the u boat fleet within a year.

There is a history channel show on it. It’s almost too ridiculous to believe. Answer is because we didn’t do shite to stop them for 8 months to a year or whatever time period it was.

There is actually or was a sunken u boat in Southern area of Chandelier island chain

Also, wasn’t the U boats in the gulf the reasoning for the Big Inch pipeline being built so they could ship out oil to the allies from the east coast

The sinking of the Empire Mica, 40 miles out from Panama City

I went on a dive of this wreck about 25 years ago. I understand it's deteriorated quite a bit since then.

This is an interesting read for interested history buffs.

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?It is an hour past mid-night, June 29, 1942. For most Americans, World War II is oceans away, but this night, the war, with its death and destruction, would come within a mere 40 miles of Port St. Joe and Apalachicola.

HMS Empire Mica, a 431-foot British tanker built only a year before, is on her second voyage and is following the 60-foot or 10 fathom depth as recommended by the U.S. Navy. At this depth submarines are supposedly at a disadvantage. Fully loaded with 11,200 tons of aviation fuel from Baytown, Texas, she is on her way home to Britain to fuel the Royal Air Force. She is to find a protected harbor each night because, when the sun sinks, the Sea Wolves begin their prowl. None of the bays on this section of the coast are deep enough to accommodate the loaded ship. Cruising at 11 knots, she leaves the Cape San Blas sea buoy in her wake and begins an ESE course that will seal her doom.

Soon after the sun sinks and a brilliant full moon rises, a sleek, gray wolf awakens from her sleep on the floor of the Gulf and begins her deadly hunt. The “wolf” is the German Type IXC-Unterseeboote, U-67, which has already sunk two ships since her fifth cruise began in May. When the cruise is over, six ships will lie at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and two others, damaged by U-67's torpedoes, will make it back to port. Empire Mica is number three.

U-67 was the seventh German submarine to enter the Gulf. The first, U-507, had sunk the American tanker, Norlindo, on May 4, 1942. Thus began the “turkey shoot” of Allied ships in the Gulf. Before the last U-boat, U-193, withdrew on December 3, 1943; 24 U-boats would roam the Gulf, sinking 56 ships and wounding 14. Only one U-boat was sunk in the Gulf, U-166 south of New Orleans.

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Germany had plans to build a full navy, but the program wasn't going to be completed in illate 1940's. But the Germans started hostilities enforce they had the full power of a navy to rival the British.

So, they had to resort to guerrilla warfare with their subs. Additionally, they planned to have a thousand subs, but went to war with 100.

With that said, they operated with great efficiency by going after under-protected merchant ships.

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the Robert E Lee.

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Uh oh

There were three blimp bases covering the GoM during WWII:

o Richmond,FL
o Houma,LA
o Hitchcock,TX

LINK

The blimps were used to search for enemy submarines.