Was it an April Fools day prank or just propaganda, perhaps it was just a way to improve public morale. On April 1, 1942 this announcement was released by the U.S. Navy: 28 Axis submarines have been sunk or presumed sunk by U.S. forces thus far. This must have made U.S. citizens and American sailors proud and maybe feel a little safer, of course at that time nobody could check the record and nobody knew that nothing was further from the truth.

Only four enemy submarines had been sunk by U.S. forces since Dec. 7, 1941. Two were Japanese, I-70 and I-124 and two were German, U-656 and U-503. None of them were exactly off the coast of the United States, but that made no difference. The announcement concentrated on German submarine production, operation and the destruction thereof and made only one mention of the Japanese in stating that seven of the submarines sunk were sunk in the Pacific.

One can be sure that the announcement was made as a direct response to the U-boat attacks which had been quite successful off the U.S. east coast since mid January when Operation Paukenschlag (Drumbeat) commenced. German U-boats operating off the Atlantic seaboard were causing a lot of concern to seamen and the Navy, but the Navy had not taken the necessary action to properly protect shipping along the coast, even though they were warned by the British before they arrived.

The first U-boat sunk off the U.S. east coast was U-85, which was sunk on Apr. 14, a fortnight after the announcement.