About the Book
On the warm morning of July 21, 1918 – during the last year of the First World War – a new prototype of German submarine surfaced three miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and attacked an unarmed towboat and her four barges. A handful of the shells fired by the U-boat’s two-deck guns struck Nauset Beach, giving the modest town of Orleans the distinction of being the first, and only, spot in the United States to receive fire from the enemy during the entire World War.

Coming to Cape Cod’s defense that momentous day was a hodgepodge of average American citizens – doctors, fishermen, vacationing cottagers, young children – as well as two groups of first responders that could not be more opposite; the waning United States Live-Saving Services and the fledgling air arm of the United States Navy.

In what would end up being one of their last hurrahs, lifesavers, who were stationed on the beach in Orleans, launched a surfboat under heavy enemy shellfire and rowed in the direction of the thirty-two sailors trapped aboard the tug and barges. It was a situation Cape Cod’s surfmen never imagined being in; they were far more accustomed to rescuing sailors from wooden schooners caught in Nor’easters than from the jaws of an enemy submarine.

Meanwhile, in the sky above, rickety seaplanes from the local Naval Air Station dive-bombed the enemy raider with payloads of TNT. It was the first time in history that American aviators engaged an enemy vessel in the western Atlantic.

Although upwards of one thousand citizens watched the spectacle from shore, the “Attack on Orleans” is a story very few Americans, outside the proud town of Orleans, have ever heard.

If you’d like to purchase a copy of this book, you can find it on Amazon, or from his website.

About the Author
Jake Klim was born and raised on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, just twenty miles from the village of Orleans. As a child, he had read snippets about the “Attack on Orleans,” in local periodicals, but always wanted to know the full story, thus began a lifelong fascination with American history.

Klim studied film and video at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), where he also ran cross country and track. Today he is a television producer and writer based in North Bethesda, Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C. He has worked on productions for History Channel, the Military Channel, National Geographic Channel, WILD, The Weather Channel, and Animal Planet, among many others.

For more information, see http://www.attackonorleans.com or the book’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/attackonorleans?ref=hl