The Turtle vs. HMS Eagle: America’s First Submarine Attack in the Revolutionary War

Special Guests Lena and Graham from the Patrol Reports Podcast join us today to talk about the first US Submarine attack in history… during the Revolutionary War…

On the night of September 7, 1776, New York Harbor looked like a wooden forest, crowded with the towering masts of the Royal Navy. The British had come to town, and they came in force. Admiral Richard Howe’s fleet lay at anchor, its warships bristling with cannon, their lanterns glowing against the dark water. The American cause seemed desperate. Washington’s Continental Army had been chased from Long Island, morale was flagging, and the future looked grim. But one small wooden contraption, barely ten feet long and shaped like two turtle shells strapped together, was about to make history. It was called the Turtle, and it carried with it the audacious hope that a single man in a box beneath the waves could strike terror into the mightiest navy on earth.