"War Is War, And I Must Carry Out My Duty": A Geospatial And Statistical Analysis of North Carolina's First World War Battlescape

Abstract

Although the United States was late to enter the First World War, the waters of the nation became a battlefield from 1917 onward. Ships operating along North Carolina's coast recurrently fell victim to the unrestricted U-boat campaign. While often forgotten in the historic record, this study follows an ongoing trend in archaeology after the conclusion of projects on the Second World War, in looking at the effects of World War One on the cultural landscape. This thesis is an historical study that compiles a record of all vessels, infrastructure, civilians, and combatants lost, damaged, or attacked in war-related incidents before, during, and after the United States entry into World War One. Primary and secondary historical sources reveal the attack and sinking locations of vessels, pinpointing the positions of potential archaeological (shipwreck) sites. This thesis also utilizes Geographical Information System (GIS) software to render a digitized projection of the battlescape. The overall objective of this thesis is to analyze a collected historical dataset and study the points of conflict between combatants off the coast of North Carolina, and to assess geospatial and temporal trends. Ultimately the main question being pursued is, "what does the geospatial and statistical analysis of trends regarding WW1-era infrastructure, combatants, and noncombatants inform us about the naval battlescape off the coast of North Carolina?"