Title: Erich Topp
Content: With "U-552", "Der Rote Teufel", he operated mainly against convoys in the North Atlantic, sinking 30 ships and crippling several others on ten patrols. One of his victories during this period was sinking of the destroyer on 31 October 1941, the first United States Navy warship to be lost in World War 2. While the destruction of the "U.S.S. Reuben James" facilitated a worsening of already rapidly deteriorating diplomatic relations between the III Reich and the still nominally neutral United States of America, it was Topp's sinking of the the following year that some historians have claimed casts a shadow

Title: German submarine U-578
Content: 27th with a torpedo east of Manasquan Inlet, New Jersey. The tug attempted to take the ship in tow, but she capsized and sank 48 hours after the initial attack east of Barnegat, also New Jersey. The next day she sank the American destroyer . The 'four-stacker', completed in October 1919, was the first warship to be lost to enemy action in US waters. On the return leg toward France, she sank the in-ballast "Ingerto" on 12 March 1942 in mid-Atlantic. She docked at St. Nazaire on the 25th. Patrol number four was the boat's longest (58 days), but in

Title: German submarine U-402
Content: the US east coast, sinking a total of three ships, two of which were the 5,300-ton Soviet freighter "Ashkhabad" and her escort, the 1,000-ton converted yacht off Cape Hatteras on 2 May 1942. The U-boat had been unsuccessfully attacked by a US Navy PBY Catalina in mid-Atlantic on 29 April 1942. The boat returned to the US eastern seaboard for her fourth patrol, but success eluded her. She returned to France, having been depth charged by patrol bombers off Cape Hatteras in mid-July and suffering a battery explosion. "U-402" limped back to France, but this time to La Pallice, on

Title: Atlantic U-boat campaign of World War I
Content: history when he torpedoed the Royal Navy light cruiser . The cruiser's magazine exploded, and the ship sank in four minutes, taking 259 of her crew with her. It was the first combat victory of the modern submarine. The German U-boats were to get even luckier on 22 September. Early in the morning of that day, a lookout on the bridge of , commanded by Lieutenant Otto Weddigen, spotted a vessel on the horizon. Weddigen ordered the U-boat to submerge immediately, and the submarine went forward to investigate. At closer range, Weddigen discovered three old Royal Navy armoured cruisers, ,

Title: German submarine U-553
Content: foray saw her attack merchantmen such as the "Silvercedar", (sunk on 15 October 1941) and (sunk on 17 October). The boat's fifth patrol took her toward the eastern Canadian/US coast where she succeeded in damaging the "Diala" on 15 January 1942 and sinking the "Innerøy" on 22 January. The boat's sixth patrol took her from St. Nazaire as far north as the Faeroe Islands. It was unsuccessful. Outing number seven saw the submarine penetrate the Gulf of St. Lawrence where she sank two ships; the "Leto" and the "Nicoya". The "Mattawin" was sent to the bottom of the Atlantic. The

Question: What was the first US warship sunk by a U-boat in the Atlantic in 1941?
Answer: USS Reuben James