America's First Submarine Attack Changed Naval Warfare Forever
Finn's Take· TL;DR- American inventor David Bushnell's Turtle achieved first-ever submarine attack against British HMS Eagle in 1776 New York Harbor.
- Ezra Lee's mission failed to damage the ship but proved underwater warfare was operationally viable, revolutionizing naval combat forever.
- The daring attack exemplified American innovation under desperate circumstances, eventually leading to modern submarine warfare technology.
The Turtle's Secret Mission: America's Daring Underwater Strike Against the British
On the night of September 7, 1776, a lone American soldier named Ezra Lee climbed into a wooden, egg-shaped vessel barely large enough to hold one person and slipped beneath the dark waters of New York Harbor. His target: the HMS Eagle, the flagship of British Admiral Richard Howe. His mission: to attach an explosive charge to the enemy ship's hull and blow it out of the water. It was the first military submarine attack in recorded history, and it would change how the world thought about naval warfare forever.
The submarine, known as the Turtle, was the brainchild of Connecticut inventor David Bushnell, a man so far ahead of his time that even Benjamin Franklin took serious interest in his work. The craft was ingeniously designed — a hand-cranked propeller allowed forward movement, foot pedals controlled vertical propellers for diving and surfacing, and a small glass porthole let the operator navigate by the faint light of bioluminescent water. Bushnell had even solved the problem of underwater breathing, giving the operator roughly thirty minutes of air per dive.
The mission itself was audacious bordering on suicidal. General George Washington personally approved the operation, desperate for any advantage against the overwhelming British naval presence that had bottled up his forces in New York. The Continental Army was in crisis — New York was falling, morale was crumbling, and Washington needed a miracle. The Turtle was his secret weapon.
Ezra Lee paddled and cranked his way through the harbor in the dead of night, fighting strong tidal currents that pushed him dangerously off course. When he finally reached the Eagle, he attempted to drill a wooden screw into the ship's copper-sheathed hull to attach the explosive — but the copper plating defeated him. After repeated failed attempts, dawn was approaching and Lee was forced to abort. He released the floating mine as a distraction and made his escape. The bomb detonated harmlessly in the harbor, startling the British but sinking nothing.
The mission failed in its immediate objective, but its legacy proved enormous. The Turtle demonstrated that underwater warfare was not merely theoretical — it was operationally possible. The concept would evolve through the Civil War's H.L. Hunley and eventually into the nuclear submarines that define modern naval power today.
Perhaps most importantly, the mission captured the American spirit perfectly: outgunned, outmanned, and outfinanced, the young nation refused to fight by conventional rules. Instead, it innovated. On September 7, 1776, one man in a wooden barrel took on the world's greatest navy — and the audacity alone made history.