Cape Hatteras: A Novel

by Keith Warren Lloyd

During the Second World War, long-range German submarines, commonly referred to by their German name Unterseeboot, or U-boat, ranged the American coastline and placed a stranglehold on the flow of vital war supplies. The shipping lanes off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina were prime hunting ground for these feared sea hunters.As the war raged on, however, Allied destroyers using the newly invented sonar and radar began to hunt down and destroy the U-boats as they moved in to attack. There are six U-boats resting on the seabed near Cape Hatteras, known to mariners as "the Graveyard of the Atlantic." Of the 280 young German sailors who undertook these dangerous missions, only 40 survived to be taken prisoner.What might have happened if survivors from a sinking German submarine were able to land on the eastern coast of the United States?

124 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

Keith Warren Lloyd is an author and historian, a US Navy veteran, and a retired firefighter. Lloyd graduated from Arizona State University, where he studied history and political science. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Keith's newest work is The War Correspondents: The Incredible Stories of the Brave Men and Women Who Covered The Fight Against Hitler's Germany, released by Globe Pequot's Lyons Press in October 2025. He is also the author of the following titles:

Dark Nights, Deadly Waters: American PT Boats at Guadalcanal. (2023)

Avenging Pearl Harbor: The Saga of America's Battleships in the Pacific War. (2021)

The Great Desert Escape: How the Flight of 25 German Prisoners of War Sparked One of the Largest Manhunts in American History. (2019)

The Greatest POW Escape Stories Ever Told, an anthology of famous prisoner of war escape stories. (2020)

Above and Beyond: The Incredible Story of Frank Luke Jr., Arizona's Medal of Honor Flying Ace of the First World War. (2015)

Keith's When Heaven Was Falling, Cape Hatteras and On Island Time are historical novels, featuring fictional characters thrust into actual events and often interacting with real-life historical figures.

Reviews

[Keith Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Eileen McGrath, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncnovels/ind...

It’s common to think that the battle for the seas during World War II took place in distant locales like the South Pacific and the North Atlantic, but our own Outer Banks was the site of a dangerous cat-and-mouse game between American merchant and military vessels and German U-boats. In this novel, the young commander of a U-boat makes it ashore after his boat sinks off Cape Hatteras.

Wolf Krugar is no gun-ho Nazi, but he serves loyally to uphold his class traditions and to protect his wife and daughter. After his U-boat is destroyed by an American attack, Krugar clings to the debris of a tanker that he had earlier torpedoed. He drifts on to Hatteras Island. Harnessing his remaining strength, he walks to a remote cottage, home of Anne MacPherson, a local woman who has returned to the island to heal from the death of her young husband, who died in the Pacific Theater. It is the classic setup for a tale of unexpected romance, but this novel is more sophisticated than that. The reader is treated to a story of two damaged individuals who stay true to themselves while recognizing the humanity in the other. The scenes with Kurt and Anne are interspersed with ones that show the local sheriff and military authorities closing in on Kurt. These scenes ground the drama between Kurt and Anne in the larger conflict that includes the need to keep supplies flowing to Europe and the possibility of spies and double agents on each side of the conflict.