What would have happened in this situation in real life?

[cawimmer430]

Something interesting happened in my last patrol.

It's mid 1941 in my game and I have a type IX submarine. For the fun of it, I ventured towards New York.

Well, at the entrance to New York, I come across a C2 cargo ship with the Union Jack: British. At the same time, there is an American Somers destroyer patrolling the area. All three ships, my IX, the C2 and the Somers destroyer are within visible range of each other.

The weather was great, so I had my deck gun manned and proceeded to get close to the C2 cargo ship in order to sink it. I sunk it myself out of fear that my deck gun crew, being trigger happy, would attack the Somers destroyer once the C2 had been sunk.

Anyway, the C2 went down but the Somers destroyer did nothing. Didn't attack me - as expected - since the US is still neutral.


My question is, what would have happened in real life here? Would the Somers destroyer have attacked me since technically I was inside the 3 km shore zone of the USA attacking a foreign vessel on their "ocean" if you will .