The U-Boat Hunters...

[Red Heat]

...Code Breakers, Divers and the Defeat of the U-Boats, 1914-1918.

"At the beginning of the war, both English and the Germans tried to cut enemy communications transmitted overseas by underwater cables, especialy in the Atlantic Ocean..."

http://books.google.pt/books?id=aQJ9...esult#PPA15,M1

Title of the New York Times in December 6, 1916, Wednesday:

"Funchal Under Fire; Submarines may have directed attack at Madeira Cable Station.
Two cable messages that were taken to indicate that German submarines were operating in the vicinity of the Azores and the Madeira Islands, probably with the object of severing British cable connections with the outside world were received yesterday by Salinger Magnus, importers, of 456 Fourth Avenue."

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...649D946796D6CF

Title of the New York Times in December 14, 1917, Friday:

U-Boat Bombards Funchal; Several Killed and Buildings Damage at Capital of Madeira (Madeira Island - Portugal).

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...649D946696D6CF

One of the Ships wich was attack and sunk by the German U-boat in the bay of Funchal was the Dacia and this his her story:

An iron cargo ship. From (Dacia), (Miramar). 243.4 ft. long. Laid down as Stella. Owned by Norwood & Co. as Dacia. Chartered by them to 'British Colonial Steamship Company Limited', (after 1872 known as 'Temperley Line') for 4 voyages in 1869. Sold in 1870 to Sir Charles Tilston Bright (1832/1888, Knighted 1858), who cut her in two pieces, added a 40 ft. section, & strengthened her to accommodate a cable tank amidships & otherwise equip her for use as a cable laying ship. Conversion completed, (tonnage would have changed?) vessel was sold to 'The India-Rubber, Gutta-Percha and Telegraph Works Company Limited', of Silvertown, London. In 1870/3 vessel laid extensive cable network in West Indies & west to Panama. An 1895 journal of Captain Basil C. Combe. Worked on the Cadiz/Tenerife cable but also in the Pacific (Chile & Peru), in the Mediterranean extensively, on the west coast of Africa etc. Was in cable service until Dec. 3, 1916 when torpedoed off Funchal, Madeira Islands, while 'in the process of diverting the German South American cable into Brest', France.

And in the end of the page its possible to see the pictures of the last moments of the CS Dacia under attack, in the Funchal bay:

http://www.atlantic-cable.com/Cables...acia/index.htm