When WWI U-boats threatened shipping, the U.S. Navy was short on patrol boats. In Maine, lobstermen and potato farmers converted their own boats. Elmer Brooks, 58, took his 30-foot Mabel B and mounted a surplus machine gun to the bow with planks and rope. The “Potato Patch Fleet” patrolled for subs in fog, 200 miles offshore, with no radios. They never sank a U-boat, but their presence stopped coastal shelling. The Navy gave Elmer a commendation. He hung it in his barn next to his seed potatoes.
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