About this story: This account was drawn largely from the archives of The Day and the New London Telegraph.

The scream of a fire whistle tore the fabric of the 3 a.m. air, leaving New London’s overnight silence in shards.

Five minutes later, whistles in the yards of the New Haven Railroad sounded. Then the Groton Water and Electric Co. whistle joined the chorus.

Bodies began to stir beneath blankets, and by daybreak the streets were bustling with people. It was a strange hour for a public gathering but one ordained by fate. 

One hundred years ago today, an epic news flash flew across the Associated Press wires: “The world war will end this morning at six o’clock, Washington time, 11 o’clock Paris time.”

The New London Telegraph caught the spirit of the moment in a colossal, one-word headline: “PEACE!”

Like many towns in the country, New London erupted in a spontaneous, daylong celebration as the news became official. After four years, the War to End All Wars, which had left millions dead, was finally over.

But locally, the day also marked the culmination of a remarkable period in which New London and Groton had come of age and taken a place on the national stage. The institutions established in that time would forge southeastern Connecticut’s identity and bring prosperity for the 20th century and beyond.

If the revelers of Nov. 11, 1918, had known this, they would have had twice as much reason to be joyful.

As it happened, by that morning, everyone was well-practiced in the art of celebrating peace. Four days earlier, a mistaken report that Germany had surrendered circulated widely. Later called the False Armistice, it set off premature celebrations around the world.

In the early afternoon of Nov. 7, the streets of New London filled with people waving flags and blowing horns. Mayor E. Frank Morgan announced through a megaphone that a parade would form and all could join in.

Amid the din of church bells and covered by a shower of confetti, the informal procession made its way through the streets. Fireworks followed.

At the height of it all, word filtered out that an armistice had not yet been signed. But people were too happy to care, and the party lasted until after midnight.

It seems unthinkable that everyone could gear up to do it all over again just four days later, but New Londoners were up to the task. They had just been through a long and eventful four years.

* * *

The two trains that eased into Union Station a day apart in August 1914 brought more than travelers. They represented New London’s first brush with the emerging conflict.

On both days, hordes of people, who had been passengers of a German ocean liner, climbed out and flooded into the station. Their ship had left New York for Bremen, only to turn around once it got news of the war’s outbreak. The passengers were now en route from Bar Harbor, Maine, where the ship had put in, back to New York.

Their brief stopover for refreshment aroused curiosity, but at the time New London had bigger things to think about.

Both the city and Groton were in the midst of major growth. Since 1910, three important institutions had been established: the New London Ship & Engine Co., soon to be Electric Boat; the U.S. Revenue Cutter School of Instruction, soon to be the Coast Guard Academy; and the Joseph Lawrence Free Public Hospital, soon to be Lawrence and Memorial. A fourth, Connecticut College for Women, broke ground a month before the first shot was fired.

But it was Germany’s U-boat campaign against allied shipping that most profoundly shaped the region’s destiny. When the Navy sought a home for its own budding submarine fleet, it chose the New London Navy Yard in Groton. The first boats arrived in 1915 at what became the nation’s first submarine base.

Meanwhile, New London Ship & Engine expanded its work making diesel engines for submarines then built elsewhere by Electric Boat. Within a decade, Groton would be home to the company’s shipyard.

Even a major commercial venture was tied to Germany’s war at sea. When work finished in 1916 on the million-dollar steamship terminal now called State Pier, the first customer was an apparently civilian operation in Germany that used an unarmed U-boat as a freighter.

But that submarine, the Deutschland, was secretly part of the German war effort, here to collect military supplies. After a headline-making visit in late 1916, it departed, never to return, thanks to Germany’s plan for a second round of unrestricted submarine warfare. That would soon bring the neutral U.S. into the fight.

* * *

At 3:30 a.m. in pouring rain, State Pier didn’t seem like a place where anything was about to happen. But a detachment of 56 Coast Guardsmen, sailors and customs officials patiently awaited a signal. When they got it, early on April 6, 1917, they stormed a German ocean liner docked there.

The signal was an Associated Press bulletin that Congress had declared war on Germany. The liner had been there since the Deutschland visit but now it was quickly seized as an enemy vessel. The crew had been asleep.

New London soon sent 1,600 of its young men and women into battle or service behind the lines, and mourned 40 or so who did not return. The Navy created a base at State Pier and also opened a hospital. But the focus remained the U-boat threat.

With the opening of the submarine base, New London was deemed an ideal place to develop methods of detecting and attacking U-boats before they could strike U.S. ships.

A Naval Experimental Station was established at Fort Trumbull in 1917, bringing together the best scientific minds in the country. Though it disbanded after the war, the station was re-opened for sonar research in World War II and continued its work throughout the Cold War. Known later as the Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory, it eventually became New London’s largest employer.

With merchant vessels falling prey to U-boats, in 1916 financier Charles W. Morse established a shipyard in Groton to build steel freighters. Groton Iron Works created thousands of jobs and delivered nine large steamers to the United States Shipping Board.

Though it lasted only a few years, the shipyard left a legacy. During World War II, it was reopened by EB, which called it the Victory Yard and built 24 submarines there. After the war, the site became home to one of the region’s major employers, Pfizer Inc.

By the time Groton Iron Works was up and running, World War I had almost run its course. The first vessel was launched Nov. 8, 1918. By then, New London already had celebrated the False Armistice and was ready to welcome the real thing.

* * *

After the dead-of-night whistles woke the city on Nov. 11, two men carried around a sign that summed up the general mood: “Who in hell wants to work today?”

Few had to. Schools let out early, most businesses closed, Groton Iron Works took the day off, and an admiral told local Navy units, “This is a holiday for everybody.”

Parades were the order of the day, and there were plenty to choose from.

“Anyone who wanted a parade could have one all his own,” The Day noted. “One enlisted man playing ‘Smiles’ on a cornet and accompanied by two good looking girls marched down the street together.”

Several effigies of Kaiser Wilhelm took abuse from cheerful patriots. A carload of people drove around with sausages tied to the radiator and ate them once they were cooked.

But amid the hoopla, tragedy struck. At State Pier, 50 or so sailors and yeomanettes — Navy enlisted women — had packed into a truck and were happily riding around town.

When the truck turned sharply from Huntington Street onto Federal, everyone lurched against the sideboard, which collapsed. Many in the group tumbled into the street, and several women were caught beneath the wheels as the truck braked.

Six were injured, and Yeomanette Ella Galvin of Fall River, Mass., was crushed and died two hours later. In a sense, she was New London’s last wartime casualty.

Despite the pall, the celebration went on with another parade, held in the frosty evening. Coast Guard cadets, Army and Navy units, military bands and shipyard workers joined fraternal groups, Red Cross women and the Connecticut College faculty in caps and gowns.

Ordinary citizens drove their automobiles, and other groups showed up unannounced. The Day estimated the whole thing took an hour to pass a given point, and when the head of the line reached State and Main after circling through town, it was halted by those bringing up the rear.

The end of the parade was, finally, the end of the festivities. But for New London and Groton, there was still the future to celebrate. A submarine century was just beginning.

j.ruddy@theday.com