SS Falaba was a British cargo liner. She was built in Scotland in 1906 and sunk by a U-boat in the North Atlantic in 1915. The sinking killed more than 100 people, provoking outrage in both the United Kingdom and United States.
Falaba's registered length was 300.5ft (91.6m), her beam was 47.4ft (14.4m) and her depth was 22.9ft (7.0m). Her tonnages were 4,806GRT and 3,011NRT.[5] She had berths for 210 passengers: 138 in first class, and 72 in second class.[6]
In 1911 Elder, Dempster bought Albertville and renamed her Elmina.[3][6]
Loss and rescue
On the afternoon of 27 March 1915 Falaba left Liverpool for West Africa carrying 151 passengers and 95 crew.[6] They included 30 British Army officers on their way to prepare for the Kamerun campaign, and 70 Colonial Service officers.[9] Her cargo included 13 tons of cartridges and gunpowder.[10][11]
The next day Falaba sighted a submarine in St George's Channel38 nautical miles (70km) west of the Smalls Lighthouse. The submarine was flying the White Ensign, but as it closed on her, it replaced it with the ensign of the Imperial German Navy, and signalled "Stop and abandon ship". The submarine was U-28. Falaba's Master, Captain Frederick J Davis, ordered "full ahead", which increased her speed to 15 knots (28km/h). Falaba also fired distress rockets. U-28 gave chase at 16 knots (30km/h) for a quarter of an hour, and ordered "Stop or I will fire". Falaba hove to, and U-28 told her "You have ten[14] minutes".[6][9]
Falaba's Chief Officer ordered the Marconi wireless operator to transmit a distress signal.[15] It said "Submarine alongside. Am putting off passengers in boats." Cymric was one of the ships that received the signal, and was no more than 15 nautical miles (28km) away, but Admiralty standing orders forbade her to put herself at risk by going to assist.[13] A few minutes later, Cymric's Marconi operator heard Royal Navy warships answering Falaba's signal.[12]
Falaba began abandoning ship. After around 10 minutes (the amount of time is disputed, with the British inquiry claiming 5 minutes,[16] German government sources claiming 23 minutes, and many witnesses claiming 10 minutes[17]) before she had launched all her lifeboats, smoke was sighted on the horizon. U-28 fired one torpedo from a range of only 100 yards,[18] hitting Falaba's engine room,[19] and causing her to sink within ten minutes at position 51°30′N06°36′W / 51.500°N 6.600°W / 51.500; -6.600. The explosion also capsized the first two lifeboats that had been launched, throwing many people into the water.[18]
One survivor said that about 50 people were standing on Falaba's poop when the torpedo struck, and he believed that all of them were killed. He said that he was with about 40 people in a lifeboat, but it was leaking badly, and within about 20 minutes it filled with water and capsized. Falaba's wireless operator described being in a lifeboat "but almost as soon as it touched the water it began to sink, a part of the side having burst through". A passenger with a piece of rope held the crack together as well as he could, but water poured in and soon we were up to our waists in water." He added that a member of the crew was washed away from the swamped lifeboat.[15]
111 people were killed, including Captain Davis. Some survivors, including the Second Engineer, alleged that about a dozen of U-28's crew were on deck, laughing at the victims, and making no effort to rescue anyone.[20] The German government rejected such accusations as "shameless lies".[21]
One British passenger took photographs aboard Falaba while the passengers and crew were abandoning ship. The film in his camera survived, although he was in the water for an hour before being rescued. The Daily Mirror published his photographs.[22]
Two drifters, Eileen Emma and Wenlock, rescued survivors, and towed the lifeboats to safety. Eight people, including Captain Davis, died of hypothermia after being rescued.[6][19] Survivors were landed in Milford Haven, Wales.[15][23]
Falaba was unarmed. Shipmasters and their trade union, the Mercantile Marine Service Association, responded to her loss by calling for UK merchant ships to be defensively armed.[24] Arming merchant vessels created tension with the Americans and other neutrals on whether these ships should be treated as warships, and the Germans at times claimed such ships can be sunk without warning. Still, 149 vessels would be so armed by mid-May.[25]
German statements
At the end of March, Dr Bernhard Dernburg, a German former Colonial Minister who was living in the United States, said that Germany had given "ample warning" on 18 February that persons traveling on any British ship would be in danger. He called U-28's actions "perfectly justifiable", because Falaba did not heave to when ordered.[26] A few days later, in an official message to the German Embassy in Washington, the German government also stressed that it had given due warning, and held the British government responsible for the loss of British vessels and neutral passengers.[27]
On 6 April a German statement that was described as a "semi-official account" criticised Falaba for spending 15 minutes speeding away from U-28 instead of heaving to, and claimed that when Falaba did finally obey the order, U-28 did not fire its torpedo until after 23 minutes (contradicting eyewitnesses), and then only because of the approach of vessels, which it feared were Allied warships. The German statement reasoned that Falaba's officers and men should have used the 15 minutes of the chase to prepare her lifeboats for launching. It alleged that when they did launch her lifeboats, it was "in an unseamanlike manner", and that "They failed to give assistance, which was possible, to passengers struggling in the water."[9]
Some survivors told the inquiry that the lifeboats were "rotten", and that some of them were damaged when being launched.[28]Counsel for Elder, Dempster denied that the boats were unseaworthy.[29]
When the inquiry concluded on 8 July, Lord Mersey said he was satisfied that those witnesses were "mistaken", and the damage was not due to neglect by Falaba's officers or crew.[28] He declared that "The cargo was an ordinary one", and he dismissed the presence of 13 tons of cartridges and gunpowder as "no more than is usually carried in peace time".[11] He found that there were only five minutes provided for the evacuation and so held the officers and men of U-28 "exclusively" responsible for the loss of life.[28][16]
Related Research Articles
RMS Lusitania was an ocean liner launched by the Cunard Line in 1906. She was the world's largest passenger ship until the completion of the Mauretania three months later and was awarded the Blue Riband appellation for the fastest Atlantic crossing in 1908. The Lusitania was sunk on her 202nd trans-Atlantic crossing, on 7 May 1915 by a German U-boat 11 miles (18 km) off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, killing 1,197 passengers, crew and stowaways. The sinking occurred about two years before the United States declaration of war on Germany but significantly increased public support in the US for entering the war.
RMS Laconia was a Cunard ocean liner, built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson as a successor of the 1911–1917 Laconia. The new ship was launched on 9 April 1921, and made her maiden voyage on 25 May 1922 from Southampton to New York City. At the outbreak of the Second World War she was converted into an armed merchant cruiser, and later a troopship. She was sunk in the South Atlantic Ocean on 12 September 1942 by torpedoes. Like her predecessor, sunk during the First World War, this Laconia was also destroyed by a German submarine. Some estimates of the death toll have suggested that over 1,658 people were killed when the Laconia sank. The U-boat commander Werner Hartenstein then staged a dramatic effort to rescue the passengers and the crew of Laconia, which involved additional German U-boats and became known as the Laconia incident.
Persia was a P&O passenger liner, built in 1900 by Caird & Company, Inverclyde, Greenock, Scotland. It was torpedoed and sunk without warning on 30 December 1915, by German U-boat U-38.
The Thrasher incident, as it became known in US media, was a political and diplomatic incident in 1915, when the United States was still neutral in World War I. On 28 March 1915 the German U-boat U-28 sank the British steamship Falaba by torpedo, killing more than 100 people. One of the victims was a passenger from the US, Leon Chester Thrasher.
SS Robin Moor was a United States cargo steamship that was built in 1919 and sunk by a U-boat in May 1941, several months before the US entered World War II.
SS California was a twin-screw steamer that D. and W. Henderson and Company of Glasgow built for the Anchor Line in 1907 as a replacement for the aging ocean liner Astoria, which had been in continuous service since 1884. She worked the Glasgow to New York transatlantic route and was sunk by the German submarine SM U-85 on 7 February 1917.
SS Georgia was a passenger and cargo ship that was launched in Germany in 1891 as Pickhuben. The Hamburg America Line acquired her in 1892, and renamed her Georgia in 1895. In 1915 a US company bought her and renamed her Housatonic.
SS Ancona was an ocean liner, built in 1908 by Workman, Clark and Company of Belfast for the Societa di Navigazione a Vapore Italia of Genoa. She was an emigrant ship on a route between Italy and the United States. SM U-38 sank her on 8 November 1915 off the coast of Tunisia.
SS Armenian was a British cargo liner that was launched in Ireland in 1895. In her first few years she carried cattle from Boston to Liverpool. From 1903 she carried cattle from New York to Liverpool. Leyland Line owned her throughout her career, but White Star Line managed her from 1903. She carried prisoners of war in the Second Boer War, and horses and mules in the First World War.
Ramón Alonso R. was a merchant steamship that was built in Scotland in 1898 and scrapped in Spain in 1959. Her original name was Montclair. She was renamed José Gallart in 1901, Balmes in 1911 and Ramón Alonso R. in 1929. Her first owner was the British Elder Dempster Lines, but she spent most of her career with a succession of Spanish owners. She was built as a transatlantic ocean liner with some cargo capacity, but in 1927 she was refitted as a cargo ship. In 1913, when she was called Balmes, the ship survived a serious cargo fire in mid-Atlantic.
RMS Ebro was an ocean liner that was launched in Ireland in 1914. With changes of ownership she was renamed Princesa Olga in 1935 and Serpa Pinto in 1940. She was scrapped in Belgium in 1955.
The RMS Lusitania was a British-registered ocean liner that was torpedoed by an Imperial German Navy U-boat during the First World War on 7 May 1915, about 11 nautical miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. The attack took place in the declared maritime war-zone around the UK, three months after unrestricted submarine warfare against the ships of the United Kingdom had been announced by Germany following the Allied powers' implementation of a naval blockade against it and the other Central Powers.
SS Orteric was a Bank Line cargo and passenger steamship that was built in Scotland in 1910–11 and sunk by a U-boat in the Mediterranean Sea in 1915. In 1911 she took 960 Spanish and 565 Portuguese migrants to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations.
SS Trent was a British steamship that was built in 1899 as an ocean liner for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSP) service between England and the Caribbean. In the First World War she was a Royal Navy depot ship. She was scrapped in 1922.
SS Aztec was a cargo steamship that was built in England in 1894 as Canterbury. She was renamed Aztec when she changed owners in 1895. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company bought her in 1897. In March 1917 she was the first United States merchant ship to be defensively armed in response to the Central Powers' attacks on neutral US shipping in the First World War.
SS Devonian was a British cargo liner that was launched in Ireland in 1900. She was designed to carry a large number of cattle or other livestock, and a smaller number of passengers. When she was built she had a small amount of refrigerated space in her holds. This was increased twice in her career. She spent her whole career with Frederick Leyland & Co, mostly on a scheduled route between Liverpool and Boston.
SS Prinz Oskar was a twin-screw cargo liner that was launched in Germany in 1902 for Hamburg America Line (HAPAG). She served various transatlantic routes between Europe and the Americas until the First World War began.
East Indian was a twin-screw cargo ship that was built in Japan in 1918 as Beikoku Maru. The United States Shipping Board (USSB) bought her that same year and renamed her East Indian. The Ford Motor Company bought her in 1925 to transport Ford products overseas. She was sunk in the South Atlantic in 1942. Only 16 of 74 people aboard survived.
SS Aguila was a British merchant steamship that was built in Scotland in 1909. She was one of a small fleet of ships that Yeoward Brothers ran between Liverpool and the Canary Islands, importing fruit to Britain, and carrying passengers in both directions. A U-boat sank her in 1915.
SS Vigilancia was a merchant steamship that was built in Pennsylvania in 1890. She sailed between New York and Brazil via the West Indies until 1893, when her original owners went bankrupt. The New York and Cuba Mail Steamship Company, commonly known as Ward Line, owned her from 1894 until 1914, and ran her between New York and Mexico via Cuba. In 1898 she was a troopship in the Spanish–American War.
Walker, Alastair (2012). Four Thousand Lives Lost: The Inquiries of Lord Mersey into the Sinking of the Titanic, the Empress of Ireland, the Falaba and the Lusitania. Stroud: The History Press. ISBN978-0752465715.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United Kingdom
