The Baralongincidents were two incidents during the First World War in August and September 1915, involving the Royal Navy Q-ship HMS Baralong and two German U-boats. Baralong sank U-27, which had been preparing to attack a nearby merchant ship, the Nicosian. About a dozen of the crewmen managed to escape from the sinking submarine and Lieutenant Godfrey Herbert, commanding officer of Baralong, ordered the survivors to be executed after they boarded the Nicosian. All the survivors of U-27's sinking, including several who had reached the Nicosian, were shot by Baralong's crew. Later, Baralong sank U-41 in an incident which has also been described as a British war crime.
USS Tang (SS-306) was a Balao-class submarine of World War II, the first ship of the United States Navy to bear the name Tang. She was built and launched in 1943, serving until being sunk by her own torpedo off China in the Taiwan Strait on 24 October 1944.
I-400 was an Imperial Japanese Navy Sentoku-type submarine commissioned in 1944 for service in World War II. Capable of carrying three two-seat Aichi M6A1 "Seiran" float-equipped torpedo bombers, the Sentoku-class submarines were built to launch a surprise air strike against the Panama Canal. Until 1965, the Sentaku-type submarines—I-400 and her sister ships I-401 and I-402 —were the largest submarines ever commissioned.
I-8 was an Imperial Japanese Navy Junsen III -type submarine commissioned in 1938 that served during World War II. Designed as submarine aircraft carriers, I-8 and her sister ship I-7 were the largest Japanese submarines to be completed before the outbreak of the war in the Pacific in 1941. With embarked floatplanes, I-8 participated in operations related to the attack on Pearl Harbor, patrolled off the United States West Coast, and took part in the Guadalcanal campaign and the Okinawa campaign.
I-401 was an Imperial Japanese Navy Sentoku-type submarine commissioned in 1945 for service in World War II. Capable of carrying three two-seat Aichi M6A1 "Seiran" float-equipped torpedo bombers, the Sentoku-class submarines were built to launch a surprise air strike against the Panama Canal. Until 1965, the Sentaku-type submarines — I-401 and her sister ships I-400 and I-402 — were the largest submarines ever commissioned.
RMS Orcades was a British passenger ship that Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd of Barrow-in-Furness built as an ocean liner in 1937. Her owner was Orient Line, which operated her between Britain and Australia 1937–39, and also as a cruise ship. The British Admiralty then requisitioned her and had her converted into a troopship.
The SS David H. Atwater was a United States Merchant Marine coastal steamer which was sunk on 2 April 1942 by gunfire from German submarine U-552, commanded by Erich Topp, during World War II. The circumstances of the destruction of the vessel along with almost all of its crew fueled persistent rumours at the time of war crimes being perpetrated by Nazi Germany's U-boat fleets on the high seas against shipwrecked allied sailors.
I-27 was a submarine of the Imperial Japanese Navy which saw service during the Pacific Campaign of World War II. I-27 was commissioned at Sasebo, Japan on February 24, 1942 and sunk on February 12, 1944, after torpedoing the troopship SS Khedive Ismail.
In March 1944, a force of three Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) heavy cruisers raided Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean, the codename of this operation was Operation SA No.1. The cruisers departed Japanese-held territory on 1 March with the support of other IJN vessels and aircraft. On 9 March, they encountered and sank the British steamer Behar, with the heavy cruiser Tone picking up over 100 survivors. Fearing detection, the Japanese force subsequently returned to the Netherlands East Indies (NEI), arriving on 16 March. Two days later, most of Behar's crew and passengers were murdered on board Tone. Following the war the commander of the raid, Rear Admiral Naomasa Sakonju, was executed for this war crime and Tone's captain Haruo Mayuzumi was sentenced to seven years imprisonment.
SS Thurso was a cargo steamship operated by Ellerman's Wilson Line. Thurso was built in 1919 by S. P. Austin & Sons in Sunderland as the War Bramble for the Shipping Controller. Measuring 2,436 gross register tons she had a speed of 9 knots. She was sold to Ellerman Lines while still building and remained with them until lost in the Second World War.
SS Primrose Hill was a British CAM ship that saw action in World War II, armed with a catapult on her bow to launch a Hawker Sea Hurricane. She was completed by William Hamilton & Co in Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde in September 1941.
SS Lulworth Hill was a British cargo ship completed by William Hamilton & Co in Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde in 1940. Lulworth Hill had a single 520 NHP triple-expansion steam engine driving a single screw. She had eight corrugated furnaces heating two 225 lbf/in2 single-ended boilers with a combined heating surface of 7,643 square feet (710 m2), plus one auxiliary boiler.
MV Putney Hill was a cargo ship completed by William Doxford & Sons Ltd in Sunderland in 1940. She was owned by Putney Hill Steamships Co Ltd and managed by Counties Ship Management Co Ltd of London (CSM), both of which were offshoots of the Rethymnis & Kulukundis shipbroking company. Putney Hill was a sister ship of MV Tower Grange, which Doxford built in the same year for another CSM company, Tower Steamships Co Ltd.
I-10 was an Imperial Japanese Navy Type A1 submarine that served during World War II. Designed as a submarine aircraft carrier, she was commissioned in 1941 and supported the attack on Pearl Harbor, operated in the Indian Ocean — including support for the 1942 midget submarine attack on Diego Suarez — and in the New Caledonia and New Zealand areas, and took part in the Guadalcanal campaign and Marianas campaign before she was sunk in 1944 during her seventh war patrol.
I-65, later renumbered I-165, was an Imperial Japanese Navy Kaidai type cruiser submarine commissioned in 1932. A KD5 sub-class submarine, she served during World War II, supporting Japanese forces in the invasion of Malaya and the Dutch East Indies campaign, participating in the Battle of Midway, and patrolling in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean before she was sunk in 1945. In 1944, her crew committed a war crime, massacring the survivors of the merchant ship Nancy Moller.
MV Abosso was a passenger, mail, and cargo liner, the flagship of Elder Dempster Lines. In peacetime she ran scheduled services between Liverpool and West Africa. In the Second World War she was a troop ship, running between the United Kingdom, West Africa, and South Africa.
SS Umona was a British cargo liner. She was built at Sunderland on the River Wear in 1910, survived the First World War and was sunk by enemy action off Sierra Leone, West Africa in 1941.
SS Avoceta was a British steam passenger liner. She was built in Dundee in 1923 and was sunk by enemy action in the North Atlantic in 1941. She belonged to Yeoward Line, which carried passengers and fruit between Liverpool, Lisbon, Madeira and the Canary Islands.
Merchant seamen crewed the ships of the British Merchant Navy which kept the United Kingdom supplied with raw materials, arms, ammunition, fuel, food and all of the necessities of a nation at war throughout World War II — literally enabling the country to defend itself. In doing this, they sustained a considerably greater casualty rate than almost every other branch of the armed services and suffered great hardship. Seamen were aged from fourteen through to their late seventies.
Lord Blears was a British-American professional wrestler, ring announcer, promoter, actor, mariner, and surfing personality.
