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.
On 28 January 1915 a German merchant raider captured and scuttled the US sailing ship William P. Frye. On 4 February Germany declared a war zone around the British Isles, in which all ships would be targeted. The Imperial German Navy's 30 submarines then began attacking all ships, whether belligerent or neutral. They had secret orders to spare US ships, but mines in the North Sea sank US steamships on 21 and 22 February. [1] [2]
The United Kingdom responded by tightening its blockade of Germany, including food. [3] The UK Admiralty ordered ships to steer away or to ram any submarine that they encountered, and not to zigzag. [4]
The US government, led by President Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, protested to the German government on 10 February. Wilson and Bryan called the German intention "an act so unprecedented in naval warfare" and that the US would hold the Germans to "a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities." [5]
Leon Chester Thrasher (sometimes spelled Thresher) was from Massachusetts. He was born in Hardwick in 1884, and trained in Springfield as a machinist and master mechanic. [6] He was described as a "mechanical engineer" [7] or "mining engineer". [8] He had worked for the Panama Canal Railway, and was traveling from London to Sekondi to work for a British firm, the Broomassie Mining Company, in Gold Coast (now Ghana). [9] [10] Thrasher was issued a US passport in June 1911, but it had expired in June 1912. At first this raised a question of whether he had retained his US citizenship. [7]
On 27 March 1915 Elder Dempster Lines' Falaba left Liverpool for West Africa. She had a crew of 95 and 151 passengers. The passengers included 30 British Army officers on their way to prepare for the Kamerun campaign, 70 Colonial Service officers, [11] and Leon Thrasher. [12] [13] Her cargo included 13 tons of cartridges and gunpowder. [14]
At 11:40 hrs on 28 March Falaba's Chief Officer, Walter Baxter, sighted U-28 in St George's Channel. Falaba's Master, Captain Frederick J Davies, ordered his ship to steer away at full speed. However, U-28 outran Falaba, and ordered "Stop or I will fire", so Davies ordered Falaba to heave to. U-28's commander, Kapitänleutnant Georg-Günther von Forstner, then ordered Davies to abandon ship, as it was to be sunk. Davis ordered the sending of two wireless telegraph messages of their predicament. The evacuation was disorganized, which caused several casualties. One torpedo amidships sank the ship quickly. [4]
Thrasher was among the people killed in the incident. He was the first US citizen to be killed by the action of a German submarine. [15]
Falaba was the second British passenger ship that U-28 had sunk in as many days. On 27 March it had sunk Yeoward Brothers' steamship Aguila, also with considerable loss of life. U-28 was reported to have fired its deck gun at Aguila, inflicting casualties, including as her passengers and crew were abandoning ship. [16]
Wilson thought U-28 had violated international law, but Bryan questioned "whether an American citizen can, by putting his business above his regard for his country, assume for his own advantage unnecessary risks and thus involve his country in international complications." [17]
On 7 May a U-boat sank RMS Lusitania. Many people, including numerous US citizens, died in the shipwreck. The US sent a diplomatic note to Germany asking for an apology and reparations for both ships. The note included a warning that the US would take "any necessary act in sustaining the rights of its citizens or in safeguarding the sacred duties of international law." [17]
The Gore-McLemore resolution, introduced by two Southern members of Congress directed the President to warn US citizens against traveling aboard foreign ships of belligerent nations, and even proposed confiscating passports of citizens who failed to comply. In keeping with that sentiment, and supporting the isolationist views of his constituents, Representative Frank Park of Georgia affirmed that he opposed any policy that would "hurl the sons of the South to death and destruction because some fool, or idiot, or nonpatriotic rascal" chose to sail on a "belligerent armed vessel". [18]
After persistent requests by Bryan, documents detailing witness statements from the sinking of Falaba offered evidence that U-28's commander gave adequate warnings and time for Falaba to abandon ship. Instead, the officers of Falaba had used that time to radio the position of the submarine to nearby Royal Navy patrol ships. As a warship approached, the submarine fired one torpedo, which may have detonated the 13 tons of explosive in Falaba's cargo. [19]
The German government contended that if a merchant ship tries to escape capture and seek assistance, that alters the duty of the commander of the attacking vessel to try to ensure the safety of non-combatants aboard the merchant ship. The US government rejected this contention. [20]
Thrasher's body washed ashore on the coast of Ireland on 11 July 1915, after it had been in the sea for 106 days. At first, authorities mistook him for a Lusitania victim and designated him Body No. 248. [21]
After reviewing Lord Mersey's investigation of the incident, one modern author alleged "had the crew been well organized and the passengers well led, all of those on the ship could have been safely evacuated before the torpedo was fired. The sinking of the ship was down to von Forstner and U-28; responsibility for the loss of life, however lay with Elder, Dempster, their Marine Superintendent and his brother-in-law Fred Davies." [22]
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.
RMS Lusitania was an ocean liner that was launched by the Cunard Line in 1906 and held the Blue Riband appellation for the fastest Atlantic crossing in 1908. It was briefly the world's largest passenger ship until the completion of the Mauretania three months later. 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 1,199 passengers and crew.
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.
Gulflight was an American 5,189-ton tanker built by the New York Shipbuilding Co. of Camden, New Jersey for the Gulf Refining Company. It was launched on 8 August 1914. The ship became famous when it was torpedoed early in World War I and became the center of a diplomatic incident which moved the United States closer to war with Germany. The ship survived the attack but was eventually sunk in 1942 by torpedo attack in World War II.
Falaba is a rural town in Solima chiefdom, Falaba District in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone. The population of Falaba is largely from the Yalunka, Kuranko and couple of Mandingo ethnic groups. Falaba is virtually all Muslim and it is known for its deeply religious Muslim population. Farming is the major economic activity in Falaba.
Frank "Lucky" Tower is the subject of an urban legend that said that he was a stoker who survived the sinking of RMS Titanic, RMS Empress of Ireland, and RMS Lusitania. There is no evidence that anyone was involved in all three disasters, and there was no one with the name of Frank Tower on the crew list on any of these vessels' respective voyages; however, there was one survivor and passenger named Frank Tower from Lusitania, and a William Clark who survived both the Titanic and Empress of Ireland sinkings.
SM U-20 was a German Type U 19 U-boat built for service in the Imperial German Navy. She was launched on 18 December 1912, and commissioned on 5 August 1913. During World War I, she took part in operations around the British Isles. U-20 became infamous following her sinking of the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915, an act that dramatically reshaped the course of World War I.
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.
The Mediterranean U-boat Campaign in the Mediterranean Sea was fought by Austria-Hungary and German Empire against the Allies during World War I. It was characterised by the ability of the Central Powers to raid with near impunity during the first years of the war, causing substantial shipping losses, until the introduction of the convoy system allowed the Allies to drastically cut their losses from 1917 on.
SM UB-47 was a Type UB II submarine or U-boat for the German Imperial Navy during World War I. UB-47 was sold to the Austro-Hungarian Navy during the war. In Austro-Hungarian service the B was dropped from her name and she was known as SM U-47 or U-XLVII as a member of the Austro-Hungarian U-43 class.
SM UB-13 was a German Type UB I submarine or U-boat in the German Imperial Navy during World War I. The submarine was probably sunk by a British mine net in April 1916.
SS Arabic was a British-registered ocean liner that entered service in 1903 for the White Star Line. She was sunk on 19 August 1915, during the First World War, by German submarine SM U-24, 50 mi (80 km) south of Kinsale, causing a diplomatic incident.
The U-boat campaign from 1914 to 1918 was the World War I naval campaign fought by German U-boats against the trade routes of the Allies. It took place largely in the seas around the British Isles and in the Mediterranean. The German Empire relied on imports for food and domestic food production and the United Kingdom relied heavily on imports to feed its population, and both required raw materials to supply their war industry; the powers aimed, therefore, to blockade one another. The British had the Royal Navy which was superior in numbers and could operate on most of the world's oceans because of the British Empire, whereas the Imperial German Navy surface fleet was mainly restricted to the German Bight, and used commerce raiders and unrestricted submarine warfare to operate elsewhere.
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.
The Atlantic U-boat campaign of World War I was the prolonged naval conflict between German submarines and the Allied navies in Atlantic waters—the seas around the British Isles, the North Sea and the coast of France.
Raimund Weisbach was an officer of the Kaiserliche Marine, and a U-boat commander during the First World War. He was the torpedo officer on the German U-boat, the U-20, who saw to the preparation and firing of the torpedo that sank the RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915. He went on to become a successful commander, sinking 36 ships before being captured when his submarine was sunk by the Royal Navy.
SM U-30 was one of 329 U-boat submarines serving in the Imperial German Navy in World War I. She engaged in commerce warfare as part of the First Battle of the Atlantic. U-30 is significant for the torpedoing of the US tanker Gulflight on 1 May 1915 20 nautical miles west of Scilly.
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, shortly 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. The passengers had been warned before departing New York of the danger of voyaging into the area in a British ship.
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.
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.
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