SS Falaba (Liverpool)

liverpool annie · Jan 10, 2009

On 28th March 1915 the SS Falaba, built 1906, 4,806, was torpedoed and sunk by U 28, 38 miles W from the Smalls Lighthouse, St George's Channel, carrying passengers from Liverpool to Sierra Leone, owned by Elder, Dempster & Co Ltd of Liverpool and managed by the Elder Line. 104 people died, a mixture of crew and passengers

http://books.google.com/books?id=ma...X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA172,M1

A second torpedo was fired at the Falaba. This happened as the ship was being evacuated, and while the ship was sinking from the first impact. Most passengers and crew had been evacuated, and a boat was being lowered when the second torpedo hit. This boat was destroyed. According to Hubert Blair, the boat simply disintegrated, and the force of the explosion threw him into the sea. The force of the blast was enough to break the ribs of another passenger, Lieutenant Toller
Click to expand...

A photo of the torpedoing of the Falaba taken from the bridge of u-28. It shows that the sub was on the surface and heading away from the Falaba when it fired 2 torpedoes from its stern tubes. They hit simultaneously. Unless U-28 circled around again I doubt they were ever within 300 yards of any British seaman or passenger in a lifeboat or otherwise. The photo casts doubts about much of the eyewitness stories given by survivors. For example, the dispersal pattern of the smoke rising from the Falaba funnel suggests either she was stopped but pointed into a stiff breeze or that she was still underway (explains why no lifeboats in the photo). The latter behaviour may have prompted the attack
Click to expand...

The Tenderness of a German Commander

The pirate who ordered the sinking of the Falaba is Commander Schmidt of the German submarine U-28. He has given his version of the murder of the Falaba's passengers to Mr J. J. Ryan, a United States cotton broker, who met him recently in Bremen, writes the special correspondent of the Evening News in New York.
Commander Schmidt assured Mr Ryan that the officers of the Falaba were mistaken in thinking that the crew of the U-28 laughed and jeered at the drowning women and children.
‘Such an impression is most cruelly unjust to my men,’ the pirate commander observed gravely. ‘My men were crying, not laughing, when the boats capsized and threw the people into the water.’
According to Mr Ryan, Commander Schmidt humanely expressed ‘regret’ that he was compelled to torpedo the Falaba in view of the fact that there were passengers aboard.

He supplied Mr Ryan with the following timetable of his leniency. ‘I warned the captain of the Falaba to dismantle his wireless apparatus,’ he said, ‘and gave him ten minutes in which to do it, and also to get out his passengers.
‘Instead of acting upon my demand, he continued to send out messages to torpedo boats that were less that twenty miles away to come to his assistance as quickly as possible.
‘At the end of ten minutes I gave him a second warning about dismantling the wireless apparatus and waited twenty minutes.
‘Then I torpedoed the ship, as the torpedo-boats were getting close up, and I knew they would go to the rescue of the passengers and crew.’
Click to expand...

(Cork Free Press, 13 May 1915, p.8)

http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/a/1/2/doc/a12553.shtml

cally · Jan 10, 2009

Whilst I have a typical picture of SS Falaba I have decided instead to show these two excellent sketches of the actual sinking which I have taken from www.firstworldwar.blogspot.com

liverpool annie · Jan 10, 2009

Very nice !! ....... thank you !

Annie

Log in or Sign up

SS Falaba (Liverpool)

liverpool annie New Member

Attached Files:

Falaba list.jpg

cally New Member

Attached Files:

SS FALABA-SINKING-2.jpg

SS FALABA-SINKING-1.jpg

liverpool annie New Member

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

SS Falaba (Liverpool)

Thread Tools

liverpool annie New Member

Attached Files:

Falaba list.jpg

cally New Member

Attached Files:

SS FALABA-SINKING-2.jpg

SS FALABA-SINKING-1.jpg

liverpool annie New Member

Share This Page

Useful Searches