« Adolphe Pégoud becomes first flying ace | The London Pact between Entente and Italy » |
The Thrasher Incident
On 28 March, 1915, a British steamship, the RMS Falaba, was torpedoed during the unrestricted submarine warfare campaign by German U-Boat U-28 operated by Commander Freiherr Georg-Günther von Forstner. An early ocean-going U27 class boat, U-28 was a veteran on its third war patrol when it encounted the British steamer.
When the casualty report came in from the Galaba it was discovered that one American was on board, a 31-year old engineer named Leon Thrasher. Feeling they had a propaganda victory on their hands, the British foriegn office put the name of the dead American out into the press. Soon the incident was being called a massacre of innocents and president Woodrow Wilson of the United States was being urged to act.
Just when the American president appeared prepared to issue a note that would lead to war with Germany, the facts of the sinking came to light. U-28 had in fact acted according to the rules of war. She had approached the Falaba and fired a warning shot from its deck guns, asking the captian of the ship to offload its passengers to safety before the submarine engaged her. The British Captain, who had been carrying 13-tons of illegal explosive in her holds) chose to flee and radio British patrol craft of the location of the submarine. Still not firing, the submarine approached as close as it could, making vocal contact and pleading with the merchant to allow the passengers to escape. When this was refused the ship was fired upon. Unfortunately, according to testimony, the first shells designed to cripple the ship instead landed in the illegal stash of explosives and blew out of the water.
While unrestructed submarine warfare was galling to the United States, attempts to manipulate US opinion by the British had the opposite affect on the Americans, causing them to approach more egregious and deadly incidents like the Lusitania with a more jaundiced eye.
Form is loading...
You must be a member of this blog to see the comments. Log in now!