SS Falaba

In 1905 Elder, Dempster Shipping Ltd ordered a pair of cargo and passenger liners from Alexander Stephen and Sons of Linthouse in Glasgow. Yard number 413 was launched on 23 May as Fulani, but then bought by Compagnie Maritime Belge and completed as ''. Yard number 414 was launched on 22 August as Falaba'', and completed for Elder, Dempster as planned. Falabas registered length was , her beam was and her depth was . Her tonnages were and . She had berths for 210 passengers: 138 in first class, and 72 in second class. Elder, Dempster registered Falaba in Liverpool. Her UK official number was 124000 and her code letters were HJGF. By 1911 she was equipped for wireless telegraphy, supplied and operated by the Marconi Company. By 1913 her call sign MZK. In 1911 Elder, Dempster bought '' and renamed her Elmina''. ==Loss and rescue==

On the afternoon of 27 March 1915 Falaba left Liverpool for West Africa carrying 151 passengers and 95 crew. They included 30 British Army officers on their way to prepare for the Kamerun campaign, and 70 Colonial Service officers. Her cargo included 13 tons of cartridges and gunpowder. r Falaba left the Mersey estuary just after the White Star Liner , and at 19:00 hrs the two ships dropped their pilots to the same cutter off Holyhead. The ships parted in the Irish Sea, as Cymric headed for Fastnet and Falaba made for Las Palmas. The next day Falaba sighted a submarine in St George's Channel 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 . Falabas Master, Captain Frederick J Davis, ordered "full ahead", which increased her speed to . Falaba also fired distress rockets. U-28 gave chase at for a quarter of an hour, and ordered "Stop or I will fire". Falaba hove to, and U-28 told her "You have ten minutes". 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 away, but Admiralty standing orders forbade her to put herself at risk by going to assist. German government sources claiming 23 minutes, and many witnesses claiming 10 minutes) and 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, hitting Falabas engine room, and causing her to sink within ten minutes at position . The explosion also capsized the first two lifeboats that had been launched, throwing many people into the water. The German government rejected such accusations as "shameless lies". 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. 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. ==Increasing tensions==

The victims included a US citizen, Leon Thrasher, from Massachusetts, who was a mechanical engineer travelling to Sekondi to work for a British mining company in Gold Coast (now Ghana). His death caused diplomatic tension between the United States and Germany that became known as the Thrasher incident, Arming merchant ships created tension with the US and other neutral nations as to whether they should be treated as warships. Germany sometimes claimed such ships could be sunk without warning. However, 149 ships were so armed by mid-May. ==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-28s actions "perfectly justifiable", because Falaba did not heave to when ordered. 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. 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 Falabas 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." ==British inquiry==

On 20 May 1915 an official inquiry by the Board of Marine Arbitration was opened in London. John Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey, President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court, presided. The Solicitor General for England and Wales, Stanley Buckmaster, represented the Board of Trade. Counsel for Elder, Dempster denied that the boats were unseaworthy. 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 Falabas officers or crew. 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". 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. ==References==