Thrasher incident

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. The cause for it was the sinking of the British steamer Falaba by a German submarine, where one of the around 100 victims was a passenger from the US, Leon Chester Thrasher.

On 28 March 1915 the German U-boat U-28 chased and halted the British steamship Falaba. The British crew sighted the submarine at a distance of 3 miles astern. At first the steamer tried to escape, but after 12 minutes, the Germans ordered her to stop with flag signals, they obeyed. After 20 minutes, the Germans came into hailing distance, and gave the crew and passengers 10 minutes to evacuate. Poor handling of the life boats – three of them merely surf boats – caused some of the boats to fall into the cold water with many people. The majority of them, around 100, drowned or died because of hypothermia.

Witnessing the difficulties the British had with launching the boats, Kapitänleutnant Georg-Günther von Forstner, the Captain of the German submarine, decided to wait another 10 minutes, and seeing there were still some on board the ship, kept waiting further. Receiving reports of approaching smoke on the horizon, thinking they were of alarmed destroyers, after waiting 23 minutes for the evacuation, and the launched life boats already hundreds of yards away from Falaba, at 12:53 GMT he gave order to fire one torpedo. The ship sunk within 8-10 minutes after the hit. Between 20 to 30 people were still on board, and one group was busy with belatedly preparing the lowering of the last boat, placed on the poop deck. Forstner claimed, he noticed this activity only after he gave the order to launch the torpedo. The British claimed that this surf boat was full of people, and many died in the explosion. The men remained on board, saved themselves by jumping in the water, some of them, including captain Frederick Davies, died. A drifter tracking the u-boat and just arriving at the scene rescued most of the survivors, around 120 people from the water and from the life boats.

After the sinking, based on survivor stories, the British press accused the Germans of misusing the White Ensign, of giving only an inadequate time of 5 minutes to evacuate, and jeering about the people struggling for their lives in the water. Inquiries on 30 March in Milford Haven, and in May in London led by Lord Mersey concluded, that after a chase of about 20 minutes, and after waiting only 5 minutes, the submarine torpedoed the Falaba. In these show trials the 43-minute action was reduced to an unrealistic 25-30 minute one, in order to designate the German submarine captain and the German Government as only responsible for the "manslaughter".