Baralong Incidents

Part of World War I
Atlantic U-boat Campaign

Date	19 August 1915 24 September 1915
Location	Irish Sea, Atlantic Ocean
Result	British victory

Belligerents

United Kingdom

German Empire

Commanders and leaders

Godfrey Herbert

A. Wilmot-Smith

Bernd Wegener †

Iwan Crompton

Strength

1 Q-ship,
2 steamers

2 submarines

Casualties and losses

2 steamers damaged

2 submarines sunk

The Baralong incidents were naval engagements of the First World War in August and September 1915, involving the Royal Navy Q-ship HMS Baralong, later renamed HMS Wyandra, and two German U-boats.

Baralong sank U-27, which had been preparing to sink 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 surviving sailors to be summarily 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. Later, Baralong sank U-41 in an incident which has also been described as a war crime.

After the sinking of RMS Lusitania by a German submarine in May 1915, Lieutenant-Commander Godfrey Herbert, commanding officer of Baralong, was visited by two officers of the Admiralty's Secret Service branch at the naval base at Queenstown, Ireland. He was told, "This Lusitania business is shocking. Unofficially, we are telling you... take no prisoners from U-boats."

Interviews with his subordinate officers have established Herbert's undisciplined manner of commanding his ship. Herbert allowed his men to engage in drunken binges during shore leave. During one such incident, at Dartmouth, several members of Baralong's crew were arrested after destroying a local saloon. Herbert paid their bail, then left port with the indicted crewmen aboard. Beginning in April 1915, Herbert ordered his subordinates to cease calling him "Sir", and to address him only by the pseudonym "Captain William McBride."

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Wikipedia