Lifeboats of the Ruel fired on

On the afternoon of 21 August 1915 in the Atlantic, about 45 nautical miles south-west of the Isles of Scilly, a German U-boat sank the British steamer Ruel. As the ship was sinking, with its crew already in the lifeboats, the submarine opened fire on the boats with its gun and with rifles. One seaman was killed, and the master and at least seven others were seriously wounded. The British chronology of the war calls this the “first proved case” of a German submarine firing on a crew in open boats.

The chase

Ruel, a steamer of about 4,000 gross register tons built in 1913, belonged to the owners Turnbull Brothers of Cardiff and sailed as a collier in the service of the Admiralty. She was returning in ballast from the Mediterranean (according to some lists from Malta) to Barry in Wales. According to the British official history she was four days out from Gibraltar when in the afternoon she sighted a submarine about three miles away, which at once began firing at her. In accordance with standing Admiralty instructions the master turned west to bring the attacker astern and tried to escape. The submarine, however, was faster. After a chase of an hour and a half two hits forced Ruel to stop, and the crew took to the boats.

The submarine came close and fired six rounds into the hull. As the ship began to sink, the Germans, according to the British account, turned shrapnel and rifle fire on the crowded lifeboats. One man was killed. The British official history states that the master and seven seamen were seriously wounded, while a British government note of December 1915 speaks of eight seriously wounded, including the master. The British did not then know the attacker’s number. According to post-war lists it was U-38 under Kapitänleutnant Max Valentiner, which for several days had been operating in the Western Approaches to the British Isles together with U-24 and U-27.

“The first proved case”?

The phrase from the British chronology needs qualification. Submarines had already fired on ships before, at the moment when the crews were abandoning ship. In March U-28 kept shelling the fleeing steamer Aguila even after she had stopped, while the boats were being lowered, and eight people were killed, as we mentioned in connection with the sinking of the Falaba. The Ruel case differed in that fire was directed at the boats when the ship had already been abandoned and was sinking, and the course of events was confirmed on oath by the survivors. Hence, presumably, the British phrase “first proved case”. The incident is known, however, mainly from British accounts. Ruel’s attempt to escape could under prize law justify firing on the ship until she stopped, but not shooting at men in boats.

Two days earlier the British Q-ship Baralong had sunk U-27, and her crew had shot the German survivors. There is nothing to suggest that the firing on Ruel’s boats was a reprisal for those events: the Admiralty kept the Baralong affair secret, and it came to light only after several weeks. The two cases were, however, linked by the British Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey. When at the end of 1915 Germany demanded the punishment of Baralong’s crew, he replied that London would agree to an impartial inquiry only if it also covered three German acts from the same 48 hours: the sinking without warning of the liner Arabic, the shelling of the submarine E13 and her crew in Danish waters, and the fate of Ruel’s crew. He called the firing on the boats a cowardly and cold-blooded act of violence for which there was no justification. Valentiner, one of the most successful U-boat commanders of the war, found himself after its end on the Allied list of those accused of war crimes.