Skip to main content
Drawing of the sinking of the Elder Dempster liner Falaba, 28 March 1915. Image courtesy Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19150422-47-2.

Drawing of the sinking of the Elder Dempster liner Falaba, 28 March 1915.
Image courtesy Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19150422-47-2.

  • SS Falaba is torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-28 in the Irish Sea. The British liner with 145 passengers and 95 crew aboard is en route from Liverpool to Sierra Leone when she is struck by a single shell. 104 lives are lost, among them the American mining engineer Leon Thraser. The New York World describes the sinking of the Falaba as “massacre” and “an act of piracy”.
  • Holy Trinity Church in Orange holds a military church parade