19th August 1915 (Thursday)

BORN TODAY: in Chicago – Ringgold Wilmer Lardner Jr., journalist and screenwriter blacklisted in post-war Hollywood for his un-american activities, who later wrote the screenplay for M*A*S*H.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_Lardner,_Jr.

War!

War at Sea: The German submarine U-24 sinks the White Star Liner, “Arabic”, with the loss of 44 lives. In retaliation the British Royal Navy’s “HMS Baralong” tricks another U-boat, U-27 by flying a US  flag and feigning the rescue of passengers from another British steamer, and then shelling and destroying the submarine. The 12 surviving crew of U-27 take refuge on the steamer they were about to destroy, but are summarily executed by a boarding party from the Baralong. (“the Baralong incident”).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baralong_incidents

31st July 1915 (Saturday)

BORN TODAY: in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand – RNZAF pilot Tame Hawaikirangi Thomas Waerea, who died in Europe in 1943, aged 28, and was buried in the Hanover War Cemetery, Niedersachsen, Germany, a long way from home, but is remembered at the Auckland Museum online cenotaph.

http://www.aucklandmuseum.com/war-memorial/online-cenotaph/record/C23803

War!

War at Sea: the British steamer “Iberian” is shelled, torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Ireland by the German submarine U28. The U-boat’s skipper, Georg-Günther Freiherr (Baron) von Forstner, and five of his crewmen see a sea-monster, “a gigantic sea-animal, writhing and struggling wildly… [which shoots] out of the water to a height of 60 to 100 feet.”

All six of the sub-mariners then forget to report this strange incident until 18 years have elapsed, in 1933.

http://blogs.forteana.org/node/93

26th July 1915 (Monday)

BORN TODAY: in Nidubrolu in Andhra Pradesh, British India – Pragada Kotaiah, freedom fighter and parliamentarian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragada_Kotaiah

War!

Socialism in Italy: a “rising star” of the Italian socialist party, one Benito Mussolini, expresses the view that “Italian workers should give ‘not a penny’ to the cause of war, nor spill ‘one drop of blood’ for a cause that had ‘nothing to do with it’. If the government failed to declare neutrality, the proletatriat would force it to do so”. [Mark Thompson: “The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919”].

Fire in Constantinople:  A great fire in Istanbul, later attributed to Russian areoplane bombing, destroys over 3000 buildings.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=WC19150825.2.49.3

Submarines in the Dardanelles: the French submarine “Mariotte” is sunk by the Ottoman Navy, and its crew taken as prisoners of war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_July_1915

Discipline on the Western Front: in the largest single judicial execution by the British during the war, 5 members of the 3rd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment are executed on the ramparts of Ypres.

http://www.worcestershireregiment.com/wr.php?main=inc/shot_at_dawn

21st June 1915 (Monday)

Midsummer on the home front…

On the English home front: at Maidstone barracks, in Kent, a concert raises funds for wounded servicemen.

http://www.kent.gov.uk/about-the-council/campaigns-and-events/kent-and-medway-in-the-first-world-war

On the Scottish home front: the SS Carisbrook, a British merchant steamer carrying wheat from Montreal, Canada, to Leith in Scotland, is captured and sunk by German submarine U-38 off the north east coast of Scotland.

http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?13412

On the Alsatian home front: the town of Metzeral in Alsace (formerly and more recently in France) is destroyed at the end of six days of intense fighting.

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=228886

20th June 1915 (Sunday)

BORN TODAY: in Hamburg – SM UC-6, a German  minelayer submarine.  In just over two years she will sink over 50 ships before herself being destroyed in September 1917.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_UC-6

War!

Eastern Front: At the Battle of Lemberg, German & Austro-Hungarian forces lauch an attack to re-take the city and the Austrian fortress lost to the Russians in 1914 (later Lwów in Poland, now Lviv in Ukraine).

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_lemberg1915.html

Across Empires: in St John’s on the Island of St. Pierre et Miquelon ( a vestige of the colony of New France off the Atlantic coast of Canada) 242 Canadian recruits of “F” company embark on HM Troopship Calgarian, bound for Liverpool and the war in Europe, including Inuit and Métis volunteers from Labrador.

http://www.heritage.nf.ca/first-world-war/articles/aboriginals-first-world-war.php

7th May, 1915 (Friday)

War!

War at Sea: Fifteen miles from the Irish coast, a German submarine torpedoes the passenger Liner, Lusitania, sending nearly 1200 passengers and crew to a watery grave, including 128 from the USA, still a neutral country.

http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2015/0503/20773263-centenary-of-sinking-of-lusitania-marked-in-courtmacsherry/

 

26th April 1915 (Monday)

BORN TODAY: in Furth, Bayern, Germany – Ludwig Schweickert, European wrestler killed in action during World War 2.

http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/sc/ludwig-schweickert-1.html

ACCIDENTS: In the English village of Brayton in Cumberland, a pit explosion injures 8 miners, seven of whom will subsequently die of their injuries.

http://www.rumneys.co.uk/braytondomain/accidents/1915_disaster.htm

War!

World affairs: In London,  Italian diplomats agree to declare war on Germany and her allies within one month, in exchange for territory in the South Tyrol, and in the Adriatic, including Gorizia, Istria and most of Dalmatia – the homes of 230,000 German speaking Austrians and around 750,000 Slovenes and Croats, far outnumbering the 650,000 Italians also residing there. [The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919].

Dardanelles: British submarine E-14 successfully passes through the Dardanelles, reaching the sea of Marmara and sinking a Turkish gunboat. [Burg & Purcell].

22nd April, 1915 (Thursday)

War – from above, from beneath, and from within…

 

BORN TODAY: in Brno, in Austria-Hungary (now part of the Czech Republic ) – Vilem Goth, Czechoslovakian exile who joined the RAF 310 squadron at Duxford, England, and died in action over Kent fighting for the Allies in 1940 .

http://www.bbm.org.uk/Goth.htm

The Western Front: At the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans secure an initial advantage by releasing poison gas onto a favorable wind, which totally surprises French colonial troops – Algerian and Zouaves, with many collapsing and dying while trying to flee. [Burg & Purcell].

War at Sea: In Washington DC, the German Imperial Embassy issues the following public notice addressed to US citizens:

NOTICE!

Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.

http://www.rmslusitania.info/lusitania/final-crossing/

17th April 1915 (Saturday)

War!

The Western Front:

In Flanders, British forces successfully take “Hill 60” – a small elevation (actually a spoil heap from earlier railway enginerring works, marked on maps with a 60m contour line) in a surrounding low-lying area – by tunnelling beneath the german defences and blowing the hill apart with explosives.

“the resulting explosions ripped the heart out of the hill over a period of some 10 seconds.  It flung debris almost 300 feet into the air and scattered it for a further 300 yards in all directions… As the assaulting party closed on what was left of the German 172nd Regiment holding the hill, the dazed German’s screams could be heard over the din, as the British bayonets pierced them.  Approximately 150 died, with only 20 being taken prisoner.  Total British casualties were just seven.” [Firstworldwar.com].

http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/hill60_1915.htm

The Dardanelles: The British submarine E-15 is destroyed by Turkish shells while trying to force the strait and enter the Sea of Marmara. [Burg & Purcell].

 

3rd April 1915 (Easter Saturday)

BORN TODAY: in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands – Petrus Jozef Sietze (“Piet”) de Jong, World War 2 Dutch submarine commander and Prime Minister of the Netherlands, 1967-71.

http://www.nndb.com/people/098/000164603/