Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

The Bayano was a merchant ship commissioned by the Admiralty as an Armed Merchant Cruiser (AMC) on 21/12/14. She served with 10th Cruiser Squadron. At the beginning of World War I British passenger liners were requisitioned by the Royal Navy for conversion to armed merchant cruisers, in part to form the 10th Cruiser Squadron and also to relieve the strain on the regular cruisers by undertaking lone patrols, and later, convoy escort duties. The Royal Navy was short of cruisers and attempted to make up the deficiency by attaching a few guns and White Ensigns to selected liners. The resulting ships were classified as armed merchant cruisers and used mainly as escorts. They were vulnerable ships, being high-sided, not armoured, and not highly compartmented. On March 11th, 1915, the vessel, under command of Commander H.C. Carr, was on her way to Liverpool to coal when she was intercepted ten miles NW by W of Corsewall Point by submarine U-27, commanded by Lt.Cdr. Wegener.

The attack took place at 5.15am. The Bayano sank very rapidly and only four officers and 22 ratings were saved. Fourteen officers, including Commander Carr and 181 ratings were killed. The SS Castlereagh, commanded by Capt. McGarrick, arrived on the scene shortly after, but although she saw much wreckage and many dead bodies she was chased away by the submarine and prevented from making a search. An account published in 1918 gave further details: ?Twenty four half-dead men, some on a couple of rafts, others on a ship's boat floating wrong side up. One or two, the strongest or the most determined, were trying to attract attention by flag-wagging with shirts tied to oars. So far their ebbing energy had been altogether wasted, though the exercise served to keep them warmer than their mates. Not much of the romance of the sea here; rather all tragedy, and cold, and hunger, and the bitterness that enters into a man's soul at such times. Bruises and blood were common to most of the poor fellows. They had been badly buffeted. Three and a half hours in the water, ill-clad, exposed to the searching wind, helpless and well nigh hopeless?and to the north a large liner pursuing her course without regard for their sufferings. If those on the look-out on the passing vessel saw the flotsam at all, which is scarcely likely, they probably regarded rafts and boat as a cluster of seaweed. The next ship that came their way mistook the little group for a submarine. At a distance the floating things merged into one. No blame to the captain had he given the black mass a wide berth; ships had been lost in the Irish Sea before through inquisitiveness. He approached a little closer, without becoming too venturesome. If the object on which his glasses were focussed were a U-boat, it was without a conning tower. Presently the captain picked out figures, an upturned boat and rafts. It is not easy to effect a rescue in a small boat, particularly when those needing succour are almost past help. Eighteen men were lifted or helped in, and transferred to the steamer, a coaler named the Balmerino, commanded by Captain James Foster. Before the boat returned for the others an armed merchantman had come up and taken them off. They were survivors of the Bayano, a vessel of the Merchant Service engaged on patrol duty. She was 'carrying on ' when a torpedo hit at five o'clock in the morning, when many of her 220 men were below. The nature of the explosion was such that few of them were afforded an opportunity to get away from the stricken steamer. She heaved for a few minutes only after having received the wound, and disappeared with the majority of her company. Dead bodies floating in lifebelts, and a quantity of wreckage were discovered by the SS. Castlereagh, which was obliged to give up searching the spot for possible survivors owing to the appearance of a German submarine. The enemy saw to it that this humanitarian task was not accomplished by chasing the steamer for twenty minutes. War may be war, but the U-boat has made it something worse. It has denuded certain commanders of bowels of compassion.

The Bayano was submarined, and took some 200 men to the bottom with her in four minutes? Two freemasons died on HMS Bayano; Chief Petty Officer Herbert WILLIAMS and his colleague Petty Officer William GALE. It seems likely that the body of Herbert WILLIAMS was picked up with the survivors (or he died after rescue) as he is buried at EASTLEIGH Cemetery in Hampshire. An interesting footnote concerns the fate of the U27, the U Boat that sank HMS Bayano. On August 1915, in the Irish Sea, a surfaced German submarine, the U-27, shelled a cargo ship, the Nicosian, carrying mules from New Orleans to England. An armed British merchant ship, the Baralong, flying the U.S. flag, approached the submarine. Crewmen aboard the Baralong lowered the U.S. flag and raised the British flag. British marines began firing upon the Germans. Twelve submarine crewmen jumped into the sea, and the marines fired upon them, killing six. The other six fled to the Nicosian and took refuge in its engine room. The marines found them and killed all six. Germany's ambassador to Washington later protested the British use of the American flag and the murder of German sailors. Lieutenant Godfrey Herbert RN, enraged about Germans in general and U-boat warfare in particular, ordered that all German survivors, among them the commander of U27, Lt.Cdr. Wegener, should be executed on the spot. Although the British Admiralty tried to keep this event as a secret, news spread out to Germany and the infamous Baralong incident - a war crime which was never prosecuted - had its share in promoting cruelty at sea. The Baralong Incident was a controversial event of the First World War that was never entirely resolved. Whether it was actually an unprosecuted war crime, or largely fabricated from a less notable violation, or whether any violation even occurred at all, will not be known do to a lack of records. The story was used by German Navy to justify increased cruelty at sea during World War I and especially in World War II under Nazi Germany. There was even a Kriegsmarine submarine flotilla formed on June 25, 1938, named Wegener in memory of this incident. Sources Daring deeds of merchant seamen in the Great War - Wheeler, Harold F. B 1918

Masonic :

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley