U 87 – Prosiect Llongau-U 1914-18 (2024)

The most recent surveys have confirmed that this wreck is the U 87.

When Schneider sank the ARABIC, she was travelling with 181 passengers and over 300 crew from Liverpool to New York. Since June that year, German submarine commanders had been under strict orders not to attack passenger liners without warning and to ensure the safe escape of passengers and crew before launching an attack. The submarines were only allowed to open fire where passenger ships tried to escape or attempted a counter-attack. As Schneider was under the impression that the ARABIC might attack U 24, he fired a torpedo at the passenger liner, which sank within seven minutes. The ARABIC Incident caused a diplomatic crisis between Germany and the United States of America because three American passengers were among the forty-four dead. Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff (1862-1939), the German ambassador to Washington, D.C., had been given the task of convincing the US president, Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), that Schneider had not violated the rules of the war at sea. By 3 September 1915, Bernstorff reported to his government in Berlin that he had reached an agreement with the Americans according to which German submarines must issue a warning before attacking any passenger ships. In turn, the German Foreign Ministry issued a response in which it regretted the loss of lives, but also defended Schneider’s actions. The ministry stated that he had simply followed orders.

Whereas German-American tensions were by and large resolved over the following month, Schneider’s actions immediately sparked the BARALONG Incident on the same day which escalated the war at sea between Germany and the United Kingdom. The ARABIC was the second of four ships sunk by Rudolf Schneider to the south of Ireland on 19 August 1915. The British Q-ship HMS BARALONG, disguised as a US vessel and patrolling British waters under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Godfrey Herbert (1884-1961), had picked up ARABIC’s distress signal when she was torpedoed by U 24. The BARALONG began hunting for Schneider and his crew, who had by then departed for the Scillys, but instead mistook U 27, who had just shelled the steamer NICOSIAN nearby, for ARABIC’s assailant. Herbert opened fire on U 27 and punctured the submarine’s hull. When twelve survivors of the German crew escaped the now rapidly sinking vessel and tried swimming towards the still floating NICOSIAN, Herbert continued to fire into the swimming submariners. Eight German sailors, including U 27’s commander KapLt Bernd Wegener, had survived this round of fire and escaped into the NICOSIAN, which in turn was quickly boarded by BARALONG crew who shot the remaining German crew on sight. Afterwards, the British Admiralty attempted to suppress Herbert’s report of his and his crew’s conduct. The news broke anyway through the shocked American survivors from the NICOSIAN after they had landed in Liverpool and contacted their consul to report what they had witnessed. In addition, they also gave interviews to American newspapers on their return home a few months later. Germany placed a complaint with the American ambassador and demanded Herbert tried for murder. The incident subsequently escalated the war at sea as submarine commanders regarded innocent-looking ships flying US ensigns with increasing suspicion, thus diminishing the efficiency of the British Q-ships.

By the end of 1915, Rudolf Schneider was taken off the U 24 and took command of the new U 87 on 26 February 1917. Between May and August that year, he sank nineteen ships and damaged another two. On 13 October, Schneider and his crew were caught in a storm and he was swept overboard. According to the official war diary, the crew attempted to throw their commander a lifesaver, but he failed to reach it. Ten minutes later, Schneider’s body was recovered from the sea by ObMaschMt Reuss who had jumped into the water with a rope tied to him. Despite four hours of resuscitation attempts, the crew failed to revive Schneider. His body was buried at sea and, as second in command, Rudolf von Speth-Schülzburg took over the U 87 and continued the patrol according to order. On 25 December, Speth-Schülzburg’s decision to attack the AGBERI resulted in his and his crew’s death in the counter attack driven by the BUTTERCUP and PC 56. It appears that machinist Reuss, who had tried to save his previous commander’s life, had been rotated off the U 87 by the time she went on her final patrol and survived the war, as his name is not included in any of the German casualty lists.