SLAUGHTER AT SEA The Truth Behind a Naval War Crime

London: Robert Hale. Very Good+ in Very Good+ dust jacket. 1986. First Edition. Hardcover. 0709025971 . With 21 photographic illustrations. The Baralong Affair was a British disgrace: a war crime unparalleled in the modern history of the Royal Navy. Until now its shameful details have been deliberately obscured, but its significance in delaying the entry of the United States into the First World War has never been evaluated. In 1915 the War Office sent out the Q-ship Baralong elaborately disguised as a US merchant ship. On encountering the U-27 she threw off the camouflage and sank the German vessel. The subsequent alleged murder in cold blood of some of the U-boat's survivors caused an international diplomatic furore. President Wilson turned away in horror; the Germans saw the incident as a valuable weapon of propaganda; and the British Admiralty battened down on all official records. The facts can now be told. In clear detail, Alan Coles reveals the appalling truth of the Baralong Affair. For the first time British, American and German eye-witness accounts of the atrocities have been collected together to explain - and finally to judge - this naval scandal. ; 220 x 140mm; 220 pages .