Charles Fryatt

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Captain Charles Algernon Fryatt (1872 – 27 July 1916) was the Master of the Great Eastern Railways merchant steamship SS Brussels who was captured and executed in 1916 during the First world war by the Germans after he used his ship in an attempt to ram a U-Boat.

Captain Fryatt was a regular on the Rotterdam/British East Coast route since the start of the war and this was the cause of much annoyance to the Germans. In March 1915 they made two determined efforts to sink the SS Brussels. On the 3rd March 1915 Capt. Fryatt successfully dodged an attack on his ship by a U-Boat and sailed home to a hero’s reception and was presented with a gold watch by the ship's owners. On the 28th March 1915 a further attempt was made to sink his ship by a U-Boat. Capt. Fryatt saw it surface and as it was trying to line up a torpedo shot on the ship, he turned the helm over and bore down on the U-Boat which was forced to crash dive in order to avoid him. It appears that the U-Boat passed from starboard to port under the ship as it surfaced close enough to the ship so that, as Capt. Fryatt reported "you could have easily hung your hat on the periscope as she lay alongside us". The U-Boat then disappeared never to be seen again. Capt. Fryatt was awarded another gold watch, this time by the Admiralty.

Captain Fryatt continued his voyages for another fifteen months until on the 23rd June, 1916, he was trapped by a flotilla of German torpedo boats and taken to Zeebrugge. He was tried by a Court Martial in Bruges on 27th July. By all accounts, he was convicted before the trial even took place. It condemned Capt. Fryatt to death as a franc-tireur. The sentence being confirmed by the Kaiser. He was executed at 18.00 hours that same evening as an unlawful combatant, having written a farewell letter to his wife and six children. He was buried in a small cemetery just outside Bruges which the Germans used to bury Belgian "Traitors".

The outcry in Britain was enormous. Asquith, in Parliament, stated "The Government are determined that this country will not tolerate a resumption of diplomatic intercourse until reparation has been made for this murder.

It seems to that the Germans tried to use Captain Charles Fryatt as a warning to the British Mercantile Marine which was largely ignoring German efforts to bottle them up in port.

The reason was that he, as a merchant navy officer and, in the eyes of the Germans thus being not a military man but a civilian, tried to ram a German submarine March 28 1915.

A press article after the execution said: Fryatt, Master of the British merchant ship SS Brussels (Great Eastern Railway Company) sailed from Rotterdam to Southampton when his ship was stopped on June 23 1916 by a German torpedo boat and interned in Zeebrugge Belgium. Fryatt was arrested when the Germans found a decoration (medaille), which he received, from the British Admiralty for his courage in trying to sink/ram a German submarine in 1915.

The Germans held that Fryatt, being not a military man but a non-combatant and thus subject to the rules of "The Hague Convention". He was tried and executed.

The British accused the Germans of murder and denied that Fryatt tried to ram the submarine. Instead, they made public that: "He saved his vessel and the lives of his passengers and crew by skilfully avoiding an attack, and in recognition of his coolness and judgement the Admiralty made him a presentation".

Unfortunately the House of Commons, at the time of the presentation, publicly applauded Fryatt’s attempts to ram the submarine and the inscription in Fryatt’s golden watch, which he received from the Admiralty at that date, also was very specific and clear. He did try to ram the sub. He did so on Churchill's orders for mercantile marine Captains which said:

1: All British merchant ships to paint out their names and port of registry, and when in British waters to fly the flag of a neutral power.(preferably the American flag) (source: World crisis vol 2 p.283)

2: British vessels are ordered to treat the crews of captured U-boats as "felons" and not to accord them the status of prisoners of war.(source: Simpson. Lusitania p.36)

3: Survivors should be taken prisoner or shot whichever is the most convenient.

4: In all actions, white flags would be fired upon with promptitude. (Source Richmond diaries 27-2-15)

Churchill continued: "The first British countermove made on my responsibility was to deter the Germans from surface attack. The submerged U-boat had to rely increasingly on underwater attack and thus ran the greater risk of mistaking neutral for British ships and of drowning neutral crews and thus embroiling Germany with other Great Powers." (Source Churchill World crisis. p.724-725)

He then gave very specific orders to civilian mercantile marine captains, he ordered them: "to immediately engage the enemy, either with their armament if they possess it, or by ramming if they do not" and he continued then: "ANY MASTER WHO SURRENDERS HIS SHIP WILL BE PROSECUTED". (Source: ibidem). With this order, civilian captains had but one choice, to become a franc-tireur with the risk to be executed by the Germans, or to be executed by their own landsman for cowardice in the sight of the enemy.

Ironically, the captain of the German U-33 who stopped the SS Brussels that day in March, handled in accordance with the so-called international cruiser rules. He surfaced, ordered the SS Brussels crew to leave their ship before firing his torpedo. Suddenly, Fryatt ordered full-ahead and tried to ram in which he was partly successful.

The Germans were aware of Churchill's orders after they stopped in February 1915 the British freighter Ben Cruachan (Ben-Lines) and found a copy of these orders.]

There is a memorial to Captain Charles Fryatt at Liverpool Street Station in London.