[1][2] In 1905 Elder, Dempster Shipping Ltd ordered a pair of cargo and passenger liners from Alexander Stephen and Sons of Linthouse in Glasgow.

[10][11] Falaba left the Mersey estuary just after the White Star Liner Cymric, and at 19:00 hrs the two ships dropped their pilots to the same cutter off Holyhead.

The ships parted in the Irish Sea, as Cymric headed for Fastnet and Falaba made for Las Palmas.

[12][13] The next day Falaba sighted a submarine in St George's Channel 38 nautical miles (70 km) west of the Smalls Lighthouse.

Cymric was one of the ships that received the signal, and was no more than 15 nautical miles (28 km) away, but Admiralty standing orders forbade her to put herself at risk by going to assist.

U-28 fired one torpedo from a range of only 100 yards,[18] hitting Falaba's engine room,[19] and causing her to sink within ten minutes at position 51°30′N 06°36′W / 51.500°N 6.600°W / 51.500; -6.600.

Some survivors, including the Second Engineer, alleged that about a dozen of U-28's crew were on deck, laughing at the victims, and making no effort to rescue anyone.

[15][23] The victims included a US citizen, Leon Thrasher, from Massachusetts, who was a mechanical engineer travelling to Sekondi to work for a British mining company in Gold Coast (now Ghana).

His death caused diplomatic tension between the United States and Germany that became known as the Thrasher incident,[23] before being swept into the events surrounding the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

Shipmasters and their trade union, the Mercantile Marine Service Association, responded to her loss by calling for UK merchant ships to be defensively armed.

[25] At the end of March, Dr Bernhard Dernburg, a German former Colonial Minister who was living in the United States, said that Germany had given "ample warning" on 18 February that persons traveling on any British ship would be in danger.

[29] When the inquiry concluded on 8 July, Lord Mersey said he was satisfied that those witnesses were "mistaken", and the damage was not due to neglect by Falaba's officers or crew.

[28] He declared that "The cargo was an ordinary one", and he dismissed the presence of 13 tons of cartridges and gunpowder as "no more than is usually carried in peace time".

[11] He found that there were only five minutes provided for the evacuation and so held the officers and men of U-28 "exclusively" responsible for the loss of life.