In mid-August 1918 Erich Ludendorff, Quartermaster General of the Imperial German Army, realised that Germany could not win the Great War by offensive means. On 2 October the Reichstag heard with incredulity that victory was impossible. The German High Command sent an appeal for an immediate armistice to President Woodrow Wilson, but it was not until 11 November that terms were finally agreed and the armistice was signed. Meanwhile, there were some Germans who wanted to go on fighting, while rumours that the fleet would put to sea for a last mission caused mutiny in German ports.

It was against this background that submarine ub-123 left Heligoland in the last week of September 1918 under the command of 27 year old Oberleutnant Robert Ramm, with orders to operate in the Irish Sea. In January 1917 Germany had declared unrestricted submarine warfare. Every ship, combat or neutral, sailing to or from a British port would be sunk on sight. Ub-123 sailed into the Atlantic and down the west coast of Ireland where it sank the tanker Eupion, then around the south coast and northwards into the Irish Sea.

On 10 October the city of Dublin Steam Packet Company's Royal Mail Steamer Leinster left Dun Laoghaire for Holyhead. Shortly before 10.00, about five miles off the Kish Lightship, in rough seas, Leinster was struck by a torpedo fired by ub-123. As preparations were being made to launch the lifeboats and abandon ship a second torpedo struck in the vicinity of the boilers, causing a tremendous explosion which blew tons of debris into the air, including the funnels, bridge, and foremast. A lifeboat full of people that was being lowered was smashed. The ship sank quickly.

Best estimates are that of the 771 souls on board 501 lost their lives-the worst marine disaster in Irish history. Yet within only a few years the sinking of the Leinster was almost forgotten, and it remains outside the consciousness of most Irish people. Philip Lecane has taken a lead in reviving public awareness of this tragedy, and was instrumental in setting up Friends of the Leinster committees in Holyhead and Dun Laoghaire. He has also undertaken the detailed research leading to publication of this book, which is based on contemporary accounts by survivors, rescuers, and other witnesses.

After the first torpedo struck, the Leinster's Master, Captain William Birch, managed to send off a distress message, although he did not think it had been heard by anyone. However the sos was received by naval patrol vessels Mallard, Seal, and Lively, the first of which reached the scene soon after 10.30.
Although Leinster was a civilian ship the majority of its passengers were military personnel, most of whom were in the British Army returning from leave or duty in Ireland. There were also military personnel from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, as well as Royal Navy and army medical personnel. Lecane believes that of these 340 were lost and 153 survived. Of the 187 civilian passengers 134 were lost. The crew numbered 76, of which 37 were lost. In addition, the Leinster carried 22 Post Office staff who were working in the post sorting room below the water line when the first torpedo struck; only one of them survived.

There was no complete passenger list and a small number of individuals may have been omitted, or counted twice, in the contemporary reports. Lecane lists all known passengers and crew, with personal details and in some cases photographs, where these could be discovered.

Rescue vessels worked with great difficulty due to the number of casualties, wreckage, the rough seas, and the danger of further submarine activity. Survivors were in the water for up to 2½ hours, clinging to rafts and wreckage or in lifeboats. They tell the story in their own words. Lecane weaves their accounts into a continuous narrative interspersed with the personal stories of individual passengers and crew members, all told in remarkable detail-an Irish Nationalist MP who had been shipwrecked on four previous occasions surivived again; a widow from York Road, Dun Laoghaire, whose husband, a lifeboatman, had lost his life during a rescue mission 23 years before, perished at almost the same spot; a boy with a childhood spinal injury travelling from The Cripples' Home in Bray to Barnardo's in London for training had little chance of survival; a husband and wife who had been married only the previous day became separated due to confusion prior to boarding and the husband was left behind: he never saw his wife again; a senior army officer who had survived the Boer War and the trenches in France, where his arm had been permanently disabled, was lost with his two young children, a boy and a girl; and many more individual stories of tragic loss, selfless heroism, miraculous survival.

Captain William Birch was thrown into the sea when the second torpedo blew up the bridge. He was picked up, badly injured, by one of the lifeboats but was again thrown into the sea when the lifeboat capsized while HMS Lively was attempting to take the survivors on board. Captain Birch's body was never recovered. And what of ub-123? It left the scene quickly. Eight days later on passage back to Germany it hit a mine in the North Sea; the explosion sank the submarine resulting in the death of its 36 crew members.

Philip Lecane deserves great credit for having researched and written this book, and financed its publication. There are a few solecisms which more professional proof-reading should have elimintated, but these do not detract in any way from the overall value of the book. Torpedoed! brings this almost forgotten disaster, in which so many individual tragedies were intertwined, back to public attention in compelling detail, and I strongly recommend it.