Charles Algernon Fryatt (2 December 1872 – 27 July 1916) was a British merchant seaman who was court martialled by the Imperial German Navy for attempting to ram a German U-boat in 1915. When his ship, the SS Brussels, was captured by the Germans off occupied Belgium in 1916, Captain Fryatt was court-martialled under German military law and sentenced to death for "illegal civilian warfare". He was executed by firing squad near Bruges, Belgium. In 1919, his body was reburied with honours in the United Kingdom.
Fryatt was born on 2 December 1872 in Southampton, the son of Charles and Mary Fryatt. He attended Freemantle School during the late 1870s. In 1881, Fryatt's family lived at 22 Trinity Terrace, in St Mary's, Southampton, but later relocated to Harwich, Essex where he attended the Corporation School. He and his wife, Ethel Fryatt, had seven children; six girls and one boy. The children were Olive, Victoria, Doris, Vera, Mabel, Charles and Dorothy. The younger Charles later followed his father into the merchant navy, training at HMS Worcester.
After ending school, Fryatt joined the Mercantile Marine, serving on SS County Antrim, SS Ellenbank, SS Marmion and SS Harrogate. In 1892, Fryatt joined the Great Eastern Railway as a seaman on SS Ipswich. Fryatt's father had been the First Officer on SS Cambridge. Fryatt was promoted through the ranks, serving on various ships. His first command was SS Colchester. In 1913, he was appointed master of SS Newmarket.
On 3 March 1915, Fryatt's command, SS Wrexham, a Great Central Railway ship, was attacked by a German U-boat. The ship was chased for 40 nautical miles (74 km). With deckhands assisting the stokers, the vessel made 16 knots (30 km/h) when it would normally have been difficult to make 14 knots (26 km/h). Wrexham arrived at Rotterdam with burnt funnels. The Great Eastern Railway presented Fryatt with a gold watch for this feat. The watch was inscribed Presented to Captain C. A. Fryatt by the chairman and Directors of the G.E Railway Company as a mark of their appreciation of his courage and skilful seamanship on 2 March 1915. Later that month he was in charge of Colchester when she was attacked unsuccessfully by a U-boat.
On 28 March 1915, as captain of the SS Brussels, he was ordered to stop by U-33 when his ship was near the Maas lightvessel. Seeing the U-boat had surfaced to torpedo his ship, Fryatt ordered full steam ahead and tried to ram U-33, which crash-dived. For this second action, Fryatt was awarded a gold watch by the Admiralty. The watch was inscribed Presented by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Chas. Algernon Fryatt Master of the S.S. 'Brussels' in recognition of the example set by that vessel when attacked by a German submarine on 28 March 1915. Fryatt was presented with a certificate on vellum by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. He was also praised in the House of Commons.
On 23 June 1916 Brussels left Hook of Holland bound for Harwich. Lights were shown from the beach and a flare was fired. A passenger is reported to have remained on deck and signalled to shore. Five German destroyers surrounded Brussels. The passengers were told to prepare to take to the lifeboats and the ship's official papers were destroyed. Brussels was then captured by the Germans, the radio was destroyed, and it was escorted into Zeebrugge and then to Bruges.
Fryatt and his crew were sent to the civilian internment camp at Ruhleben, near Berlin. On 16 July 1916, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that Fryatt had been charged with sinking a German submarine. In reality, U-33 had not been sunk; at the time of the trial it was on active service as part of the Constantinople Flotilla. The basis for the charge was the inscription on his gold watch from the Admiralty. Fryatt was tried at a court-martial by the Imperial German Navy on 27 July 1916, at Bruges Town Hall. Captain Fryatt was found guilty of being a franc-tireur and sentenced to death. The sentence was confirmed by the Kaiser. At 19:00, Fryatt was executed by a naval firing squad at Bruges within the harbour grounds. The execution was witnessed by one of the town's aldermen. He was buried in a small cemetery just outside Bruges that was used for burying Belgian civilians executed after being convicted of offenses involving guerrilla warfare or perfidy. The grave was later visited by diplomat Sir Walter Townley (British Ambassador to the Netherlands from 1917 to 1919) and his wife.
An execution notice was published in Dutch, French and German announcing the death of Fryatt. It was signed by Admiral Ludwig von Schröder. A translation of the execution notice reads:
NOTICE. The English captain of a merchant ship, Charles Fryatt, of Southampton, though he did not belong to the armed forces of the enemy, attempted on March 28th, 1915, to destroy a German submarine by running it down. For this he has been condemned to death by judgment this day of the Field Court Martial of the Naval Corps, and has been executed. A ruthless deed has thus been avenged, belatedly but just. Signed VON SCHRÖDER, Admiral Commandant of the Naval Corps, Bruges, July 27th, 1916.
German post-war confirmation of court-martial
On 2 April 1919, a German international law commission, named the "Schücking Commission" for its chairman Walther Schücking, reconfirmed Fryatt's sentence:
The execution by firing squad of Captain Charles Fryatt, ordered by the Court Martial of Bruges following judgment in the court-martial proceedings of 27 July 1916, involves no violation of international law. [However, t]he Commission regrets most deeply the haste with which the sentence was carried out.
The commission's ruling was not unanimous. Two members of the legal review panel, Eduard Bernstein and Oskar Cohn, dissented because in their opinion Fryatt's conviction and execution had been "a serious violation of international law" and "an inexcusable judicial murder".
On 31 July 1916, British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith issued a statement in the House of Commons.
I deeply regret to say that it appears to be true that Captain Fryatt has been murdered by the Germans. His Majesty's Government have heard with the utmost indignation of this atrocious crime against the laws of nations and the usages of war. Coming as it does contemporaneously with the lawless cruelty towards the population of Lille and other occupied districts of France, it shews that the German High Command, under the stress of military defeat, have renewed their policy of terrorism. It is impossible of course to conjecture to what atrocities they may proceed.
His Majesty's Government desire to repeat emphatically their resolve that such crimes shall not, if they can help it, go unpunished. When the time arrives they are determined to bring to justice the criminals whoever they maybe and whatever position they may occupy. In such cases as these the authors of the system under which such crimes are committed may well be the most guilty of all. The question of what immediate action can be taken is engaging the earnest attention of the Government and I hope very soon to announce to the House of Commons what we can do.
Lord Claud Hamilton, MP, Chairman of the Great Eastern Railway, denounced the execution as "sheer, brutal murder". The Mayor of Harwich opened a fund to erect a permanent memorial to Fryatt. A similar fund was opened in the Netherlands.
In the United States, The New York Times denounced the execution as "a deliberate murder". The New York Herald termed it "The crowning German atrocity". In the Netherlands, the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant described the execution as "arbitrary and unjust", while the Handelsblad Holland termed it "A cowardly murder inspired by hatred and revenge". In Switzerland, the Journal de Genève said "It is monstrous to maintain that armed forces have a right to murder civilians but that civilians are guilty of a crime in defending themselves". The Dutch branch of the League of Neutral States presented the Great Eastern Railway a memorial tablet which was erected at Liverpool Street station. The memorial was unveiled on 27 July 1917, exactly a year after Fryatt's execution. The scrap value of Brussels was donated towards the cost.