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RMS Lusitania

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RMS Lusitania
Owners: Cunard Line
Builders: John Brown & Co. Ltd, yards in Clydebank, Scotland
Port of registry: Liverpool, United Kingdom
Laid down: June 16, 1904
Launched: June 6, 1906
Christened: Mary, Lady Inverclyde
Maiden voyage: September 7, 1907
Fate: Torpedoed by German submarine U-20 May 7, 1915
Specifications
Gross Tonnage: 31,550 GRT
Displacement: 44,060 Long Tons
Length: 787 ft (239.87 m)
Beam: 87 ft 6 in (26.67 m)
Number of funnels: 4
Number of masts: 2
Construction: Steel
Power: 25 Scotch boilers. Four direct-acting Parsons steam turbines producing 76000 hp geared to quadruple screws
Propulsion: Four triple blade propellers. Quadruple blade propellers installed 1909.
Service Speed: 25 knots (46.3 km/h / 28.8 mph) Top speed (single-day's run): 26.7 knots (49.4 km/h) (March, 1914)
Passenger Accommodation (Designed): 552 first class, 460 second class, 1,186 third class. 2,198 total
Crew: 850

The RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner owned by the Cunard Steamship Line Shipping Company, built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland, and launched on June 6 1906. She and her sister ship of RMS Mauretania were built to compete with and better the fast German liners of the time. Lusitania took back the Blue Riband in 1907 and she and the Mauretania were the fastest liners of their day.

On May 7, 1915 the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine, the U-20. The Lusitania sank after a subsequent massive internal explosion blew out her starboard bow. The sinking galvanized American opinion against Germany's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare and played a role in the United States' later entry into World War I on April 17 1917.

Construction and sea trials

Lusitania and Mauretania were built during the time of a naval "arms race" between shipping lines based in Germany and Great Britain. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the fastest Atlantic liners were German, and the British sought to win back the title. Simultaneously, American financier J.P. Morgan was threatening to buy up all the North Atlantic shipping lines, including Britain's own White Star Line. In 1903, Cunard chairman Lord Inverclyde took these threats to his advantage and lobbied the Balfour administration for a loan of £2.6 million for the construction of Lusitania and Mauretania, providing that they met Admiralty specifications and that Cunard remain a wholly British company. The British Government also agreed to pay Cunard an annual subsidy of £150,000 for maintaining both ships in a state of war readiness, plus an additional £68,000 to carry Royal Mail.

Lusitania's keel was laid at John Brown & Clydebank as Yard no. 367 on June 16, 1904. She was launched [1] and christened by Mary, Lady Inverclyde on June 6 1906. Lord Inverclyde died before this momentous occasion.

Starting on July 27, 1907, Lusitania underwent preliminary and formal acceptance trials. Engineers discovered that high speed caused violent vibrations in the stern, forcing the stern to be refitted with stronger bracings. After these physical alterations, she was finally delivered to Cunard on August 26.

Comparison with the Olympic class

The Lusitania and Mauretania were smaller than the White Star Line vessels Olympic, Titanic, and Britannic. Although significantly faster than the Olympic class, the Cunard ships were not fast enough to allow Cunard to provide a weekly transatlantic departure schedule using just two vessels. Consequently Cunard would require a third ship to maintain a weekly ferry, and after White Star announced its plans to build the Olympic class, Cunard ordered its third ship, Aquitania. Like the White Star trio, Aquitania would be larger and slower, but also more luxurious, than Lusitania and Mauretania.

The Olympic class differed from Lusitania and Mauretania in the subdivision of underwater compartments. The Olympic class ships were divided by transverse watertight bulkheads. Lusitania also had transverse bulkheads, but in addition she had longitudinal bulkheads on each side, between the boiler and engine rooms and the coal bunkers on the outside of the vessel. [2]. The British commission that investigated the Titanic disaster heard testimony that the flooding of bunkers outside of longitudinal bulkheads over a considerable length could imperil the stability of a ship.[3]

Career

The Lusitania being escorted by tug boats.

The Lusitania departed Liverpool, England for her maiden voyage on September 7, 1907 and arrived in New York City, NY on September 13. At the time she was the largest ocean liner in service and would continue to be until the introduction of her sister Mauretania in November that year.

In October 1907, the Lusitania took the Blue Riband from the Kaiser Wilhelm II of the North German Lloyd, ending Germany's 10 year dominance of the Atlantic. The Lusitania averaged 23.99 knots (44.4 km/h) westbound and 23.61 knots (43.7 km/h) eastbound.

With the introduction of the Mauretania in November 1907, the Lusitania and Mauretania continued to hand off the Blue Riband to each other. The Lusitania made her fastest westbound crossing in 1909, averaging 25.85 knots (47.9 km/h). In September of that same year, the Lusitania lost the Blue Riband permanently to the Mauretania. The Mauretania held the record as fastest ship on the Atlantic for the next 20 years, until she lost the title to the North German Lloyd liner Bremen.

War

The Lusitania, like a number of liners of the era, was part of a subsidy scheme meant to convert ships into Armed Merchant Cruisers (AMC) if requisitioned by the government. This involved structural provisions for mounting deck guns.

At the onset of World War I, the British Admiralty considered the Lusitania for requisition as an merchant cruiser; however, large liners such as the Lusitania consumed too much coal, presented too large a target, and put at risk large crews and were therefore deemed inappropriate for the role. Smaller liners were used as AMCs, and the blockade by Germany was enforced on such vessels.

The large liners were either not requisitioned, or were used for troop transport or as hospital ships. Mauretania became a troop transport while Lusitania continued in its role as a luxury liner built to convey people and property between England and the United States. For economic reasons, the Lusitania's transatlantic crossings were reduced to once a month and boiler room Number 4 was shut down. Maximum speed was reduced to 21 knots (39 km/h), but even at that speed, the Lusitania was the fastest passenger liner on the North Atlantic in commercial service.

On February 4, 1915, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany declared the seas around the British Isles a war zone. Effective February 18, Allied ships in the area would be sunk without warning in what would be known as unrestricted submarine warfare. British ships hiding behind neutral flags would not be spared, as the Lusitania had done on at least one occasion, though some effort would be made to avoid sinking clearly neutral vessels.

On April 17, 1915, Lusitania left Liverpool on her 101st transatlantic voyage, arriving in New York on April 24, where she docked for a week. A group of German-Americans, hoping to avoid controversy if the Lusitania were attacked by a U-boat, discussed their concerns with a representative of the German embassy. The embassy decided to warn passengers not to sail on the Lusitania before her next crossing.

Last voyage and sinking

Last departure

The Lusitania departed Pier 54 in New York on May 1, 1915. Prior to departure on that very day, a secret warning was given to some of the ship's wealthiest passengers, advising them not to travel because of U-boat activity. The German Embassy in the U.S. also issued this warning on April 22, 1915 that was not published in newspapers until the day of departure.

NOTICE!

TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travelers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY,
Washington, D.C. April 22, 1915

This warning was printed right next to an advertisement for Lusitania's return voyage.

The warning led to some agitation in the press and worried the ship's passengers and crew, except for the captain, an experienced 58-year old sailor and captain named William "Bowler Bill" Turner. Turner downplayed the concerns, and told one passenger that Lusitania was "safer than the trolley cars in New York City."

Lusitania steamed out of New York at noon that day, two hours behind schedule due to a transfer of passengers and crew from the recently requisitioned Cameronia. Shortly after departure, three German spies were found on board, arrested, and detained below decks.

Passengers

Lusitania carried 1,257 passengers on her last voyage. Those on board included British MP David Alfred Thomas and his daughter Margaret, Lady Mackworth, American architect Theodate Pope, Oxford professor and writer Ian Stoughton Holbourn, H. Montagu Allan's wife Marguerite and daughters Anna Marjory and Gwendolyn Evelyn, playwrights Justus Miles Forman and Charles Klein, American theatre impresario Charles Frohman, American philosopher, writer and Roycroft founder Elbert Hubbard and his second wife Alice, American pianist Charles Harwood Knight, renowned Irish art collector Sir Hugh Lane, American engineer and entrepreneur Frederick Stark Pearson and his wife Mabel, genealogist Lothrop Withington, and sportsman, millionaire, and leader of the Vanderbilt family, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt.

Eastbound

Lusitania's landfall on the return leg of her transatlantic circuit was Fastnet Rock, off the southern tip of Ireland. As the liner steamed across the ocean, the British Admiralty was tracking through wireless intercepts the movements of the German submarine U-20, commanded by Captain-Lieutenant Walther Schwieger and operating along the west coast of Ireland and moving south.

On the 5th and 6th of May, U-20 sank three vessels in the area of Fastnet Rock, and the Royal Navy sent a warning to all British ships: "Submarines active off the south coast of Ireland". Captain Turner of Lusitania was given the message twice on the evening of the 6th, and took what he felt were prudent precautions. He closed watertight doors, posted double lookouts, ordered a black-out, and had the lifeboats swung out on their davits so they could be quickly put into the water if need be. That same evening, a Seamen's Charities fund concert took place in the first class lounge.

At about 11:00, on Friday, May 7, the Admiralty radioed another warning, and Turner adjusted his course to the northwest, apparently thinking that submarines would be more likely to keep to the open sea and so the Lusitania would be safer close to land.

U-20 was low on fuel and only had three torpedoes left, and her commander, Walther Schwieger, had decided to head for home. The U-boat was moving at top speed on the surface at 13:00 when Schwieger spotted a vessel on the horizon. He ordered the crew to take the vessel under and to take up battle stations.

Sinking

Lusitania was making for the port of Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, 70 kilometers from the Old Head of Kinsale when the liner crossed in front of U-20 at 2:10 p.m. It was sheer chance that the liner became such a convenient target, since U-20 could hardly have caught the fast vessel otherwise. Schwieger gave the order to fire, sending a single torpedo towards Lusitania. It hit cleanly under the bridge, blowing a hole in the side of the ship, and was then followed by a much larger secondary explosion that blew out the starboard bow.

Schwieger's own log entries attests that he only fired one torpedo. Some doubt the validity of this claim, citing that the German government subsequently doctored Schwieger's log, but accounts from other U-20 crewmembers confirm that only one torpedo was fired.

Lusitania's wireless operator sent out an immediate SOS and Captain Turner gave the order to abandon ship; however, the liner was in a difficult position. The hole caused by the torpedo was causing her to list severely, the damage to the bow was making the foredeck sink under the waves, and the ship was still moving at relatively high speed.

Lusitania's severe starboard list during the sinking considerably complicated launching the lifeboats — the lifeboats on the starboard side of the ship swung out too far to conveniently step aboard. [4] While it was still possible to board the lifeboats on the port side, lowering them presented a different problem. As was typical for this period of time, the hull plates of the Lusitania were fastened with large rivets. As the lifeboats were lowered, they dragged on these rivets, which threatened to rip the boats apart. Many lifeboats overturned while loading or lowering, spilling their passengers into the sea below; those that were lowered tended to be overturned by the ship's motion when they hit the water. Some, by the negligence of some officers, crashed down onto the deck, crushing other passengers, and sliding down towards the bridge. Lusitania had 48 lifeboats, more than enough for all the crew and passengers, but only six managed to get to the water and stay afloat.

Turner tried to make for land to beach the liner and to reduce her speed, but Lusitania no longer answered the helm. There was panic and disorder on the decks. Schwieger had been observing this nightmare through U-20's periscope, but by 2:25 p.m. he decided he'd seen enough. He dropped the periscope and headed out to sea.

Turner stayed with the bridge until the water came up to meet him, and he managed to save himself by grabbing onto a floating chair. Lusitania's bow slammed into the bottom, her stern pitched up in the air, and she overturned on her side before sinking. Along the way, boilers proceeded to blow up with one causing the third funnel to explode and collapse, with the remaining funnels proceeding to snap off soon after. The liner then disappeared beneath the ocean. About a couple of minutes later, the ship hit the bottom and caused a backdraft of water, people and debris. There was then silence except for the people struggling in the water.

Lusitania sank in 18 minutes at 2:28 pm, 8 miles off of the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. 1,198 people died with her, including almost a hundred children.[5] The bodies of many of the victims are buried at either the Lusitania plot in Cobh or at the Church of St. Multose in Kinsale.

Last survivors

Known to be still alive:

  • Barbara McDermott (* June 15, 1912)
  • Rosalie Altamore Bonsignore, alive in March 2006
  • Audrey Pearl (* 1914/15), passed away November 30, 2006

Political consequences

A medal recognizing the sinking of the Lusitania

Schwieger was condemned in the press as a war criminal. What he was thinking when he gave the order to fire the torpedo is a mystery, as he was killed in 1917 when the submarine he commanded at that time, U-88, hit a mine. Had he survived the war, he likely would have been put on trial by the Allies and possibly hanged.

Of the 197 Americans on board, 128 lost their lives. There was massive outrage in Britain and America. The British felt the Americans had to declare war on Germany. US Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, fearing that the US would declare war, resigned from the Cabinet in protest; however, President Woodrow Wilson still did not want the country to get involved in a European dispute because the American population (many of whom were German-American) did not want to be involved in a war. Instead of declaring war, he sent a formal protest to Germany. Wilson was bitterly criticized in Britain as a coward.

Wilson's restraint now seems remarkable under the circumstances, since there was a wave of American anger over the sinking of Lusitania. Although unrestricted submarine warfare continued at a varying pace into the summer, on August 19 U-24 sank the White Star liner Arabic, with the loss of 44 passengers and crew. Three of the dead were Americans, and President Wilson angrily protested through German diplomatic channels.

On August 27, the Kaiser imposed severe restrictions on U-boats attacks against large passenger vessels. On September 18 1915, he called off unrestricted submarine warfare completely.

Munich metalworker Karl Goetz struck commemorative medallions in August 1915 to satirise the greed of Cunard line and the foolishness of contraband smuggled with the help of US neutrality. The original medal has the incorrect date of 5th of May 1915 on it. Some time thereafter British intelligence obtained a copy and saw a propaganda opportunity as the medal apparently celebrated the sinking as a premeditated crime. The incorrect date was taken as proof of this theory and combined with possibly apocryphal German press reports touting the triumph. British propagandists pre-commissioned Selfridges of London to make 250-300,000 copies of the medal in an attractive case claiming to be an exact copy of the German medal, which then were sold for a shilling to benefit the British Red Cross and other charities. Belatedly realising his mistake Goetz issued a corrected medal with the date of 7th of May. The Bavarian government suppressed the medal and ordered their confiscation in April 1917. The original German medals (less than 500 were struck) can most easily be distinguished from the English copies because the date is in German; the English version spells 'May' rather than 'Mai'. After the war Goetz expressed his regret his work had been the cause of increasing anti-German feelings, but it remains one of the most celebrated propaganda acts of all time.

According to French newspapers, the opening of the Paris Peace Conference, which resulted in the Treaty of Versailles, coincided deliberately with the anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania.

Controversies

Contraband

The telegraph on the wreck of Lusitania

The Germans immediately claimed that the Lusitania sank so quickly because the torpedo hit munitions being secretly carried on board, causing the second explosion. The Allies denied that the Lusitania was carrying any explosives and claimed that the sinking was yet another example of the "barbarity" of the German war machine, particularly in the context of Germany's actions in occupied France and Belgium.

British documents later confirmed the German assertion that the ship was carrying munitions.[citation needed] Also, after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt the secret copy of the ship's manifest that had been given to Woodrow Wilson also came to light.[citation needed] By international law, the presence of military cargo made the Lusitania a legitimate target. Included in this cargo were 4,200,000 rounds of Remington .303 rifle cartridges, 1250 cases of shrapnel 3 inch (76 mm) shells, and eighteen cases of fuses; [citation needed]however, the materials listed on the cargo manifest were small arms and the physical size of this cargo would have been quite small. French-Canadian passenger Joseph Marichal claimed he heard small arms ammunition exploding. His testimony was discounted by the British. This may reflect the fact that Marichal and his family were sitting down to lunch in the Second Class Dining Room, towards the stern of the ship, when the torpedo struck and he was several hundred feet from the site of the torpedo impact.[6] Marichal was killed in action while serving in the French Army.[7]

The original manifests of the Lusitania listed no armaments or munitions as cargo because it is illegal to ship explosives on a passenger vessel. In fact, tens of thousands of tons of both armaments and munitions may have been loaded aboard and listed on the manifests as items such as "cheese". The Lusitania did not have refrigerated cargo holds and was thus incapable of shipping cheese. The ship also carried 46 tons of aluminum powder and scrap headed for the Woolwich Arsenal. All of these materials comprised "a contraband and explosive cargo which was forbidden by American law and… should never have been placed on a passenger liner." [8]

In 1960, an American named John Light led a series of dives on the wreck. He claimed to have found a gaping hole in her side and professed that the Lusitania’s contraband cargo had exploded, thus causing the tragedy. Light conducted over 80 dives but, due to the primitive technology of the time, was unable to stay on the wreck for more than a few minutes a dive and could only glimpse fragments of the enormous hull.

Coal dust theory

In the 1990s, famed explorer Robert Ballard, the man who found Titanic, used a submarine to explore the wreckage more intently. Ballard said he could not find the hole Light spoke of, and he advanced the coal dust explosion theory. Ballard also claimed that the torpedo struck the ship too far back to have hit the contraband cargo. He considered that the second explosion was caused by dust residue from what remained of the ship's 6,000 tons of coal fuel to be more likely. Since the ship was nearing the end of its voyage, all that was left in the storage bunkers was coal dust. The powder may have been thrown into the air by the torpedo impact and, as it settled, reached the critical explosion point, triggering the second explosion which usually has been considered fatal to the ship.

File:Lusitania wreck bollards.jpg
The bollards on the wreck of Lusitania. Note that there is still some rope around them

Critics of this theory say that the wreck is lying on the starboard side, making direct inspection of the impact area impossible, and that the coal dust would have been too damp to have been stirred into the air by the torpedo impact into explosive concentrations. They also point out that Light had seen the wreck when it was still in relatively good condition, while Ballard did not. By the 1990s, the funnels of the ship had completely rusted away, and the hull had collapsed to half its original size.

Boiler explosion and steam pipe fracture theory

Some researchers have theorized that when the torpedo holed the ship cold ocean water made contact with the boilers of the ship, which in turn created steam. The steam could have built up to the point where the pressure caused the second explosion. The boiler explosion theory is implausible because there is testimony from the crews of the boiler rooms stating that they were in the boiler rooms after the second explosion. Also, virtually all the eyewitness testimony places the major explosion in the bow of the ship, not amidships where the boilers were located.

Second torpedo theory

The Germans themselves conducted tests to determine the cause of the second explosion, but results were inconclusive. They denied that a second torpedo hit Lusitania, but the subsequent doctoring of the submarine journal casts suspicion on the one-torpedo claim.

Deliberate Action by the British Admiralty

Immediately after the sinking, Germany accused Britain of deliberately conspiring to have Lusitania sunk to draw the United States in World War I on the side of the Allies. This view has been popularised by Colin Simpson in his book The Lusitania and Patrick Beesly's Room 40. Simpson's book claims that circumstantial evidence suggests that agents under the command of British naval intelligence Captain Guy Gaunt, acting on the orders of First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, deliberately rigged guncotton in the Lusitania to explode and then detonated the guncotton when the torpedo struck. A separate controversy on its own is why the Lusitania maintained a route to the West of Ireland remaining in the Atlantic Ocean instead of making for the safety of the St George's Channel, and why the usual precautions the Admiralty took to safeguard Lusitania on her previous wartime voyages were absent on her last voyage.[citation needed]Unfortunately many of the documents that could verify or invalidate these charges, such as the ship's supplemental manifest and British Admiralty records, are either missing or still under seal over 90 years later.[citation needed]

The future

The Irish Government in 1995 declared the wreck a heritage site under the National Monuments Act. This protects the wreck for 100 years. One of the reasons for this is attributed to the presumed presence of art treasures in lead containers located in the hold believed to have been carried by Sir Hugh Lane.

In June 2005, the owner of the wreck of the Lusitania, F Gregg Bemis Jr won his High Court challenge with the Irish State and is now in a position to legally inspect the liner and carry out a $2 million research expedition on the wreck. Mr Bemis wants to send divers to the wreck to prove his theory that the second explosion was caused by munitions being carried on the crack.

A diving team from Cork Sub Aqua Club, under license, made the first known discovery of munitions aboard the wreck in 2006. These include 15,000 rounds of .303 bullets in cases in the bow section of the ship. The find was photographed but left in situ under the terms of the license.

Bemis also hopes to salvage components from the wreck for display in museums. Any fine art recovered, such as the Rubens rumoured to be on board, will remain in the ownership of the Irish Government.

Interesting Facts

  • It was first proposed to raise the wreck of the Lusitania in 1920 by cutting the ship into five pieces. The cost of the undertaking would be covered by the recovery of millions of dollars worth of art and treasure. (The Edmonton Journal, July 31, 1920)
  • In July 1920, a life jacket bearing the name 'Lusitania' was found by two railroad workers washed up in the Delaware River in the city of Philadelphia, United States. (The Edmonton Journal, July 16, 1920)

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Robert Ballard, Exploring the Lusitania. This number is cited, probably to include the German spies that were detained belowdecks. The Cunard Steamship Company announced the official death toll of 1,195 on March 1, 1916, a full ten months after the event.
  1. ^ Colin Simpson, The Lusitania (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972), 157 – 58. Many of Simpson's claims are under scrutiny and rebutted by Bailey and Ryan in their book The Lusitania Disaster: An Episode in Modern Warfare and Diplomacy (New York: Free Press, 1975).

References

  • Ballard, Robert D., & Dunmore, Spencer. (1995). Exploring the Lusitania. New York: Warner Books.
  • Hoehling, A.A. and Mary Hoehling. (1956). The Last Voyage of the Lusitania. Maryland: Madison Books.
  • Layton, J. Kent (2005). Atlantic Liners: A Trio of Trios. CafePress Publishing.
  • Ljungström, Henrik. Lusitania. The Great Ocean Liners.
  • O'Sullivan, Patrick. (2000). The Lusitania: Unravelling the Mysteries. New York: Sheridan House.
  • Preston, Diana. (2002). Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy. Waterville: Thorndike Press.
  • Simpson, Colin (1972). The Lusitania. Little, Brown and Company, Boston.
  • The Lusitania Resource - Timeline
  • The Lusitania Resource - Facts and Figures
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