RMS Lusitania

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Image:RMS Lusitania.jpg

The RMS Lusitania was an ocean liner of the British Cunard Steamship Lines. Built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland, and launched in 1906, the ship and its sister, Mauretania, were built to compete with the fast German liners of the time. As such, Lusitania held the Blue Riband a number of times, notably in 1907.

The ship was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat on May 7, 1915, on her 202nd crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. The incident played a role in the United States' entry into World War I on April 17 1917. President of the United States Woodrow Wilson officially promised to keep the US out of the war, but the sinking of the ship provided some justification for the escalation of U.S. involvement. If the ship had been carrying munitions, as the Germans claimed, his claim that the Lusitania was a wrongful victim in the attack would have been false.

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Specifications

  • Gross register tonnage: 32,500 tons (89 340 m3)
  • Length: 241m (790 ft)
  • Beam: 30 m (88 ft)
  • Number of funnels: 4
  • Number of masts: 2
  • Construction: Steel
  • Propulsion: Quadruple screw, four direct-acting Parsons steam turbines
  • Service speed: 26 knots Top speed: 28 knots
  • Builder: John Brown & Co. Ltd, Clydebank, Scotland
  • Launch date: June 7 1906
  • Passenger accommodation: 563 first class, 464 second class, 1,138 third class
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Comparison with the Olympic class

The Lusitania, and its sister ship, the Mauretania, were smaller than the White Star Line vessels RMS Titanic, RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic. Though less luxurious, they were significantly faster. Despite their greater speed, they were not quite fast enough for Cunard to provide a weekly transatlantic departure schedule using just two vessels. The slower White Star Line vessels required three sister ships in order to maintain a weekly departure schedule, and so would Cunard. Due to the high operating costs of the Cunard sisters, and the fact that passenger comfort had been a secondary consideration to speed, the third liner Aquitania would be more like the White Star trio. Larger, more stable, slower and fantastically luxurious.

Another way the classes of ships differed was in the how they were divided by water-tight bulkheads. The Titanic and her sister ships were divided solely by bulkheads that were perpendicular to their keels. In contrast, the Lusitania and Mauretania also included a longitudinal bulkhead that ran from bow (front) to stern (rear). The British commission that looked into the loss of life from the Titanic disaster concluded that the death toll would have been smaller if the Titanic had incorporated such a longitudinal bulkhead. But in this case, the Lusitania's longitudinal bulkhead contributed to the loss of life. The Lusitania was long and narrow, and having a hole on one side led to the vessel rapidly listing to that side. Its lifeboats were approximately 20 metres above the sea. Furthermore, a small list considerably complicated launching the lifeboats — the lifeboats on the low side of the ship swung out too far to conveniently step aboard. While it was still possible to board the lifeboats on the high side of the ship, lowering them presented a difficult problem. Typically 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 them apart.

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Career

Image:RMS Luisitania.jpg The Lusitania made her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England to New York City, NY on September 7, 1907. At the time she was the largest ocean liner in service.

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 westbound and 23.61 knots 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. 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.

At the onset of World War I, the British Admiralty considered the Lusitania for requisition as an auxiliary cruiser; however, her size and fuel consumption deemed her inappropriate for this role, thus she remained on the North Atlantic passenger service. For economic reasons, however, the Lusitania's transatlantic crossings were reduced to once a month and boiler room #4 was shut down. Maximum speed was reduced to 21 knots. The Titanic took a long time to sink, the Lusitania took about 20 miutes.

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Last voyage and sinking

Image:Lusitania wreck bollards.jpg On May 7, 1915, six days after departing from New York and already within sight of the coast of Southern Ireland, the Lusitania was discovered by the German submarine U-20, commanded by Captain Walther Schwieger. Before the voyage, a secret warning, given to the ship's wealthiest passengers, reported that U-boat activity was to be expected and advised not to travel. There was also a public warning given by the German Embassy in the U.S. and embassy officials handed out this leaflet on the dockside:

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

Image:Lusitania wreck telegraph.jpg 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. The British government never used the largest liners, such as the Lusitania, in this role for it was decided that such large vessels used too much coal, presented too large a target and put at risk large crews. 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. The Mauretania had been requisitioned by the British government, though, while its sister ship Lusitania continued in its roles as a luxury liner built to convey people and property between England and the United States.

The U-boat, which was on a routine and uneventful journey until it encountered the large steam ship at 2:00 pm, decided to fire a torpedo from a distance of 700 yards (640 m). The torpedo triggered a second explosion in the ship. It was said at the time to have been caused by dust residue from what remained of the ship's 6,000 tons of coal fuel. The Germans claimed that it was caused by munitions being secretly carried on board. The Lusitania sank 10 miles off the coast of Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland in just 20 minutes

Image:Lusitania wreck.jpg Another possibility was that the sudden force of cold sea water pouring onto the hot steam boilers caused a massive explosion. This was widely believed to be a danger at the time. In the Titanic's case, great care was taken to vent boilers before the sea could reach them. However, during WWI and WWII, many steamships sank with their boilers under pressure without explosion. With the torpedo strike and subsequent explosions, the Lusitania was thrown into darkness.

Part of the cargo was in fact military in nature: 4,200,000 rounds of Remington .303 rifle cartridges, 1250 cases of shrapnel shells and eighteen cases of fuses. Nevertheless, the physical size of the cargo would have been quite small. By international law, the presence of military cargo made the Lusitania a legitimate target.

Image:Lusitania medal.jpg The Allies denied the ship was carrying munitions, though British documents later showed it was, and claimed sinking as yet another example of the "barbarity" of the German war machine, particularly in the context of Germany's actions in occupied France and Belgium.

Infamously, Munich metalworker Karl Goetz struck commemorative medallions, apparently celebrating the sinking as a triumph of the German navy over the British. The German government launched an inquiry after learning of the medals through the British press. Goetz defended 69 of his medals as satire, but the government had their distribution halted. British propagandists pre-commissioned Selfridges of London to make several thousand copies of the medal, which then were sold to benefit the British Red Cross.

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Cargo

The Lusitania is reported to have carried, under the guise of bales of fur and cheese boxes, 3 inch (76mm) shells and millions of rounds of rifle ammunition. The ship also carried 46 tons of aluminum powder and scrap headed for the Woolwich Arsenal. These materials comprised "a contraband and explosive cargo which was forbidden by American law and… should never have been placed on a passenger liner." Template:Ref At the time of the incident, the Germans claimed that the second explosion was caused by the illegal contraband onboard the liner, yet the materials carried on the ship were not explosive in nature. Also, according to the study of the ship by Robert Ballard, the first torpedo struck the ship too far back to have hit the contraband cargo.

Other theories as to the source of the second explosion have been a coal dust explosion, boiler explosion, steam line fracture, or even a second torpedo. The Germans themselves conducted tests to determine the cause of the second explosion, but results were inconclusive. They denied the last of these options, but the subsequent doctoring of the submarine journal casts suspicion on the one-torpedo claim.

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. In the 1990s, famed explorer Robert Ballard, the man who found Titanic, used a submarine to explore the wreckage more intently. Many pointed 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.

Ballard said he could not find the hole Light spoke of, and he advanced the coal dust explosion theory. 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.

The remaining two theories of a steam line explosion or a boiler explosion were created based on computer models created in the late 1990s. These theories hold that the torpedo ripped open the side of the ship, which let in cold ocean water. This water may have made contact with the hot machinery of the ship, which in turn created steam. The steam could have built up to the point where the pressure caused the second explosion.

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Passengers and crew

The Lusitania's master, Captain William Turner, was equally impatient with scholars and millionaires, but listened to the protestations of one passenger, who had approached him expressing his concerns for their safety and lamenting the lack of a passenger drill. Professor Ian S. Holbourn, the Laird of Foula (Shetland Isle, Scotland), had insisted that the Captain order lifeboat drills and that more such precautions be taken. His efforts to stimulate safety awareness (during a time of war) were nothing if not vindicated by the widespread panic that was to be observed when the ship's lights went out during the torpedo strike and explosions.

Holbourn guided some panic stricken passengers to his cabin where he fitted them with life belts, even offering up his own, then steered them through the dark, tilting passageways to the decks above and the safety of a lifeboat.

Avis Dolphin, the youngest in this party, was escorted by her nursemaids Hilda Ellis and Sarah Smith. Having found a lifeboat for the child and her nurses, Holbourn dove into the freezing ocean to find himself surrounded by a mass of bodies and wreckage. His hope of reaching the nearest boat was interrupted when he was compelled to aid a man who was floating helplessly nearby. By the time Holbourn found his way to a boat, the man he had pulled along with him was dead.

Transferred from the Wanderer of Peel to the Stormcock, Holbourn, along with many other wet and injured survivors, was amongst the first of the 774 rescued to arrive at Queenstown that night.

With his recent insights into the largely hushed up events surrounding the RMS Oceanic off Foula, Professor Holbourn was aware of the imminent dangers presented by transatlantic crossings during the early months of the Great War and as such was prepared to face the worst.

Some well-known people who perished on the Lusitania included:

On March 1, 1916, a full ten months after the event, Cunard Steamship Company announced the official death toll of 1,195. The bodies of many of the 1,195 drowned in the sinking are buried at either the Lusitania plot in Cobh or at the Church of St. Multose in Kinsale. 128 American citizens were killed and their deaths brought the United States closer into entering the war.

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Conspiracy theory

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 bolstered by Patrick Beesly's Room 40. If there ever were such a conspiracy, it would have had to be orchestrated by the British Admiralty, then led by Winston Churchill. Churchill always denied this claim. Critics of this theory argue that the Allies in early 1915 were not desperate for more troops; to the contrary, they preferred the US to stay neutral. A neutral US would provide more arms to the Allies that would have been cut off had the US been mobilizing for war. However, the question still has to be answered, why did the Lusitania maintain a route to the West of Ireland remaining in the Atlantic Ocean instead of making for the safety of the St George's Channel?


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The future

In June 2005 the owner of the wreck of the Lusitania, Gregg Bemis won his high court challenge with the Irish State and is now in a position to legally inspect the liner. 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 boat.

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.

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See also

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Notes

  1. Template:Note 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).
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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.
  • 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.
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External links

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