Special thanks to historian Mitch Peeke for contributing this essay to Friends of the Lusitania.
RMS Lusitania: A Concise History
By Mitch Peeke
Author of The Lusitania Story (with co-authors Kevin Walsh-Johnson and Steven Jones)
In 1903, largely due to intense competition from the record-breaking German liners and the worrying takeover of most of the Premier British shipping lines by the American I.M.M. Co., The Cunard Line and the British Admiralty finalised a uniquely special agreement, whereby the British Government would loan Cunard £2,600,000 over 20 years at a mere 2.75 per cent interest. Over those same 20 years, the Admiralty would pay Cunard an additional mail subsidy of £150,000 per annum. In return, Cunard were to use the monies loaned to them to build two new express passenger ships. They would have to defer to the Admiralty on all aspects of basic design as both vessels were to be built to the Admiralty specifications for heavy cruisers. In time of war, these two ships and indeed the entire Cunard fleet, were to be placed at the disposal of the Admiralty. The two new ships were to become the Lusitania and the Mauretania. Cunard also had to guarantee to remain a British Company.
There were many things to consider when designing these two new “wonder ships”, not the least of which was the fact that the overall specification for the hull was being stipulated by the Admiralty. The design brief that was handed to Cunard’s chief designer, Leonard Peskett, was therefore a formidable one to say the least. In essence, his task was to combine the requirements of a naval cruiser and an express Atlantic liner, into the one vessel. A floating “Grand Hotel” for 3,000 passengers and crew, that was also to be capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean at an average speed of 24 knots and capable of mounting a battery of twelve six-inch guns!
The earliest projected designs were for a triple screw steamer. However, it was quickly realised that to stand even the remotest chance of achieving their design speed, these ships would need to generate something in the region of 68,000 Horsepower from their engines. With a projected loading of 22,600 HP on each shaft, this could well be excessive, so a quadruple screw arrangement was adopted, which shared the load out more evenly by reducing the load on each shaft to 17,000HP. To obtain this immense power requirement, each of the ships would be powered by four Parsons marine steam turbine engines. The resultant design produced a ship that would be 785 feet long, 88 feet wide and with the “Grand Hotel” on top, she would also be an unprecedented 6 decks high.
March 1905 saw the first rivet on the keel plates of the Lusitania ceremoniously hammered home by Lord Inverclyde, the Cunard Chairman, at John Browns shipyard on the Clyde. Sadly, Lord Inverclyde did not live to see the Lusitania launched. He died eight months before that momentous event. Construction of the hull went ahead rapidly. Once the keel had been laid and the ship’s cellular double bottom was in place, the bow section was built first, with construction gradually moving aft. It was more usual to start both ends simultaneously and meet in the middle, but they wanted more time to plan the layout of the ship’s vast engine rooms.
Everything about the Lusitania was big. From the four immense shafts that would drive the equally huge 17-foot diameter, three-bladed, 21-ton propellers, to her two 10.25-ton stockless bower anchors, each on a 330-fathom chain weighing 125 tons. Powerful steam driven capstans were also needed to raise and lower such heavy gear. Each of her four turbine engines was just over 25 feet in length and 12 feet in diameter. The 195 PSI steam pressure required to drive those mighty engines would be provided by 23 double-ended and two singe ended boilers, each of which was 17.5 feet in diameter and made for a total of 192 furnaces.
However, lurking ever present in the background, was a fatal design flaw. The ship was divided into several watertight compartments by transverse bulkheads, but because the Admiralty had control over the design, she was also sub-divided by longitudinal bulkheads, as were all the Royal Navy’s warships. The Lusitania had one massive coal bunker which ran clear across the ship, located forward, but huge though it was, it was not large enough to hold all the coal the ship would need for an Atlantic crossing. So, it was decided that the watertight spaces behind the longitudinal bulkheads on each side of the ship, would be utilised as the necessary additional bunkers. The Navy routinely did this on their warships as they believed that this “inner wall” of coal also offered a high degree of protection from enemy gunfire. The trouble was, to get the coal out of those longitudinal bunkers to feed the furnaces, meant having to have hatches cut into the insides of the bulkheads. Though designed to be watertight hatches, once they were opened to draw the coal, they could not be closed again due to the sheer weight of the coal bearing down on them from behind. The carefully designed system of watertight bulkheads, which had been designed to keep the ship afloat in any emergency, had just been very effectively by-passed and nobody, not even Peskett, had realised the grave nature of the practice.
Fourteen months and three weeks after Lord Inverclyde had hammered that first ceremonial rivet into place, the 16,000 ton hull stood on the slipway ready for launching.
On Thursday, 7th June 1906, at 12.30pm; Mary, Lady Inverclyde, officially named the new vessel Lusitania, (after the old Roman Empire’s name for the province which is now Southern Portugal and the Extremadura region of Spain) and sent the ship backwards down the ways into the River Clyde. Thousands had turned out to watch the event. Having been successfully launched, Lusitania was then moved to the fitting out berth, where she would spend the next year, being completed.
A young Scottish architect by the name of James Millar had been chosen by the Board of Cunard to lead the design team for the ship’s interior. Millar favoured the extensive use of plasterwork and skylights, particularly in First Class, which ultimately gave the Lusitania‘s interior a light and airy feel much loved by the ship’s passengers. Deep, sumptuous carpets, silk brocades, the two storey dining saloon in First Class, featuring an impressive central well topped by a plasterwork dome, the Regal Suites, internal telephones, electric lifts between the decks, the “Thermotank” system of heating and air conditioning, the superb First Class lounge with its barrel-vaulted skylight containing 12 stained glass windows by Oscar Patterson; all these things combined to give an impression that no detail had been overlooked and no expense spared. While Second Class on the Lusitania was said to rival First Class on any other ship, Third Class was in a style that could perhaps be best described as “luxuriously utilitarian”, if indeed such a label could exist in the first place!
On July 27th, 1907, her fitting out complete, Lusitania underwent a two-day preliminary sea trial off Ireland. This was followed by her formal acceptance trials which, to the utter dismay of all concerned, she failed. Lusitania spent the whole of August back in John Brown’s yard having all the second-class accommodation in the stern gutted. The formal trials had revealed a violent twofold vibration problem: the outer propellers were badly affected by the turbulent wake of the inner ones and there was also considerable resonance of the ship’s framework, caused by the unprecedented high speed that her propellers rotated at. Extensive bracing and stiffening had to be installed, which wrought havoc with James Millar’s masterful décor, and once the strengthened Second-Class section was refitted, Cunard accepted the Lusitania.
On September 7th, 1907, under the command of Cunard’s Commodore, Captain James B. Watt, Lusitania sailed on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York. Unfortunately, bad weather prevented her achieving her maximum speed. Though she did not regain the Blue Riband, her maiden arrival at Pier 54 in New York on Friday, September 13th, 1907, was a gala event in itself. She stayed in New York for a week, during which time she was open to the public, and left there to return home on Saturday 21st September. Lusitania again missed the record on her first return voyage, due to fog. The Germans were so far delighted with her performance!
The following month saw her second voyage to New York, (which was her third Atlantic crossing) This time, Lusitania regained the Blue Riband for Great Britain with an average speed of 23.99 knots. Such feats often inspired gentlemen to have wagers to test the speed of the new ship, purely for sport. Mr. William Pike, the American Consul in Strasbourg, Germany was sent a postcard from New York by a friend of his. The card was mailed from New York via the Lusitania. The card bore an underlined date of October 18th, 1907, on the front. The ship left New York the following day, October 19th, the record crossing having obviously excited the card’s sender, who clearly wanted to see just how quickly a postcard card would make it from New York to Strasbourg on the world’s fastest Mail steamer. On the reverse, the German postmark showed that the card had taken a mere nine days to reach Germany.
In June of 1908, the ship was dry docked to have both of her outer propellers replaced. The new ones were still 3-bladed, but of an increased pitch, which it was hoped would help to lessen her vibrations and increase the efficiency of her two high pressure turbines and thus improve her performance. Although her next crossing was another record, it was not by the margin Cunard were perhaps hoping for.
On 11th November 1908, Captain William Thomas Turner was selected as Lusitania‘s new Captain, on the recommendation of the retiring Commodore, Captain Watt. Under Captain Turner, the ship starts to better her own records and sets a new standard for fast turnarounds in port.
On 8th April 1909, as part of the continuing efforts to address the ship’s ongoing vibration problem, she was again dry docked, this time to have all four of her 3-bladed propellers replaced with even larger 23 feet diameter, 23-ton, 4-bladed propellers which were identical to the ones fitted to her sister, Mauretania.
In June 1909, with her all-new propellers and under Captain Turner’s command, Lusitania retook the Blue Riband for the last time. However, her sister, Mauretania, swiftly took it back again that same month with a speed of 26.89 knots and subsequently retained the honour for the next twenty years, until the advent of the German liner BREMEN, in 1929.
December 1909 saw Captain Turner appointed to command the Mauretania. Captain James T. Charles was selected as Lusitania‘s new Captain.
As of February 1910, Lusitania started to make Fishguard a regular stop on her eastbound crossings. There had been odd occurrences of her and Mauretania stopping there before, for special trips such as the Christmas specials, the Coronation specials and such like. Then in April after negotiations with the then owner/operator of Fishguard Harbour – the Great Western Railway – Cunard formally announced that with the commencing of the winter season of 1911, eastbound Cunard ships would no longer call at Queenstown, Ireland; calling at Fishguard instead, but only during the winter season, from November to April. This however was the beginning of the end for the Queenstown stop. The GWR had attracted a number of eastbound transatlantic liners to call at Fishguard to transfer the mails and their passengers by tender to the GWR network, for onward transport to London (Paddington). Use of this route meant that passengers and mails could reach London much sooner than by going up to Liverpool and then southwards to London (Euston) via the rail network of the LNWR (a GWR competitor). Using the GWR’s Fishguard route, New York passengers and mails could arrive in London in the record time of approximately 5 days and 3.5 hrs.
On December 9th, 1911, Captain Charles and Lusitania stepped into the breach to perform that year’s “Christmas Special”; a round voyage from Liverpool to New York and back in 12 days. This was a trip which Captain Turner and the slightly faster Mauretania had set the precedent for, but Mauretania had been damaged when she broke free of her moorings in Liverpool during a violent storm. Captain Charles and the Lusitania completed the trip on time thanks to a lightning turnaround in New York.
The year 1912 ended with something of a disaster for the Lusitania when she was forced to limp home with major engine damage. Several blades in her four turbines had buckled due to a condition known as thermal distortion. An extensive refit lasting eight months was now needed to rebuild the engines. The Admiralty took this opportunity to install the Gun mountings in preparation for her envisaged duties as a cruiser. To the untrained eye, the Gun mountings were totally inconspicuous as they were incorporated into the surface of the deck and very well disguised.
Lusitania returned to service in August of 1913. Her captain, Captain J.T.W. Charles was appointed to command the Mauretania and Captain Daniel Dow was selected as Lusitania‘s new captain. Under Captain Dow, Lusitania set her last ever speed record, achieving a personal best of 26.70 knots on a westbound voyage in March of 1914.
On August 4th, 1914, World War One broke out. Upon arrival in Liverpool, Lusitania and Mauretania were immediately requisitioned by the Admiralty and Lusitania underwent another Admiralty refit. This latest refit was to remove most of the forward Third Class accommodation to enlarge the forward cargo hold. Her Gun mountings had already been installed the previous year, but the Guns were never fitted, as the Admiralty ultimately decided against using Lusitania as a cruiser due to the fact that she consumed too much coal. Instead, they returned her to Cunard with, they said, “a very important job to do”.
September 1914 and RMS Lusitania, which first called at Fishguard in September 1909, was in fact the last transatlantic liner ever to call at Fishguard, on 14 September 1914. Whilst the GWR hoped that the transatlantic trade via Fishguard could be resumed after WW1, this did not transpire.
In November 1914, with the war barely two months old, the drop-off in transatlantic passenger trade was already being keenly felt. Lusitania‘s schedule was reduced to one round voyage per month. To save Cunard incurring further expenses, one boiler room was also closed and her maximum speed was thereby reduced to 21 knots, with her optimum cruising speed now down to 18 knots. In common with many other British liners, she was also now regularly carrying large quantities of American made munitions home to England.
By the Spring of 1915, in response to the British Naval blockade of Germany and the Admiralty’s inflammatory orders to British Merchant ships to fly neutral flags and make a ramming attempt at any U-boat that challenged them, the Germans declared a war zone around the British Isles. The Germans announced that henceforth, ANY ship of Great Britain or her Allies encountered in this war zone was likely to be sunk without warning. First Lord of the admiralty, Winston Churchill, introduced a new “secret weapon” against the hitherto chivalrous U-boats; the Q-Ship. This was an innocent looking cargo ship which when surface challenged by a U-boat, would stop, and pretend to surrender. As the U-boat’s boarding party made its way over, the Red Ensign would suddenly be replaced by the White Ensign and the Q-Ship’s hidden 6-inch guns would be hastily uncovered and swung into action, usually sending the now highly vulnerable U-boat swiftly to the bottom, in a hail of close range shellfire. Any surviving Germans were simply shot in the water by the Marines among the Q-Ship’s crew. The sea war was escalating rapidly.
On February’s return trip, Captain Dow was informed of a U-boat peril. He promptly ran up the U.S. flag and made a high-speed dash for Liverpool. He had yet to see a German U-boat, but his continual fear of being torpedoed and the strain of constantly worrying about the safety of his passengers was telling on him. Cunard decided to give him leave. In March of 1915, Commodore Captain William Thomas Turner was re-appointed to command the Lusitania.
In April of 1915 Lusitania made her last voyage to New York. It was her 201st Atlantic crossing. Her funnels had now been painted black as she was sailing under Admiralty Charter. On May 1st, 1915, Lusitania left New York for the last time. As she left, the Master at Arms discovered three Germans on board who should have left the ship. The Germans had a camera with them. Captain Turner confiscated the camera and ordered the Germans to be locked in the ship’s cells. It seems likely that the three Germans were trying to find evidence that the ship was, or could very quickly be, armed. However, Lusitania‘s “very important job” was in fact to be a high-speed munitions carrier, not an Armed Merchant Cruiser and amongst her Government cargo on this trip was a large consignment of nearly 4 million live rifle bullets and 5,000 live 3-inch artillery shells, the latter consignment being stored in simple wooden crates, against the aft bulkhead in the forward hold.
The whole thing came to a head on Friday 7th May, 1915 at 14:10 GMT, 14 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, Southern Ireland, but before we look at that, it is worth a slight back-track, to just before 11:00 GMT that day. At this point in her story Lusitania was steering course South 87 East at 15 knots through thick fog, 25 miles off the south coast of Ireland. Captain Turner was fully expecting to meet his naval escort, the light cruiser HMS Juno, at any time.
At 11.00, the Lusitania broke through the fog into hazy sunshine. To port was an indistinct smudge, which was the Irish coastline. But there was no sign of any other ships. No Juno. Captain Turner increased the ship’s speed to 18 knots. Barely had he done this when a messenger from the Marconi room brought him a signal. It was 12 words, but he did not recognize the cypher. It was from Vice Admiral Coke in Queenstown. Because of the high-grade code used to send the signal, he would have to take it down to his day cabin to work on it. At 11.55 there was a knock on Turner’s door. It was the messenger with another signal from the Admiralty; he broke off from his decoding work to read it. It said: “SUBMARINE ACTIVE IN SOUTHERN PART OF IRISH CHANNEL, LAST HEARD OF TWENTY MILES SOUTH OF CONNINGBEG LIGHT VESSEL. MAKE CERTAIN LUSITANIA GETS THIS.” This gave Captain Turner another problem. According to this latest message, another U-boat was operating in the very middle of the channel he was aiming for. If this were true, then despite his Admiralty instructions, a mid-channel course was now out of the question. More than ever, he now had to determine his exact position, if he was going to have to play a potentially deadly game of cat and mouse with a U-boat in a narrow channel entrance. But first he decided to finish deciphering Coke’s earlier message, there might be something in that which could help him.
By 12.10 he had finished decoding it completely. What he read galvanised him. He went straight to the bridge and immediately altered the ship’s course 20 degrees to port. The turn to port was so sudden that many passengers momentarily lost their balance. The Lusitania was now closing to the land at 18 knots on course North 67 East. The clock on the bridge said 12.15, GMT.
At the same time, 22 miles off Waterford, the German submarine U-20 blew her tanks and surfaced. The fog, which had been troubling her commander, Kapitan-Leutnant Walther Schwieger, had finally cleared. They were now down to their last three torpedoes and his orders were to save two for the trip home just in case they encountered an enemy warship and had to fight their way out of it. Schwieger checked his watch. It was 12.20 GMT as the U-20 headed back toward Fastnet at full speed.
At 12.40, whilst Lusitania was still on course N67E, Captain Turner received another Admiralty signal. This one read: “SUBMARINE FIVE MILES SOUTH OF CAPE CLEAR, PROCEEDING WEST WHEN SIGHTED AT 10 AM.” He allowed himself a slight smile. Cape Clear was many miles astern of the eastbound Lusitania. This latest signal effectively meant that the immediate danger was passed. The entrance to St. George’s Channel and therefore the next notified U-boat threat, would still be four to five hours away if he had maintained his original heading. For now, he was safely in the middle. As far as Captain Turner knew, there were NO U-boats in his immediate vicinity.
At 13.20 GMT, U-20 was still running on the surface, heading back toward Fastnet. Schwieger was up on the conning tower with the lookouts. Suddenly, the starboard lookout saw smoke off the U- 20′s starboard bow. Schwieger focused his binoculars on it. One, two, three, four funnels. He estimated the distance between them to be 12 to 14 miles. It would be a long shot, but if the ship was heading for Queenstown, it might just be possible. As the diving klaxon screeched out its warning, U-20 altered course to intercept the ship, submerging as she did so.
At 13.40 GMT, Captain Turner saw a landmark as familiar to him as his own front door. A Long promontory with a lighthouse on top of it, which was painted with black and white horizontal bands. The Old Head of Kinsale. Now that he knew where he was, he ordered Lusitania‘s course reverted to South 87 East, steady. He urgently needed to fix his position, to plot a course to Queenstown. They were not going to Liverpool after all; not yet anyway. The message from Vice Admiral Coke which was sent in the high-grade naval code was ordering him to divert Lusitania into Queenstown immediately. Standard Admiralty practice in situations of grave peril. Turning back to his officers on the bridge, he noticed the ship’s newest officer, whom he had christened Bisset (Junior Third Officer Albert Bestic), due to go off watch in about 15 minutes. “Ah, Bisset. Do you know how to take a four-point bearing?” he asked. Bestic certainly did. He also knew that it took the best part of an hour with the ship’s course and speed having to remain rock steady whilst it was done. “Yes sir.” Bestic replied. “Good.” Said Turner. “Then kindly take one off that lighthouse, will you?” And with that Turner left the bridge and went into the chartroom. Bestic needn’t have worried. Third Officer Lewis came back at 14.00 and relieved him anyway, knowing what the “old man” had done. Bestic took the first set of bearing figures to Captain Turner in the chartroom on his way off the bridge. Captain Turner calculated that they were now 14 miles offshore and slightly West of the Old Head. He now had to plot a course through the mine-free channel into Queenstown harbour.
Kapitan-Leutnant Schwieger meanwhile, was studying the big ship through U-20‘s attack periscope. Calling to the U-boat’s pilot, Schwieger said,”four funnels, schooner rig, upwards of 20,000 tons and making about 22 knots.” Lanz, the pilot, checked in his copies of Jane’s fighting ships and Brassey’s naval annual. Lanz called back to Schwieger: “Either the Lusitania or the Mauretania, Herr Kapitan-Leutnant.” (Both were listed in Brassey’s as being armed merchant cruisers). “Both are listed as cruisers and used for trooping.” U-20 prepared for action. One G6 torpedo was loaded into a forward tube. Schwieger then noticed the target altering course. He could not believe his luck! He noted later in his logbook that “the ship turns to starboard then takes a course to Queenstown…..” Exactly what he had hoped she would do! At a range of 650 yards, Schwieger gave the deadly order, “Feur!” There was a loud hiss, the U-boat trembled and Wiesbach, the torpedo officer confirmed to Schwieger “Torpedo Los!” The G-Type torpedo had cleared the tube and was streaking toward its intended target at 35 knots with its running depth set at three metres, about ten feet.
Meanwhile, Captain Turner had come out of the chartroom and was standing on the port side of the Lusitania‘s bridge. He was watching Lewis working on the four-point bearing. Beyond him, stood a Quartermaster right out on the bridge wing acting as a lookout. There was another on the starboard bridge wing. But it was from the crow’s nest that the sudden warning came, via the telephone. “Torpedo coming on the starboard side!” The torpedo struck the ship with a sound which Turner later recalled was “like a heavy door being slammed shut.” Almost instantaneously came a second, much larger explosion, which physically rocked the ship. A tall column of water and debris shot skyward, wrecking lifeboat No. 5 as it came back down. The clock on the bridge said 14.10.
Watching events through his periscope, Kapitan-Leutnant Schwieger could not believe that so much havoc could have been wrought by just one torpedo. He noted in his log that “an unusually heavy detonation” had taken place and noted that a second explosion had also occurred, which he put down to “boilers, coal or powder?” He also noticed that the torpedo had hit the Lusitania further forward of where he had aimed it. Schwieger brought the periscope down and U-20 headed back to sea.
On the bridge of the Lusitania, Captain Turner could see instantly that his ship was doomed. He gave the orders to abandon ship. He then went out onto the port bridge wing and looked back along the boat deck. The first thing he saw was that all the port side lifeboats had swung inboard, which meant that all those on the starboard side had swung outboard. The starboard ones could be launched, though with a little difficulty, but the port side boats would be virtually impossible to launch.
Each of the wooden lifeboats weighed five tons unladen. To steady them, each had a metal chain called a snubbing chain which held it to the deck. Prior to lowering the boat, the release pin had to be knocked out using a hammer, otherwise the boat would remain chained to the deck.
Beaching the ship was obviously out of the question. Turner knew they were fourteen miles from shore and she was sinking so fast that they’d never make it. He had to stop the ship so that the boats could be safely lowered. Instinctively, he rang down to the engine room for full speed astern. The engine room dutifully complied but unfortunately, the overall steam pressure had now dropped drastically, so the Lusitania‘s massive turbines were virtually out of commission.
At 14.11, the Lusitania had started sending distress signals from the Marconi room. “SOS, SOS, SOS. COME AT ONCE. BIG LIST. 10 MILES SOUTH OLD KINSALE. MFA.” The last three letters were the Lusitania‘s call sign.
When Vice Admiral Coke in Queenstown received his copy of that distress signal, it must have seemed as though his worst nightmare had come true. He had tried in vain all morning to obtain a firm decision from the Admiralty in London. In the end, Coke had been so worried by the obvious danger that he had taken it upon himself to divert the Lusitania into Queenstown. Unfortunately, it was all too late. Still, there was something he could do. He sent a signal to Rear Admiral Hood in command of HMS JUNO and sent him to the rescue. Coke then sent a detailed signal to the Admiralty, advising them of what had happened and of his actions.
On the Lusitania, the list indicator had just gone through the 15-degree mark. Captain Turner was still out on the port side wing of the bridge. He had ordered Staff Captain Anderson not to lower any of the boats until the ship had lost enough of her momentum to render it safe. In some cases, on the port side, that meant getting the passengers out of the lifeboats to lower them to the rail. But the passengers did not want to get out of the boats. At port side boat station no.2, junior Third Officer Bestic was in charge. Standing on the after davit, he was trying to keep order and explain that due to the heavy list, the boat could not be lowered. Suddenly, he heard a hammer striking the link-pin to the snubbing chain. Before the word “NO!” left Bestic’s lips, the chain was freed and the five-ton lifeboat laden with over 50 passengers, swung inboard and crushed those standing on the boat deck against the superstructure. Unable to take the strain, the men at the davits let go of the falls and boat 2, plus the collapsible boat stowed behind it, slid down the deck towing a grisly collection of injured passengers and jammed under the bridge wing, right beneath the spot where Captain Turner was. Bestic, determined to stop the same situation arising at the next boat station, jumped along to no.4 boat; just as somebody knocked out it’s link-pin. He darted out of the way as no.4 boat slid down the deck seriously injuring countless more people, before crashing into the wreckage of the first two boats. Driven by panic, passengers swarmed into boats 6, 8, 10 and 12. One after the other they careered down the deck to join 2 and 4.
The sea was now swirling over the bridge floor. Then Lusitania‘s stern began to settle back, and a surge of water flooded the bridge, sweeping Captain Turner out of the door and off the ship. As the Lusitania rolled onto her starboard beam ends and sank beneath the waves, that same surge of water swept junior Third Officer Bestic out through the first class entrance hall into the Ocean. Suddenly, the mighty 45,000-ton Lusitania was gone, and with her had gone 1,201 people. It was now 14.28 GMT, on Friday 7th May 1915.
There are many tales of selfless heroism in the sad story of the Lusitania‘s demise, but perhaps some of the best, concern the efforts made by those to provide rescue and assistance. At approximately 2.30pm, intelligence was received by Rev. William Forde; the then Hon Secretary of the Courtmacsherry Lifeboat Station, that a large four funnel steamer was in distress Southeast of the Seven Heads. Rev. Forde immediately went to summon the volunteer lifeboat crew. On his arrival at the Lifeboat Station, then located at Barry’s Point, he was met by the Coxswain and his crew. At 3pm, the Courtmacsherry Lifeboat, Ketzia Gwilt under the command of Coxswain Timothy Keohane (Father of Antarctic explorer Patrick Keohane) was launched. In the totally calm conditions, the sails were of no use so the entire distance of approx. 12.6 nautical miles to the casualty had to be rowed. An extract from the original Courtmacsherry Return to Service log states “We had no wind, so had to pull the whole distance – On the way to wreck we met a ship’s boat cramped with people who informed us the Lusitania had gone down. We did everything in our power to reach the place but it took us at least 3 ½ hours of hard pulling to get there – then only in time to pick up dead bodies”.
The Courtmacsherry Lifeboat then proceeded to pick up as many bodies as they could and transferred them to the ships on scene tasked with transferring bodies back to Queenstown. The final entry from the return to service log written by Rev. Forde, who also joined the crew that day, reads: “Everything that was possible to do was done by the crew to reach the wreck in time to save life but as we had no wind it took us a long time to pull the 10 or 12 miles out from the boat house. If we had wind or any motor power our boat would have been certainly first on the scene – It was a harrowing sight to witness – The Sea was strewn with dead bodies floating about, some with lifebelts on, others holding onto pieces of rafts – all dead. I deeply regret it was not in our power to have been in time to save some”.
The Courtmacsherry Lifeboat stayed on scene engaged in the work of recovering bodies, until 20.40Hrs when they were then towed back to the entrance of Courtmacsherry bay by a Steam Drifter fishing vessel. They partly rowed and partly sailed back the rest of homeward journey, eventually reaching their boat house at approximately 01.00Hrs on 8th May.
As for HMS Juno, the Royal Navy light Cruiser that was supposed to escort the Lusitania in the first place, she was recalled to Queenstown by the Admiralty in London before she could rendezvous with the Lusitania. This was because she was of rather old design and one that was especially vulnerable to submarine attack. Given the known danger, the Admiralty decided not to risk her. They cancelled her escort duty but didn’t tell Captain Turner his escort was cancelled, in case the Germans intercepted the message. She’d not long docked at Queenstown when the news came in that the Lusitania had been sunk. In fact, on her way into Queenstown after abandoning her station, she had passed directly over the submerged U-20. Schwieger saw her through his periscope, but she was out of range of his torpedoes by the time he’d spotted her.
When Vice Admiral Coke ordered her back out again to go to the rescue, she still had plenty of steam up, so she cleared Queenstown commendably quickly and raced straight to the Lusitania‘s last known position. She was within sight of the survivors when the Admiralty in London, having received Coke’s signal, ordered her immediate recall, in case the U-boat added her to its already considerable tally. Many survivors saw her heading toward them, only to have their hope of rescue dashed as they watched her turn around and steam away again. That must have been a very hard order for Rear Admiral Hood to obey.
Conversely, PL11 Wanderer a small Manx fishing Lugger of 18 tons, was fishing within sight of the Lusitania when she was attacked. Built in 1881 and owned by Charles Morrison of Peel, the Wanderer was the last Manx fishing boat to go to the fishing grounds in the Southern Irish waters. The crew were Skipper William Ball, Stanley Ball, William Gale, Thomas Woods, Robert Watterson, Harry Costain and John MacDonald. Their story is best learned by the words written home by some of the crew. The Skipper William Ball wrote. “When we saw the Lusitania sinking, about 3 miles SSW of us, we made straight for the scene of the disaster. We picked up the first people about quarter of a mile of where she sunk, and then we picked up about four boat loads of people. We couldn’t take any more, as we had 160 –men, women and children on board. In addition to this, we towed two lifeboats full of passengers. We had a busy time making tea for the people and we gave them a lot of clothes and a bottle of whisky we were leaving for our journey home. We were the only boat there for two hours. The people were in a sorry sight, most of them having been in the cold water. We took them to within two miles of the Old Head, when it fell calm. The tugboat Flying Fish from Queenstown then came up and took them from us. It was an awful thing to see her sinking, and to see the plight of these people. I cannot describe to you in writing what we saw” Crew member Thomas Woods, of Peel, was alone on watch and steering, when he saw the Lusitania list over. He wrote; – “It was the saddest thing I ever saw in all my life. I cannot tell you in words but it was a great joy to me to help the poor mothers and babes in the best way we could.” Youngest crewman Harry Costain said in his letter home:_ ….We saw an awful sight on Friday. We saw the sinking of the Lusitania, and we were the only boat about at the time. We saved 160 people. and took them on our boat. I never want to see the like again. There were four babies about three months old, and some of the people were almost naked – just as if they had come out of bed. Several had legs and arms broken, and we had one dead man, but we saw hundreds in the water. I gave one of my changes of clothes to a naked man, and Johnny Macdonald gave three shirts and all his drawers…. Stanley Ball:….We saw the Lusitania going east. We knew it was one of the big liners by her four funnels, so we put the watch on. We were lying in bed when the man on watch shouted that the four-funnelled boat was sinking. I got up out of bed and on deck, and I saw her go down. She went down bow first. We were going off south, and we kept her away to the S.S,W. So we went out to where it took place – to within a quarter of a mile of where she went down, and we picked up four yawls (ship’s lifeboats). We took 110 people out of the first two yawls, and about fifty or sixty out of the next two; and we took two yawls in tow. We were at her a good while before any other boat. The first person we took on board was a child of two months. We had four or five children on board and a lot of women. I gave a pair of trousers, a waistcoat, and an oil- coat to some of them. Some of us gave a lot in that way. One of the women had her arm broke, and one had her leg broke, and many of them were very exhausted…. Each of the seven brave Manxmen received medals, one of silver for Skipper William Ball and six made of bronze for the crew, at the open-air Tynwald Ceremony at St. Johns on July 5th, 1915. They were presented, on behalf of the Manchester Manx Society, by the Island’s Lieutenant Governor, Lord Raglan. The medals all carried the same design, by F S Graves. On the obverse is a Viking ship, below which is carried the words “For Service to the Manx People”. On the reverse, within a pattern of Celtic interlacing are four crests with the wording; “Manchester Manx Society _ Son Ta Shin Ooilley Vraaraghyn” (for we are all brethren). Engraved round the rim of each medal is the recipient’s name along with the words “Lusitania Rescue – May 7th 1915” Lord Raglan the Lt. Governor said “The Manchester Manx Society voiced the sentiments of all Manx people when it invited the crew of the Wanderer to accept a medal in remembrance of the fortunate act of charity and courage performed in going to the assistance of those whose lives that were so cruelly destroyed by the blowing up of the Lusitania.” All seven of the Wanderer’s crew were modest about the rescue. They seldom talked of the role they played on that fateful day when they were casting nets within earshot of the Cunard liner. Lord Raglan concluded “The heroism of the crew of the Wanderer will live as long as the tragic remembrance of the fate of the Lusitania”
As mentioned by her crew, the Wanderer was intercepted about two miles off the Old Head of Kinsale by the Admiralty tug Flying Fish, under the command of Captain Thomas Brierley. The survivors were transferred to the tug and taken to Queenstown (Cobh), under Admiralty orders. Captain Brierley and the Flying Fish made several such trips, gathering and ferrying survivors from the scene back to Queenstown, and many of those survivors owed their lives to him and his vessel. Most of the rescue ships were sailing vessels of the local fishing fleet and would have taken hours in the light winds prevailing that day to reach the scene of the disaster, 12 miles offshore. The Flying Fish was an old side-wheel paddle steamer built in 1886 at South Shields. Although just 122 feet long, and affectionately known amongst the locals in Queenstown as the “Galloping Goose”, she rendered a service that day which far outshone her diminutive size. As well as serving as a tug, she was also used as a tender from the White Star Line pier at Queenstown, taking passengers and mail out to the waiting liners. Captain Thomas Brierley was born in 1859 and was 56 at the time of the disaster. He was awarded a medal for the outstanding gallantry he displayed during the endless trips he and his vessel made back and forth from Queenstown, to where the Lusitania had sunk. Bringing back the living, as well as the dead. What must have been particularly frustrating to this gallant mariner, was the fact that having heard of the disaster that had overtaken the Lusitania, he had to wait, champing at the bit, for over an hour, for Flying Fish to build up steam before they could head out to the scene, knowing all the while that lives were being lost in that time. Even after overcoming that obstacle, Captain Brierley found himself caught up in red tape later when he tried to land survivors at a pier not normally used by his vessel. He was kept waiting for “official permission” to dock, for what must have seemed like an eternity to him, when his only concern was to safely offload his human cargo as quickly as possible so that he could return to the scene and save more lives. Captain Brierley died in 1920, aged just 61. He was buried in the same area as many of the victims of the Lusitania disaster. Victims that he personally had tried so hard to save from the jaws of death.
On the afternoon of the disaster, the crews of the Royal Navy cruisers that were based in Queenstown were put to work tending to the injured survivors as they were landed and helping with the dead. The day after the disaster, the Bluejackets were sent out aboard the Admiralty tugs Stormcock, Warrior and Flying Fish to recover bodies. A 17-year-old Royal Navy Boy 1st Class Sailor Henry Grew, then serving aboard the cruiser HMS Venus, was among those sent to perform this grisly task. The bodies were brought back to Queenstown for subsequent burial in the mass graves that had been dug in the old church cemetery. As well as recovering several victims of the disaster, Henry Grew also recovered a cushion which was floating amid some of the bodies. He dried it out and kept it, eventually passing it on to his son, David. Eighty eight years after its recovery, David very kindly passed it on to us at Lusitania Online in September 2003, for preservation. It is now on permanent display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum. As for the man who recovered the cushion, Henry Grew turned out to have the luck of the Devil. On 27th May 1915, he returned to his own ship the 19,250-ton “St Vincent” class Battleship HMS Vanguard. He was with HMS Vanguard when the ship fought at Jutland and both Henry and the ship came through that momentous sea battle unscathed. She was thereafter thought to be a “lucky ship” and certainly Henry’s former shipmates must have envied him his posting. On the morning of July 9th 1917, after serving for a little over two years on HMS Vanguard, Henry was routinely posted to HMS PEMBROKE. He duly packed his kit and left the ship at or just after 10:00. At about 14:00 hours, and within four hours of Henry’s departure, HMS Vanguard suddenly blew up at anchor, killing all but 20 of her crew of 838. Henry survived the war and was pensioned off in 1938 having attained the rank of Chief Petty Officer, Torpedo Coxwain. However, the Navy hadn’t quite finished with him! On 3rd September 1939, World War II broke out. Chief Petty Officer Henry Grew was called up from the Royal Navy Reserve and served once more for the duration of another world conflict.
In rather stark contrast, however, is the story of the official British Public Inquiry into the disaster. From the very beginning, it was going to be a case of The Crown versus The Truth. Those whose duty it had been to protect the ship now began the fight to protect themselves. In fact, from the moment the Lusitania settled on the bottom of the Atlantic, they would do their utmost to ensure that the full blame for the disaster was attached to one man only. That man was Captain William Thomas Turner.
Admiral Oliver, the man left in charge at Admiralty House in London over that weekend, immediately contacted Captain Richard Webb, Director of the Admiralty Trade Division. It was Webb’s department that had ordered the munitions and supervised their shipment aboard the Lusitania. As soon as Webb arrived in Oliver’s office, the two set to work concocting the Admiralty’s version of events. The pair worked all that Friday night and well into the weekend, gathering all the signals that had been sent to, or received from, the Lusitania and generally constructing their case against Captain Turner. They were to compile a lengthy and for Captain Turner, a damning report, for the consideration of the Board of the Admiralty, who were awaiting the return of First Lord Winston Churchill from France on Monday.
Admiral Oliver’s problem was twofold. Firstly, the Lusitania had been successfully attacked by a German submarine, which the Admiralty knew to be operating in that area, after all measures to protect the liner had been withdrawn. Secondly, the liner had gone down in a mere eighteen minutes with appalling loss of life, due to the explosive nature of the cargo that the Admiralty’s trade Division had loaded aboard her. If either or both of those facts were somehow to become public knowledge, the buck would stop at the Admiralty. All sorts of awkward questions would be asked and heads would undoubtedly roll from the highest positions in Admiralty House. The higher they fell from, the harder they would land. So, a scapegoat seemed to be urgently needed and who better to fill that position than the Lusitania‘s Captain? Especially as he had survived the sinking of his ship. A good Captain would have had the decency to have gone down with his ship, surely?
Reading all the correspondence in its original, unedited form would have made it abundantly clear that Captain Turner had in fact acted well within his controlled remit; that is to say, he had followed his Admiralty instructions to the letter. This is why Oliver and Webb were now busily “tailoring” the Admiralty signals register, the Admiralty Advices to Mariners and even the very questions that the London inquiry would be asking.
Another thorn in the Admiralty’s side was the fact that the bodies of five of the victims had been landed at Kinsale. The Kinsale Coroner was John Horgan, a known Sinn Fein sympathiser, which of course did not sit well with those in London, particularly as Horgan would not release the bodies until he had discharged his official duty as Coroner. This meant he would have to hold an inquest.
Horgan was now in the perfect position to cause maximum embarrassment to the Admiralty in London as well as to HM Government and was unlikely to waste such a golden opportunity. Or so the Admiralty thought. Horgan originally set the inquest date for Monday 10th May. His next task was to subpoena as many of the survivors as he could, including of course, Captain Turner.
Upon hearing that a date had been set for the inquest, Admiral Oliver contacted the Crown Solicitor-General; Sir Frederick Smith, and quickly secured the agreement to hold the official inquiry in London. Lord Mersey, Receiver of Wrecks, had agreed to conduct it personally. This immediately made the whole Lusitania subject, sub judice. The press up to that point had widely reported that survivors had heard two explosions very close together. Now the press had to content itself with stories of British and American heroism or German dastardliness.
Meanwhile, Sir Frederick Smith quickly contacted the Crown Solicitor for Cork and ordered him to stop Horgan’s inquest from going ahead. Once again, those in authority were too late. The wily Horgan had somehow heard of these machinations and quickly rescheduled his inquest for that Saturday afternoon at the Old Courthouse in Market Square. With a jury of twelve local shopkeepers and fishermen, Horgan’s inquest went ahead.
Captain Turner gave evidence, referring to the second, internal explosion that immediately followed the explosion of the torpedo, and that this second explosion rent the ship. Other survivors also gave similar evidence. Turner steadfastly refused to divulge the nature of his Admiralty instructions however, which Coroner Horgan completely understood.
Captain Turner’s time in the witness box didn’t last too long. The stress he was under caused him to break down. Not only had he lost his ship and a good many of his passengers and crew, but he had also lost his best friend in the disaster, the ship’s Chief Engineer, Archie Bryce. At this juncture, Captain Turner was totally unaware of the goings-on at Admiralty House in London. The events of Friday 7th May 1915 would come to leave their mark upon him for the rest of his life.
In the event, Coroner Horgan had merely wanted to be seen “doing his bit”. He got his headlines with a verdict that formally indicted the Kaiser on a charge of “Wilful and wholesale murder”. Just after the conclusion of his inquest and in true Admiralty style, a breathless Harry Wynne from the Crown Solicitor’s Office in Cork, arrived at the Kinsale Market House with instructions to stop the inquest. Coroner John Horgan wryly commented to the local press outside that “the Admiralty were as belated on this occasion as they had been in protecting the Lusitania”.
The following month, the formal investigation into the Lusitania disaster was held at Central buildings, Westminster, on the 15th 16th, 17th and 18th June, at the Westminster Palace Hotel on the 1st of July, and at the Caxton Hall, Westminster, on the 17th of July, before the Right Honourable Lord Mersey, Wreck Commissioner. He was assisted by Admiral Sir F. S. Inglefield, K.C.B.; Lieutenant-Commander Hearn RN; Captain D. Davies and Captain J. Spedding, (both from the Merchant Navy) who were acting as assessors, into the circumstances attending the loss of the steamship “LUSITANIA“, and the loss of 1,198 lives at a spot ten to fifteen miles south of the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, on the 7th May 1915. (Please note that the official figure for lives lost does not include the three Germans locked in the ship’s cells). The Board of Trade required that a formal investigation be held on the above dates. Some were held in public others were in camera. A total of thirty-six witnesses were called and a number of documents examined. Twenty one questions for the court were formulated by the Admiralty for the Board of Trade. The full report is not available to the public, indeed the only surviving copy to our knowledge is in Lord Mersey’s private papers. As two of the hearings took place behind closed doors, the only transcript of those hearings is in Lord Mersey’s private papers. It was during these in camera hearings, that the Admiralty tried to frame Captain Turner. They very nearly succeeded in this, but at the last minute, their own staff work let them down. The “prosecuting” barrister started reading from Admiralty memos that had not been submitted to the court! Lord Mersey stopped the proceedings and summoned ALL the lawyers to the bench. He then icily demanded an immediate explanation of the memos from the Crown Solicitor General, who was at a loss to explain. Cross checking their papers with those of Inglefield, Lord Mersey, and Sir F.E. Smith, (the prosecution barrister) suddenly realised that the evidence had been falsified by the Admiralty and they refused to proceed further. The inquiry was adjourned, and Lord Mersey asked all the assessors to give him their separate opinions in sealed envelopes. Only Admiral Sir Frederick Inglefield returned a guilty verdict against Captain Turner. This was not surprising as Inglefield had been pre-briefed by the Board of the Admiralty and instructed to find Turner guilty of treasonable behaviour. Our own copy of the report which is on our website www.lusitania.net came from the Cunard archives held at Sydney Jones library, Liverpool University and obviously only covers the PUBLIC hearings. We obtained the pages that related only to Captain Turner’s given evidence but the version of the Report which is held at the library, is available to the public. The report as detailed on our website shows the questions and answers and the court’s findings. (We have added the answers that show an Annex with our comments, which appear in red type).
Ultimately of course, the Mersey inquiry was simply a public whitewashing exercise. Something had to be seen to be done, to quell public outrage. With Lord Mersey clearing Cunard and Captain Turner of all blame, the full blame had therefore to be placed with the “beastly Hun”. Justice, at least to some, appeared to have been done. But it was a fundamentally unsound justice, as Lord Mersey knew only too well. Two days after he closed his inquiry, Lord Mersey waived his fees for the case and formally resigned. His last words on the subject were: “The Lusitania case was a damned, dirty business!” He did have one consolation though. However hard they tried, then or later, the Admiralty would NEVER be able to completely cover their tracks, as Lord Mersey, in his wisdom, had taken the liberty of confiscating the entire contents of Admiral Inglefield’s master court file, and placing it with his own, secure, private papers.
As World War One dragged on largely in a muddy entrenched stalemate, other events gradually overshadowed the Lusitania disaster. The disaster was used on recruitment posters urging men of Irish descent to join an Irish Regiment and avenge the Lusitania. However, any sympathy the British may have gleaned from that, was quickly lost in 1916 of course. Shooting everybody first and asking the questions afterwards never was a particularly good strategy. Some say it was the Lusitania disaster that brought America into the war. The Lusitania disaster claimed the lives of 128 neutral American citizens. President Wilson sent strongly worded diplomatic notes to Germany, but he stopped short of a declaration of war. There was, he said “such a thing as being too proud to fight”. It would take the deaths of many more American citizens crossing the Atlantic, a further two years and ultimately, the infamous “Zimmermann Telegram” before America finally found herself and joined the conflict.
With special thanks to: Dara Gannon, RNLI Courtmacsherry. Roy Baker, Curator of The Leece Museum on the Isle of Man, the family of Captain Thomas Brierly, and David Grew.
Mitch Peeke.