Last Voyage of the Lusitania

I was 16 years old I was traveling with my father and my brother and my brother had his little boy three years old and we're traveling to go to Scotland I was just 12 and we're going up the gangplank dad said to me bend your knees because I was very tall and then you look small and you look younger so I got through a Half Price all I could see was a great big monster ship it looked a monster well it was a monster while I was four years old in I was ending my eighth year when I boarded the Lusitania my father had deserted us and my mother decided that perhaps it would be better if she went back to her parents in England and that's why she sailed on the Lusitania with six children I don't think she even knew that it was in danger did you know that it was filled with contraband well there's been some cover up about that Lipsett aim it was really murder really she left New York on May 1st 1915 bound for Liverpool one of the biggest and fastest ocean liners in the world she carried 1265 passengers and a crew of 694 but she was also rumored to be carrying something else something for the British in their war against Germany on May 7th she reached the southern coast of Ireland a little after lunchtime inside of land she was hit by a single torpedo from a German u-boat you moments later she was rocked by a second much larger explosion almost immediately the great ship listed sharply towards the wound in her starboard side and began to sing less than 20 minutes later she disappeared beneath the calm flat scene the Lusitania was gone and 1195 men women and children had gone with her you the sinking of the Lusitania was perhaps the single most controversial act of the first world war almost overnight it cast England in the role of helpless victim and Germany as the ruthless villain in the United States outraged at the loss of American life helped propel this country into the war on Britain side even though no one really knew what sank the ship but there have always been whispers that the Lusitania was not as blameless as she appeared some historians have speculated that when the Lusitania left New York she carried a secret cargo of high explosives and that when the German torpedo struck those hidden explosives blew up and sank her one thing is certain when the Lusitania steamed into history she left many unanswered questions in her wake the truth about what actually happened to the Lusitania on that long ago afternoon in May lies just off the southern coast of Ireland and in the next two weeks ocean explorer Bob Ballard the man who found the Titanic and the Bismarck will find something just as remarkable at the bottom of the sea the Lusitania is one of those great unsolved mysteries well the mystery is why did the Lusitania which was really an auxilary heavy cruiser I mean it was really well built much better built in the Titanic had many more compartments why did this ship sink so quick I mean the Titanic hit an iceberg and was opened up for 300 feet took hours to sink if the Lusitania was hit with one torpedo and sank in less than 15 minutes uh why the seeds of the controversy were planted in the constantly shifting tactics of the First World War in the spring of 1915 England and Germany were deadlocked on the battlefields in Europe the British needed supplies and the only way they could get them was by ship but a new German weapon the u-boat was starting to sink supply ships the British Admiralty led by a young Winston Churchill decided that the most effective countermeasure was to strike first British merchant men were instructed to carry concealed weapons and open fire on any u-boat that stopped them Germany countered with a threat it declared that any British ship carrying war supplies would be subject to attack without regard for the safety of passengers or crew Churchill seemed to foresee the consequences of this new escalation in a letter written three months before the Lusitania was sunk he stressed the importance of attracting neutral shipping to England quote in the hope especially of embroiling the United States with Germany for our part we want the traffic the more the better and if some of it gets into trouble better still the mystery of what happened to the Lusitania is a complex technical puzzle this is all one k.o in case and was everyone agrees that there were two explosions and that the second was much more powerful than the first for this six boxes Orion we know that the first explosion occurred when the torpedo struck we don't know what caused the second the documents from the official u.s. inquiry into the tragedy still sit in a New York archive she did carry 18 fuse cases and 125 shrapnel cases although Britain initially denied it today we know that the Lusitania was carrying military supplies three British you Mark 774 grain bullets what they're admitting to Winchester Repeating Arms but bullets and shrapnel aren't explosive enough to sink a large ship since we know that something blew up the possibility exists that the Lusitania might also have been carrying a more dangerous cargo like bombs or gun cotton or TNT twelve hundred and forty-eight cases of shrapnel if so it would have been stored here in the forward cargo magazine which is almost precisely where the torpedo struck the resulting explosion might have sunk the ship but it would certainly have destroyed the magazine in either case the signs of that massive damage should still be lying at the bottom of the sea waiting for someone to find them the Irish Channel 13 miles south of the lighthouse at old Kinsale Bob Ballard's research vessel is anchored directly over the spot where the Lusitania sank for this investigation Ballard has assembled the same team and much of the same equipment that helped him find the Titanic and the Bismarck this time the location of the sunken ship is known but not what's anchor I sort of view what we're doing is investigative reporting we're going out now with a extremely advanced technology that has never been available before and we're going down and something else happened and what was that something else was it because it was carrying warm materials as the Germans claimed and the torpedo struck a lucky hit and ignited those war materials vindicating what action the Germans took or was it for another set of reasons and the solution is where's the hole how big is it and what was it caused by ballard is not the first person to explore the Lusitania since she sank just the first to use such sophisticated technology in the 1960s an American diver named John Light claimed to have found evidence that the Lusitania was destroyed when her own cargo exploded and that the British government tried to cover it up he was obsessed with the idea and many people believed him you light made a series of dives that pushed the primitive technology of that time to the limit with a narrow beam of light to guide his way he seldom spent more than a few minutes at a time on the wreck and could only glimpse the enormous Hall in fragments but he did find something what he described as a huge gaping hole in the Lusitania spa on the port side directly opposite from where the torpedo struck the way the explosion is the way the ship is torn up here indicates a very very strong internal explosion I don't think you could possibly say that it was only from a torpedo striking the ship the underwater robot called Jason is in the water for the first time it is about to reveal the Lusitania in a way John light could only dream of but shortly before this expedition began he died at the age of 59 Ballard is hoping to confirm lights discovery with irrefutable photographic evidence that something in the Lusitania is forward magazine exploded okay there's the side of the ship we're gonna rise up ten meters to today the Lusitania lies in about 300 feet of water on her starboard side the side where the torpedo struck vehicle please 10 okay idea 10 meters west Jason there's the top already well it's not far up are you popping pictures team okay there's the beginning of the name as the hell to you yes where's the eye tea Hey and I travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and Great Britain and the travelers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain do so at their own risk the day the Lusitania was set to sail this notice appears in the New York newspapers believing that the Lusitania is too big and too fast to be threatened by a submarine the Cunard Line makes no attempt to alert passengers of the German warning nine year old edith williams was traveling with her mother and five brothers and sisters no I don't think she even knew that it was in danger if she did she certainly kept it quiet now we never knew anything about we left New York on the 1st of May 1915 on delusive engine father mother brother baby sister 20 months and my soul each time the Lusitania sails from New York it is a glittering social event on this voyage bystanders might have caught a glimpse of millionaire Alfred Vanderbilt or theatre impresario Charles Frohman who once introduced a play called Peter Pan to American audiences I remembered the band playing people waving flags and at the docks as if it happened yesterday you know all this excitement you know this little girl I've never seen anything like that in her life that it just was great it was beautiful on a dockside swarming with German spies the Lusitania Scargill holds are loaded with last-minute provisions including a few hundred cases of bullets and shrapnel shells hidden among barrels of cheese I can't believe the carrying arms within that passenger ship because of her citrusy what was the largest ship then it was all wealthy people going back and forwards from Britain to America you see they should have been very careful about that sort of thing but they were not very careful as far as the German government is concerned the Lusitania is a legitimate target of war but for her passengers that war is still a week and an ocean away still the first day of Ballard survey he is looking for the large telltale hole that would confirm a massive explosion in the ships forward magazine when the ghostly image of the bow appears in Jason's cameras it seems to be intact seems like I need to come left but as Jason moved slowly over the exposed port side more and more damage becomes apparent 75 years of winter tides and corrosion have taken their toll one place that was definitely bowed out but it looks like someone took a pair of scissors this yeah I still to the mess we can see the extent to which it's really been flattened and squashed we can tell that instead of being maybe eighty or ninety feet off the seafloor like we could expect it's only about thirty feet as the survey continues Jason's cameras detect some smaller holes but not near the magazine where the explosives would have been stored let's come back to the northwest on journey we go at the very bottom of the bow a large section of the ship is missing but the damage is well forward of the magazine so we were much further forward oh yeah but there was no big hole in this neck of the woods no but there was a lot of damage in this area right a lot of pop rivets show that are you just missing but again it also could damage could have been part of the impact okay so it's not what Ballard expected to find as far as he can tell the gaping hole reported by John light simply doesn't exist Ballard thinks he understands the reason for lights mistake these are divers this is a technology you know holding your breath almost and running down there and getting narco sized and getting somewhat narcotic you're you lose your you know drifty down there at 300 feet on compressed air I mean they were pushing the limits of diving technology even a using exotic gases you're under a lot of stress when you're underwater you got a little flashlight you're looking around a little flashlight no I don't think they knew where they were exactly a controversial theory that's been around for decades has suddenly collapsed and Ballard is no closer to knowing what sank the Lusitania than before for the moment at least Ballard's investigation has reached a dead end first and foremost the magazine did not explode I'm confident I went right in thumped up against the hall I can add my hand of the vehicle more than feet from worthy magazine yes and the armament are the munitions I would be led to believe that whatever they put in the forward cargo Hall didn't explode it's not what I had hoped it's not pretty and it makes our investigative reporting that much more difficult plus she's laying on her starboard side ah that's the side where the torpedo hit that's where the answer to the mystery is Wednesday May 5th 1915 a German submarine commanded by captain Walther Schwieger surfaces in the waters just south of Fastnet Rock u-boat 20 left Germany the day before the Lusitania sailed and is made her way around the west coast of Ireland like the Lusitania she's also bound for Liverpool on the surface she can make 15 knots underwater about nine only the slowest ships would be unable to outrun her her crew takes any chance they can to escape the cold stinking interior of their ship a thousand miles to the west the Lusitania spaß injure x' are experiencing the atlantic somewhat differently she is 785 feet long and 88 feet wide midway between bow and stern she has seven decks towering above the waterline and three more below she can maintain a speed of 25 knots but on this trip the number-4 border room has been shut down to save coal she is commanded by captain William Turner a veteran seaman with 32 years of service with the Cunard Line her for dining rooms can serve over 10,000 meals a day and her first class kitchen rivals the best in Europe she has a library and a doctor's office smoking salons a music room she even has elevators and a two-story first-class dining room capped by an elegant dome a floating palace someone called her but for nine-year-old Edith Williams the Lusitania is a floating playground I walked a lot abortional Shep I was I was in a new world I really can you imagine being that and all this glamour stuff Alice lines was eighteen-years-old a nurse in charge of a three-month-old baby named Audrey it was just Lordships like traveling in a hotel and dances Rijn lovely meals let us know talk of war at all with anybody funny thing I remember fella Klee every money ever dad got me up early and we walked all around the Lusitania it was good we had a very calm voice no see sentence one thing I remember about the Lutz's herrings there I had my first drink of cold refrigerated milk every day was a dream or something how beautiful cuz we lived you know very poorly we were poor hungry and to find something like this it was can you one explain it really Wednesday May 5th evening in the past 24 hours the u-20 has sunk one ship a schooner carrying some bacon but she needed deck cannon and grenades to do it the one time she attempted to fire a torpedo on this mission it got jammed in the tube now she will have a second chance at 8:30 that evening captain Schwieger spots a steamer through the fog the u-20 fires one torpedo at point-blank range this time it clears the tube but doesn't explode the submarines activity is reported to the Admiralty office in London but no one quite knows what countermeasures to take except watch and wait 24 hours later Thursday May 6th the Lusitania stands poised to enter British coastal waters and the war zone the lifeboats have been swung away from the ship and the unlikely event they will be needed after briefly attending a cocktail party with Charles Frohman and Alfred Vanderbilt captain Turner returns to the bridge to find a telegram waiting for him submarines active off south coast of Ireland minutes later another message arrives avoid headlands Pass harbors at full speed steer mid-channel course submarines off fast net captain Turner orders the curtains drawn in all staterooms and passes the word that gentleman wishing to smoke an after-dinner cigar should not do so on deck the night before we were Toby did as the steward came into my room and drew all the curtains and I said well sizzle and he said with us my orders that night after dinner the Welsh choir gives a concert a fight erupts among a group of men playing cards in the first-class smoking room and eateth Williams takes a stroll with her mother on the deck one time she said to me she did say this and I remember it that if we're to be drowned let us hope that we'll all be drowned were all saved something to them probably in prayer she said it a solar remember about my mother and belowdecks the endless movement of wheel barrels from the coal bunkers continues until they are empty of nearly everything but dust a few hundred miles away captain Swiger congratulate his crew for the two cargo ships they have sunk that day and plays a record by bogner on the ship's gramophone then he makes a decision that will change history instead of continuing on to Liverpool he will cruise the Irish Channel with his remaining three torpedoes although Ballard's investigation is at an impasse he is not yet prepared to admit failure he knows that something must have caused the second explosion that sank the Lusitania but if her cargo didn't blow up what did valor decides to have a look for himself in the two-man submarine called Delta one approach to the wreck is along the line that the Lusitania herself followed as she sank a trail of coal marks the way Cole the Lusitania carried 5,000 tons of it in a series of massive bunkers arranged along both sides of the ship and those bunkers lie directly behind the undamaged magazine it's only the smallest clue but it means that as the Lusitania sank the coal bunkers on her starboard side must have been open to the scene Friday May 7 1915 shortly before 1 o'clock after a morning of slow progress through heavy fog the Lusitania rounds the southwest tip of Ireland she is finally inside of land I was six years old and we were standing on the coast of Southern Ireland of the hell Dedekind Sam and a lovely sunny option and enjoying the scenery and we saw his liner coming around the corner I've never seen such a big line resist in my life before and we're fascinated watching it coming towards us virtually wonderful sight it was a fine day yes it was a fine day in that morning dad when we come from breakfast dad said look out there and he said what can you see that was the Irish coast we was on about 15 miles away u-boat 20 is running on the surface when a lookout spots four funnels on the horizon though he has no hope of catching this unidentified liner captain Schwieger gives the order to submerge at almost the same moment on the bridge of the Lusitania captain Turner orders a turn to starboard toward Liverpool and puts his ship directly in the path of the onrushing submarine captain Schwieger cannot believe his luck it is just after 2 o'clock in the Lusitania dining room second lunch is being served the Lusitania is 1,000 meters away from the u-boat and closing fast at 700 meters captain Schwieger gives the order to fire one torpedo at lunch and this girl who shared the cabin with me she thought we should be starting to pack so course I left the table and went with her to the cabin and we were just inside when the resisting eyes oh that terrific explosion a terrific one and it sounds if it was right near to look frightened the life after me the torpedo strikes the ship just behind the bridge a spout of water steam and black dust a rough somewhere behind the forward crow's nest of people pushy shoving together and eyes I could get he near the back almost immediately the ship lists sharply the starboard the lifeboats on that side swing away from the ship on the port side the lifeboats swing in lowering them becomes almost impossible the LAIV boss went up and down and they were out of order because they couldn't run that we're all krumping so they had just to fill the boat and hold it down by hand and then when they got to the water they cut the rope and of course they first do overturned and the people were thrown in the water would come to an open space got me hands in prayer and I said please God save us please God save us in the mounting panic nursemaid Alice lines rats three-month-old Audrey into a shop and ties it around her neck then she heads for the lifeboat with Audrey's older brother in tow I followed best I could to get into the Sun into the lifeboat but an officer came grandpa to me he said you can't go in that's full and I said I must my boys in there that just put my boiler I must like myself free from him I never knowing my life food I jumped trying to escape the onrushing sees other passengers climb for the highest points on the ship I had my sister Florence with me we got to the poop deck next to the funnels and so we were went down with a sink and when she got to where we were looked up we just went into the ocean my life belt cept off and I'm holding on to Florence but I couldn't hold on any longer that's a letter guy that was very traumatic that lasted this hand was the same lasted till I was 19 or 20 years old like still that's extraordinaire can sail a grip and very gradually the boughs went down and as the boughs went down Stern came up until the propellers were out of the water she was quite clear the water and as an angle I would think of about 45 degrees she said poised and then as if just on the slide she slowly slid down quit quite dramatically pollute the waves the sea was boiling and the lander disappeared 300 feet below the surface the great ship came to rest inside her were those who had never even made it to the decks when the power failed and plunged the ship into darkness they were trapped in the boiler rooms the cargo holds the second class cabins the first class elevators a hatch door still stands open a last desperate effort to escape as the ship went down off to one side part of a woman shoe 300 feet above the liner death is assuming a different form scattered in a great swath that runs for a mile those who survive the sinking itself are beginning to die from exposure in the frigid scene when I came up there's nothing in sight all the boulders disappeared and all I could see was heads bobbing up and down and chairs tables and things like that and people calling out and these two men were on a lifeboat upside-down two of them and they dragged me on with them and I was in the water and crying and being picked up just think there were only seven lifeboats but they grabbed me and it was mr. hook that pulled me out dad he pulled her by the hair and got her into the boat I didn't see those Italian here go down but I seen this row of people moaning and it was like a half a circle of people moaning in the water they're just a moan constant moment and it gradually got less and less over a week has passed since Ballard started his investigation and he's beginning to focus on an idea suggested by retired captain Cyril spur a British munitions expert who's just joined his team Spur has pointed out that if the torpedo had struck at any point behind the forward magazine it would have hit a coal bunker since the ship was at the end of her crossing the bunkers would have been almost empty except for a thick layer of coal dust on the floor how many of those bunkers would have to be violated for the ship to sink the way it did the Lusitania was built so as to float with two compartments open to the sea and with more compartments open she could not stay afloat what is the explosive nature of coal dust is there a gas buildup in these things is there with a disruption there could be a serious cloud of coal dust which would be very explosive indeed we heard a sharp explosion initially which would have been the torpedoes and a rumbling the coat that a match that would match a dust explosion more accurate you still have the classic ingredients for an explosion provided that you got a source of ignition must have a source of ignition so you have the torpedo coming in and hitting right about there I'm wearing that neck of the woods just below the waterline in the red and you would have had an initial explosion a sharp explosion which everyone reported and that would have blown out plating and then that explosion that fireball that had ignited then ignited what I think was the cold doesn't shook shook the bunker got the coal up in the air the remaining dust and then ignited that and so now the sea is going to pour into that area and the ship is gonna immediately list a starboard dumping coal on the floor of the ocean as it goes from the ruptured bunkers and then crack on the bottom and the forces of gravity would have slowly caused it to settle to where it's now sort of a sealed tomb although we may never know the whole truth it now seems likely that the sinking of the Lusitania was simply one of those strange quirks of faith that happened in war I don't think anyone expected one torpedo to sink it I don't think the German skipper that fired it thought he was really gonna sink it and I don't think the captain thought once he had been hit that he was going to sink it was just bad luck hi-yah not from white function otherwise no thing the canard archive in Liverpool make your way down today the Cunard Line records of the Lusitania disaster fill only a few shelves in the haste to find answers and assign blame the human stories have been largely forgotten May 7 1915 evening the first victims of the sinking arrive in the Irish port of Queenstown by the following morning the Lusitania has made headlines everywhere around the globe in Liverpool in New York anxious relatives and friends gather forward of their loved ones the sea has been remarkably democratic in who would claim we lost another sister 20 months old I suppose she was trained as soon as he entered the water a speck but much chance of a little girl like that was it gradually the dimensions of the disaster become apparent of the 1959 people aboard the ship there are only 764 survivors the Cunard Line offers a cash reward for the bodies that have started to float ashore as far away as whales only 289 are recovered of these 65 are never identified never just rows and rows of people who'd been taken out of the sea who were dead I went over quite a number and then I saw my father's body and they that was that I didn't do anymore after that when we arrived in Queenstown and they tell me I cry for my mother all night wondered where she was you know being a girl naturally would want to know where a mother one so they said oh she's prolly perhaps in another hotel cetera so but she was never found like him that wasn't other people sir the following message is copying ink pen on brown paper enclosed in a bottle was picked up near Waterford on the 18th and delivered to me today quote no other papers to be got going down with Lusitania torpedoed off old head Kinsale M McManus goodbye in the weeks to come Great Britain will deny that the Lusitania was carrying arms and set up an official inquiry which will promptly blame Germany for the disaster Winston Churchill would talk of resigning but end up leading his nation to victory in another war against Germany 30 years later the German people will welcome the crew of u-boat 20 like heroes when they return home and in the United States there will be an immediate outcry for a declaration of war against Germany but nearly two years were passed before that happens when you have a disaster like this one so many truly innocent people and they were innocent children women people from neutral countries had absolutely nothing to do with died you always want to say well who's to blame who do we pin this on from what I can see everyone was to blame was not a good performance on the part of the human race no I don't think about nothing more about it it's one of those things and you can't do nothing but can we is a bad day for me but I think he was very fortunate in saving for lives out of five we didn't talk about it even we dug we didn't talk down about it and you talked to dad about it no no wish I had mouse yes so do I oh yes this is my baby I said 79 years have passed since Alice lines wrapped three-month-old baby Audrey in her shawl and jumped for a lifeboat he's very dear close friend and he means great deal to me because she saved my life you did cry about that's no - I said you were like my baby so what you tell me that unless but there's a six-year-old boy it was something that was sticking my mind as it has done for the rest of my life and although time fades the little gray cells get worn out I can still sit here now and see that liner just sliding beneath the waves oh I think that it still could have a lot of war material support there aren't undocumented I think it becomes more and more a footnote though as we show that it wasn't the explosion of those where materials have put it at the bottom I'm content with what we found out and now it's time to move on to another piece of history

Channel: KnowlesKnows

Views: 193,796

Keywords: Sinking Of RMS Lusitania (Disaster), RMS Lusitania (Ship)

Id: EmQjEIHfDCk

Length: 52min 38sec (3158 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 13 2015