RMS Lusitania Sinking Costs 1198 Lives

RMS Lusitania Sinking Costs 1198 Lives

On the afternoon of May 7, 1915, the RMS Lusitania passenger liner was sunk by a German U-Boat off the coast of Ireland. Elements of the ship’s design, unfortunate wartime ship’s orders, and actions of her crew, contributed to the sinking and the high loss of life.

The RMS Lusitania And Wartime

The RMS Lusitania was the pride of Cunard Shipping Lines, built as a fast and luxurious ship for the Atlantic crossing from Liverpool, England to New York City. She weighed 44,000 tons loaded, measured 785 feet overall, and was capable of speeds over 26 knots. Several times the RMS Lusitania was awarded the Blue Riband for fastest Transatlantic crossing. She launched on September 7, 1907, and made 202 crossings before she met her fate.

The Lusitania was outfitted with transverse bulkheads to prevent catastrophic flooding; however, she had two long compartments running the length of the ship outside these bulkheads for coal storage.

By February 1915, German U-Boats were active in the waters around Great Britain, creating a potential hazard for passenger liners. Existing maritime law demanded that enemy captains allow innocent passengers to leave a ship before it was destroyed, and these rules were followed at first. However, British authorities gave commercial boat captains instructions to shoot at, or ram, any German U-Boats which surfaced. This new instruction may have contributed to the Germans’ failure to warn the RMS Lusitania of attack.

The RMS Lusitania, and her sister ship the RMS Mauritania, were fitted for deck guns and listed as armed ships for the Great War, but guns were never actually mounted.

The RMS Lusitania left New York on May 1, 1915, for the return to Liverpool. The ship held 1959 souls, despite a published warning from the German Embassy in America that she would be sailing through dangerous waters. During the voyage, Captain William Thomas Turner received several reports of U-Boat sightings; German U-20 had been busy sinking naval traffic around the British Isles. By Friday, May 7, U-20 was low on fuel and had only 1 torpedo, so her captain, Walther Schweiger, headed north along the Irish coast to return to Germany.

At 2:10pm Schweiger sighted the Lusitania. The ship was listed as an armed carrier, which made it a target. Schweiger did not surface and allow passengers to leave via lifeboats; he fired one torpedo, which struck the Lusitania on the starboard side, forward of her first funnel.

The Lusitania was making 18 knots when the torpedo struck 10 feet below the waterline. There was a second explosion almost immediately. Water rushed into the starboard coal bunker running the length of the ship, which took the Lusitania into a 15-degree list. This quickly worsened to a 25-degree list. Captain Turner tried to stop the engines, but all communication and control to the engine room was lost. Crew and passengers tried to launch lifeboats, however the ship’s continuing speed and the list to starboard made launching lifeboats either dangerous or impossible. Chaos and panic among both passengers and crew compounded the problem. Only 8 of the Lusitania’s 22 5-ton wooden lifeboats were launched successfully, and none of her 26 collapsible lifeboats.

The RMS Lusitania sank in 18 minutes, 15 km off the Old Head of Kinsdale, Ireland, in 91 meters of water. 1198 of her 1959 occupants died.

The Aftermath

Germany’s attempts to justify the sinking of the passenger liner were widely derided, and worldwide opinion moved against Germany because of it. Accusations that the ship was carrying wartime munitions, which caused the second explosion, have not been supported by facts.

By 1918, steamship modifications were being proposed to allow for a shutdown of the boilers from the deck should the captain lose contact with the engine room.

Links

http://www.titanicandco.com/lusitania.html

http://www.lusitania.net/specifications.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sURi21sJsWc&feature

Connected safety tips

• Lusitania Lessons