Another passenger said that the ship was hit in the starboard side and two greater explosions and lots of people fell 60 or 70 feet into the water. He won’t be sure about the which side because it could be standing in the starboard side and thought port side or he was standing in the port side and thought starboard side but it was written 2 days later.
The captain said that they definitely hit starboard side and the captain fired one explosion but he saw two explosions. The captain will know what side he was standing and he knows all the sides so that the explosion surely hit in the starboard side but the German captain could be tying to cover up and saying there is only explosion.
On 1 may 1915 the Lusitania left New York for Liverpool. Before sailing threatening statements were published in American newspaper by the German saying that the liner would be sunk. Without the slightest warning, a torpedo from a German submarine struck Lusitania between the third and fourth funnels. There was evidence that a second and perhaps a third torpedo were fired. The Germans published but the American thought nothing will happen because they thought it is only just a notice.
A German said the explosion of the torpedo was followed at once by a further explosion of an extremely strong effect. The second explosion must be traced back to the exploding of larger quantities of ammunition in side the ship. That means the Americans are carrying ammunition inside the ship so that got the second explosion, the Germans fired one torpedo but the Americans carrying ammunition which got the second explosion. Now it is American fault because they don’t need to carry all this in the ship and it is a passenger ship.
The Lusitania has loaded some of the cargo, in the cargo there are 1248 cases of shrapnel shells, 323 bales of fur but Simpson suggests this may actually have been Gun Cotton and in the refrigerated holds: beef, oysters and ‘undisclosed cargo’ but Simpson says this was probably more ammunition.
On 26th April 1915, he was called to a meeting with a British Diplomat, Captain Guy Gaunt, at his office. During the conversation we are talking about the explosives. There was send 600 tons of Gun cotton. The Gun cotton called pyroxyline, a chemical change takes place at once. Because of the gun cotton it could be an explosion and which got the second explosion.
The evidence of marine archaeologists studied about Lusitania, they shows that the Lusitania lies on her starboard side with much of her deck structure collapsed, there is evidence that someone has been into the forward hold.
There are able to explore the entire exposed area of the hold and it was clearly undamaged, they were not the cause of the secondary explosion that sank the ship. This could be the coal dust explosion in the longitudinal bunkers which made the Lusitania sink.
To bring the United States into the war was by no means British government policy at the time. The British were aware that if America joined in the war she would also wish to join in dictating the peace it was in British’s main interest to maintain the United States as a friendly neutral supplier of arms. The main argument against boiler as the cause of the second explosion is that were survivors from both boiler – rooms number one and number two. Only one boiler is not working so the explosion hit in the boiler and made the ship to sink.
Steam lines were the pipes which carried high pressure superheated steam from the boilers to the turbines and were located at the level of the torpedo explosion, this steam line explosion are easily the most likely source of second explosion because the steam line is near to the explosion and if its blows up it going make a big damage and it is superheated so this could cause the second explosion.
I think the evidence for this Sinking of Lusitania is that there were hit in the starboard side because the German captain known which side he hit, there were two explosions, one is torpedo and another could be the Ammunition, Gun cotton and coal dust because all this are not needed because it’s a passenger ship. And the most reliable the Boiler and steam line because if the torpedo hit the one of they it could bring a explosion and there are big and its high – pressure but some of the people think the truth is the that the Lusitania sank quickly because she was not designed to withstand a torpedo hitting her in such a vital spot.