The Lusitania left Liverpool on the 7 September 1907 on her maiden voyage to Queenstown and New York. Approximately 200 000 people had gathered to see her offmänniskor, despite the fact the ship had been built to win the Blue Riband back from the German ship ”Deutschland” it was not until the Lusitania’s second journey that the record was broken on the 5 October 1907. The journey from Queenstown to Sandy Hook took 4 days and 19 hours.
When the Lusitania left Liverpool on the 16 January 1915 its services across the North Atlantic were about to become markedly more appreciated. The ship sailed through bad weather with a permanent threat of being torpedoed, so much so that the captain raised the flag of the United States hoping to reduce the risk as America had not yet joined the war. This however came out in the international press and soon became known throughout the world, the German Embassy in Washington sent a warning to the newspapers in New York that passengers travelling on allied ships did so at their own risk.
In 1915 William Turner became captain on the Lusitania. He was from Liverpool and had begun sailing at the age of thirteen upon the White Star line ship. In 1878 he left the White Star Lines for Cunard where he received the "Humane Society's" silver medal for saving so many lives at sea. During his career he served on ships such as the Cherbourg, Umbria, , Ivernia and Caronia. Turner was also on board the Ivernia when it was torpedoed and sunk in 1917, he survived this attack and died in 1933.
The Lusitania’s final voyage came on the 1 May 1915 to New York, 1,959 passengers were on board. Of these passengers many were rich and of high status, the cargo was said to have consisted of food, metal rods, unrefined metal and boxes of ammunition. On the 7 May the ship had reached what was considered the danger zone, areas of water where it was expected to encounter enemy submarines. Captain Turner took all the possible precautionary measures; he ordered that all the life boats should be prepared and hung out and that all the water tight doors should be closed. The number of lookouts was doubled and the motors were ready to enable the ship to sail away at full speed. At 8:00 that morning the ship’s speed was lowered to 18 knots in preparation for docking in to Liverpool at 16:00 the next day. At 12.40 the Lusitania changed course to come in to land from a different angle, the ship was steered closer to land and at 14:00 the passengers were just finishing their lunch. At 14.15 the Lusitania was only 10-15 nautical miles from "Old Head of Kinsale", the weather was clear and the sea was calm when Captain Turner heard the second mate Leslie Morton shout:
"There is a torpedo coming, Sir.
Immediately afterwards an explosion was heard on the starboard side of the ship between the third and fourth funnels. Following this there was another explosion heard which was thought to be another torpedo at the time, although it has since been established that it was an internal explosion the cause of which has not been determined. The Lusitania started to lean towards the starboard side and sunk in only 18 minutes, very quick when compared to Estonia sinking in 30 minutes. The ship sank front first, exactly as the titanic had done 3 years earlier. Captain Turner survived and he continued to give orders until the ship disappeared from view; he swam in the water for some hours before finally finding a lifeboat. His orders that women and children should be put onto the lifeboats first were obeyed although many of the survivors complained about the way in which the lifeboats were used and the lack of leadership from the ship’s crew. It is however nothing short of a miracle how so many could have survived the sinking of such a large ship in only 18 minutes.
Because the power was lost immediately after the explosion, emergency signals had to be sent powered by batteries, the lack of electricity also meant that the last wtaer tight doors could not be closed in time. The ship quickly leaned to more than 25%, a point at which it was too late to save her. Much like the Titanic, the Lusitania gave the feeling of being unsinkable and the laws required only 16 lifeboats, but after the Titanic catastrophe the laws had been made sterner and there were 48 lifeboats aboard the Lusitania. The problem here was that many of them were held by chains that were difficult to release and therefore many of the lifeboats sunk to the bottom along with the Lusitania. 1195 people died on the ship, 764 survived. The fact that the ship sank in the middle of summer meant that many could swim around in the sea for many hours before being rescued, had the incident happened in colder weather many more would not have survived.
The German submarine U20 was under the command of Captain Schweiger, and their mission was to seek and destroy enemy ships. U20 had already torpedoed and sunk 3 ships, ”The Earl of Lahthom”, “The Candidate” and ”The Centurion”. Aboard the U20 it had been decided not to head for Liverpool as originally planned, due to low fuel levels they were on their way back to Germany. They met the Lusitania in the Irish Sea where Captain Schweiger wrote in his log book at 13:20
"Starboard ahead four funnels and two masts of a steamer with course at right angles"
The torpedo was fired as soon as the Lusitania was in range.
Today the Lusitania lies at 100 metres depth lying on its starboard side. The hull of the ship is very badly damaged and it is covered by masses of fishing nets caught up from fishermen’s boats. The wreck itself has collapsed and is it has become as good as an unrecognisable pile of ship parts. The wreck was first visited in 1935 by Englishman Jim Jarrat, he stated that the ship had a hole that had been caused by an internal explosion most probably a result of the ammunition being carried on board. It was not until 1953 that the ship was visited again, and then, at the beginning of the 1960’s John Light started to retrieve objects from the Lusitania wreckage. In 1993 Robert Ballard visited the wreck and photographed it fir the National Geographic, he reached the conclusion that the second explosion probably was not due to the cargo carried by the Lusitania but that the torpedo had hit the coal storage which had in turn exploded.
Lusitania was a British passenger liner, carrying a number of Americans, torpedoed off the Irish coast by the German submarine U-20 during World War I. The sinking and subsequent death of several civilians is cited by many to be one of the first modern examples of "total war." The nature of the explosions that sank the ship and the politics surrounding her demise have never been satisfactorily explained and to this day remain shrouded in a cloud of mystery.
