Nearly everyone has heard the story of the Titanic, the infamous “unsinkable ship” that hit an iceberg and sunk into the cold North Atlantic ocean in 1912.
The tale was turned into one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, and is the focus of countless documentaries and news stories about attempts to recover the wreckage that’s over 2miles under frigid waters.
While the Titanic’stragic story gets a lot of publicity, there’s another, lesser-told story of another ocean liner that sank just a few years later, and arguably with greater consequences— the sinking of the Lusitania.
On May 7, 1915, the Lusitania was struck by a torpedo from a German U-boat off the southern coast of Ireland. This early act of violence in World War I took the lives of 1,195 passengers, who drowned in the Atlantic or died from hypothermia.
Unheeded Warning
This major historical event, which occurred 103 years ago this month, was an attack on what was then one of the largest and fastest passenger ships in the world.
The ship left New York on May 1, 1915, heading to Liverpool, England on her 101st trans-Atlantic voyage, carrying close to 2,000 people.
In his book “Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania,” author Erik Larson explains that on the day the Lusitania set sail, the German Embassy posted a warning notice to passengers in American newspapers not to board.
The Germans had announced unrestricted submarine warfare in British waters, and they had sunk several merchant ships off the southern coast of Ireland.
A lucky few heeded the warning and stayed ashore, but many relied on the prevailing opinion that the ship had enough speed to outrun the U-boats and set sail anyway.
Doomed by Fog
The Lusitania‘s speed alone (it could move at an average of 25 knots) normally would have made it capable of avoiding an attack.
But because of a heavy fog, the ship was forced to slow down and stay closer to the Ireland shoreline.
And when it slowed down, the Germans pounced. The submarine U-20 shot a torpedo at the hull, causing an initial explosion and a subsequent, bigger explosion.
The cause of the second explosion is still a bit of a mystery. It might have been from coal or the engine.
Or it might have been caused by the weapons they were transporting. Some have even speculated about a second torpedo.
In the past decade or so, divers have found large quantities of ammunition in the wreckage, which prove that the ship was at the very least transporting weapons to Great Britain, like the Germans suspected.
18 Minutes and 1,195 Lives Lost
Whatever the cause, it was the second explosion that caused the boat to tilt to the side, which made it nearly impossible to use the lifeboats on that side of the ship. So only six lifeboats launched as the ship sank.
It only took 18 minutes for the Lusitania to be totally submerged after the initial explosion. Compare this to the over two and a half hours it took for the Titanic to sink.
Though the attack occurred less than 15 miles off the coast, it still took too much time for the rescue ships to arrive.
And the frigid temps meant that 1,195 people perished in the open waters. Only 764 people were saved.
The Curious Case of Capt. Turner
One of the people that survived the day was actually the captain of the ship. Capt. William Thomas Turner had taken over the post in March from Capt. Daniel Dow, who was suffering from nervous exhaustion caused by the German threats.
Turner has often been scapegoated for this disaster because he wasn’t following orders to zig-zag or to go full steam ahead (because of the fog).
And he didn’t go down with the ship, as many captains choose to do.He was misinformed into thinking the ship had been cleared when he grabbed onto a chair to float away.
Once he got clear of the ship, he realized his mistake and saw that there were still hundreds trapped onboard.
Oddly, this wasn’t the only time that Turner survived a shipwreck. In 1916, he was at the helm of the SS Ivernia, a boat carrying troops, when it was hit by German U-boat torpedoes.
That time, he made sure all the men were clear before disembarking, but the explosion cost the lives of 36 crew members and 85 troops.
ATurning Point for WWI?
Though America took two more years to enter the war on the side of the Allied troops, the attack on the Lusitania — which killed 128 Americans — is often viewed as one of the major influences in the American decision to get embroiled in World War 1.
Did anyone in your family ride aboard the ship? Check passenger lists from earlier voyages of the Lusitania. Or check records from New York for other famous trans-Atlantic journeys.
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