RMS Lusitania’s Last Voyage (1915)

Background

When Lusitania was built, her construction and operating expenses were subsidized by the British government, with the provision that she could be converted to an armed merchant cruiser (AMC) if need be. Pillars and supports were included in her design to allow the emplacement of 12 6-inch guns, and she was listed as a "Royal Naval Reserve Merchant Vessel". In the 1914 edition of Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships, its silhouette was listed for identification reasons as a civilian liner, together with Mauretania and all liners of all nations capable of over 18 knots. Brassey's 1914 The Naval Annual categorised her as a "Royal Naval Reserved Merchant Cruiser".

At the outbreak of the First World War, the British Admiralty considered her for requisition as an AMC. However the Admiralty then cancelled their decision and decided not to use her as an AMC after all; large liners such as Lusitania consumed enormous quantities of coal (910 tons/day, or 37.6 tons/hour) and became a serious drain on the Admiralty's fuel reserves, so express liners were deemed inappropriate for the role when smaller cruisers would do. They were also very distinctive, so smaller liners were used as transports instead.

At the outbreak of hostilities, fears for the safety of Lusitania and other great liners ran high.

Final voyage

While many British passenger ships had been called into duty for the war effort, Lusitania remained on her regular route between Liverpool and New York City. Captain Turner, known as "Bowler Bill" for his favourite shoreside headgear, tried to calm the passengers by explaining that the ship's speed made her safe from attack by submarine.

As the liner steamed across the ocean, the British Admiralty had been tracking the movements of U-20, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger, through wireless intercepts and radio direction finding. The submarine left Borkum on 30 April, heading north-west across the North Sea.

U-20 surfaced again at 12:45 as visibility was now excellent. At 13:20, something was sighted and Schwieger was summoned to the conning tower: at first it appeared to be several ships because of the number of funnels and masts, but this resolved into one large steamer appearing over the horizon. At 13:25, the submarine submerged to periscope depth of 6 fathoms (11 m; 36 ft) and set a course to intercept the liner at her maximum submerged speed of 9 knots.

Official inquiries

On 8 May, the local county coroner John Hogan opened an inquest in Kinsale into the deaths of two males and three females whose bodies had been brought ashore by a local boat, Heron. Most of the survivors (and dead) had been taken to Queenstown instead of Kinsale, which was closer. On 10 May Captain Turner gave evidence as to the events of the sinking where he described that the ship had been struck by one torpedo between the third and fourth funnels.

The formal Board of Trade investigation into the sinking was presided over by Wreck Commissioner Lord Mersey and took place in the Westminster Central Hall from 15 to 18 June 1915 with further sessions at the Westminster Palace Hotel on 1 July and Caxton Hall on 17 July. Lord Mersey had a background in commercial rather than maritime law but had presided over a number of important maritime investigations, including that into the loss of Titanic.

In the United States, 67 claims for compensation were lodged against Cunard, which were all heard together in 1918 before the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Judge Julius Mayer, presided over the case: he had previously presided over the case brought following the loss of Titanic, where he had ruled in favour of the shipping company.

International reaction

On 8 May Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, the former German Colonial Secretary and representative of the German Red Cross, made a statement in Cleveland, Ohio, in which he attempted to justify the sinking of Lusitania.

There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

When Germany began its submarine campaign against Britain, Wilson had warned that the US would hold the German government strictly accountable for any violations of American rights.

While outwardly Germany conducted a propaganda skirmish, internally there had long been a faction opposed to the new submarine war.

The British press highlighted the savagery of the Germans, condemning Schwieger as a war criminal. Thanks to the Defence of the Realm Act, matters relating to the ship's cargo were censored.

Last survivor

The last survivor was Audrey Warren Lawson-Johnston (née Pearl), who was born in New York City on 15 February 1915. She was the fourth of seven children (the youngest three born after the disaster) born to Major Frederic "Frank" Warren Pearl (1869–1952) and Amy Lea (née Duncan; 1880–1964). She was only three months old when she boarded Lusitania in New York with her parents, three siblings, and two nurses – and due to her age had no first hand recollection of the disaster. She and her brother Stuart (age 5) were saved by their British nursemaid Alice Maud Lines, then 18 years old, who jumped off the boat deck and escaped in a lifeboat. Her parents also survived, but her sisters Amy (age 3) and Susan (age 14 months) died. Pearl married Hugh de Beauchamp Lawson-Johnston, second son of George Lawson Johnston, 1st Baron Luke, on 18 July 1946. They had three children and lived in Melchbourne, Bedfordshire. Hugh was Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1961. Johnston gifted an inshore lifeboat, Amy Lea, to New Quay Lifeboat Station in 2004 in memory of her mother. Audrey Johnston died on 11 January 2011, at age 95.

Controversies

The "prize rules" or "cruiser rules", based in customary law and influenced by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the 1909 London Declaration concerning the Laws of Naval War, governed the seizure of vessels at sea during wartime.

Many survivors from Lusitania reported that a second explosion took place either immediately or a few seconds afterwards, some suggesting it felt more severe.

There has long been a theory, expressed by historian and former British naval intelligence officer Patrick Beesly and authors Colin Simpson and Donald E. Schmidt among others, that Lusitania was deliberately placed in danger by the British authorities, so as to entice a U-boat attack and thereby drag the US into the war on the side of Britain.

Lusitania was officially carrying among her cargo 4,200 cases of rifle/machine-gun ammunition, 1,250 cases of empty shrapnel artillery shells, and the artillery fuzes for those shells stored separately. This comprised a total of 173 tons.

The wreck was depth-charged or attacked with Hedgehog mortars. A Dublin-based technical diver, Des Quigley, who dived on the wreck in the 1990s, reported that the wreck is "like Swiss cheese" and the seabed around her "is littered with unexploded hedgehog mines".

Wreck site

The wreck of Lusitania lies on her starboard side at an approximately 30-degree angle in 305 feet (93 metres) of sea water. She is severely collapsed onto her starboard side as a result of the force with which she slammed into the sea floor, and over decades, Lusitania has deteriorated significantly faster than Titanic because of the corrosion in the winter tides. The keel has an "unusual curvature", in a boomerang shape, which may be related to a lack of strength from the loss of her superstructure. The beam is reduced with the funnels missing, presumably due to deterioration. The bow is the most prominent portion of the wreck with the stern damaged from the removal of three of the four propellers by Oceaneering International in 1982 for display.

Some of the prominent features on Lusitania include her still-legible name, some bollards with the ropes still intact, pieces of the ruined promenade deck, some portholes, the prow and the remaining propeller. Recent expeditions to the wreck have revealed that Lusitania is in surprisingly poor condition compared to Titanic, as her hull has already started to collapse.