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The irony of the situation lies in the fact that from the ghastly experience of great marine disasters the Lusitania was evolved as a vessel that was “safe.” No such calamity as the attack of a torpedo was foreseen by the builders of the giant ship, and yet, even after the outbreak of the European war, and when upon the eve of her last voyage the warning came that an attempt would be made to torpedo the Lusitania, her owners confidently assured the world that the ship was safe because her great speed would enable her to outstrip any submarine ever built.
Limitation of language makes adequate word description of this mammoth Cunarder impossible. The following figures show its immense dimensions: Length, 790 feet; breadth, 88 feet; depth, to boat deck, 80 feet; draught, fully loaded, 37 feet, 6 inches; displacement on load line, 45,000 tons; height to top of funnels, 155 feet; height to mastheads, 216 feet. The hull below draught line was divided into 175 water-tight compartments, which made it--so the owners claimed--“unsinkable.” With complete safety device equipment, including wireless telegraph, Mundy-Gray improved method of submarine signaling, and with officers and crew all trained and reliable men, the Lusitania was acclaimed as being unexcelled from a standpoint of safety, as in all other respects.
Size, however, was its least remarkable feature. The ship was propelled by four screws rotated by turbine engines of 68,000 horse-power, capable of developing a sea speed of more than twenty-five knots per hour regardless of weather conditions, and of maintaining without driving a schedule with the regularity of a railroad train, and thus establishing its right to the title of “the fastest ocean greyhound.”
GERMANY’S ANNOUNCED INTENTION TO SINK THE VESSEL
On Saturday May 1, 1915, the day on which the Cunard liner Lusitania, carrying 2,000 passengers and crew, sailed from New York for Liverpool, the following advertisement, over the name of the Imperial German Embassy, was published in the leading newspapers of the United States:
NOTICE!
TRAVELERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or of any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travelers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY. WASHINGTON, D. C., April 22, 1915.
The advertisement was commented upon by the passengers of the Lusitania, but it did not cause any of them to cancel their bookings. No one took the matter seriously. It was not conceivable that even the German military lords could seriously plot so dastardly an attack on non-combatants.
When the attention of Captain W. T. Turner, commander of the Lusitania, was called to the warning, he laughed and said: “It doesn’t seem as if they had scared many people from going on the ship by the looks of the passenger list.”
Agents of the Cunard Line said there was no truth in reports that several prominent passengers had received anonymous telegrams warning them not to sail on the Lusitania. Charles T. Bowring, president of the St. George’s Society, who was a passenger, said that it was a silly performance for the German Embassy to do.
Charles Klein, the American playwright, said he was going to devote his time on the voyage to thinking of his new play, “Potash and Perlmutter in Society,” and would not have time to worry about trifles.
Alfred G. Vanderbilt was one of the last to go on board.
Elbert Hubbard, publisher of the Philistine, who sailed with his wife, said he believed the German Emperor had ordered the advertisement to be placed in the newspapers, and added jokingly that if he was on board the liner when she was torpedoed, he would be able to do the Kaiser justice in the Philistine.
The early days of the voyage were unmarked by incidents other than those which have interested ocean passengers on countless previous trips, and little apprehension was felt by those on the Lusitania of the fate which lay ahead of the vessel.
The ship was proceeding at a moderate speed, on Friday, May 7, when she passed Fastnet Light, off Cape Clear, the extreme southwesterly point of Ireland that is first sighted by east-bound liners. Captain Turner was on the bridge, with his staff captain and other officers, maintaining a close lookout. Fastnet left behind, the Lusitania’s course was brought closer to shore, probably within twelve miles of the rock-bound coast.
LINER’S SPEED INCREASED AS DANGER NEARED
Her speed was also increased to twenty knots or more, according to the more observant passengers, and some declare that she worked a sort of zigzag course, plainly ready to shift her helm whenever danger should appear. Captain Turner, it is known, was watching closely for any evidence of submarines.
One of the passengers, Dr. Daniel Moore, of Yankton, S. D., declared that before he went downstairs to luncheon shortly after one o’clock he and others with him noticed, through a pair of marine glasses, a curious object in the sea, possibly two miles or more away. What it was he could not determine, but he jokingly referred to it later at luncheon as a submarine.
While the first cabin passengers were chatting over their coffee cups they felt the ship give a great leap forward. Full speed ahead had suddenly been signaled from the bridge. This was a few minutes after two o’clock, and just about the time that Ellison Myers, of Stratford, Ontario, a boy on his way to join the British Navy, noticed the periscope of a submarine about a mile away to starboard. Myers and his companions saw Captain Turner hurriedly give orders to the helmsman and ring for full speed to the engine room.
The Lusitania began to swerve to starboard, heading for the submarine, but before she could really answer her helm a torpedo was flashing through the water toward her at express speed. Myers and his companions, like many others of the passengers, saw the white wake of the torpedo and its metal casing gleaming in the bright sunlight. The weather was ideal, light winds and a clear sky making the surface of the ocean as calm and smooth as could be wished by any traveler.
SUBMARINE’S PERISCOPE DIPS UNDER SURFACE
The torpedo came on, aimed apparently at the bow of the ship, but nicely calculated to hit her amidships. Before its wake was seen the periscope of the submarine had vanished beneath the surface.
In far less time than it takes to tell, the torpedo had crashed into the Lusitania’s starboard side, just abaft the first funnel, and exploded with a dull boom in the forward stoke-hole.
Captain Turner at once ordered the helm put over and the prow of the ship headed for land, in the hope that she might strike shallow water while still under way. The boats were ordered out, and the signals calling the boat crews to their stations were flashed everywhere through the vessel.
Several of the life-boats were already swung out, according to some survivors, there having been a life-saving drill earlier in the day before the ship spoke Fastnet Light.
Down in the dining saloon the passengers felt the ship reel from the shock of the explosion and many were hurled from their chairs. Before they could recover themselves, another explosion occurred. There is a difference of opinion as to the number of torpedoes fired. Some say there were two; others say only one torpedo struck the vessel, and that the second explosion was internal.
In any event, the passengers now realized their danger. The ship, torn almost apart, was filled with fumes and smoke, the decks were covered with débris that fell from the sky, and the great Lusitania began to list quickly to starboard. Before the passengers below decks could make their way above, the decks were beginning to slant ominously, and the air was filled with the cries of terrified men and women, some of them already injured by being hurled against the sides of the saloons. Many passengers were stricken unconscious by the smoke and fumes from the exploding torpedoes.
The stewards and stewardesses, recognizing the too evident signs of a sinking ship, rushed about urging and helping the passengers to put on life-belts, of which more than 3,000 were aboard.
On the boat deck attempts were being made to lower the life-boats, but several causes combined to impede the efforts of the crew in this direction. The port side of the vessel was already so far up that the boats on that side were quite useless, and as the starboard boats were lowered the plunging vessel--she was still under headway, for all efforts to reverse the engines proved useless--swung back and forth, and when they struck the water were dragged along through the sea, making it almost impossible to get them away.
The first life-boat that struck the water capsized with some sixty women and children aboard her, and all of these must have been drowned almost instantly. Ten more boats were lowered, the desperate expedient of cutting away the ropes being resorted to to prevent them from being dragged along by the now halting steamer.
The great ship was sinking by the bow, foot by foot, and in ten minutes after the first explosion she was already preparing to founder. Her stern rose high in the air, so that those in the boats that got away could see the whirring propellers, and even the boat deck was awash.
Captain Turner urged the men to be calm, to take care of the women and children, and megaphoned the passengers to seize life-belts, chairs--anything they could lay hands on to save themselves from drowning. There was never any question in the captain’s mind that the ship was about to sink, and if, as reported, some of the stewards ran about advising the passengers not to take to the boats, that there was no danger of the vessel going down till she reached shore, it was done without his orders. But many of the survivors have denied this, and declared that all the crew, officers, stewards and sailors, even the stokers, who dashed up from their flaming quarters below, showed the utmost bravery and calmness in the face of the disaster, and sought in every way to aid the panic-stricken passengers to get off the ship.
When it was seen that most of the boats would be useless, hundreds of passengers donned life-belts and jumped into the sea. Others seized deck chairs, tubs, kegs, anything available, and hurled themselves into the water, clinging to these articles.
The first-cabin passengers fared worst, for the second- and third-cabin travelers had long before finished their midday meal and were on deck when the torpedo struck. But the first-cabin people on the D deck and in the balcony, at luncheon, were at a terrible disadvantage, and those who had already finished were in their staterooms resting or cleaning up preparatory to the after luncheon day.
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