Volume 17 , Issue 14

Lusitania Sinking Off Irish Coast, 7 May 1915

The Lusitania (dubbed the "Greyhound of the Seas") left the New York harbor, 1 May 1915, bound for Liverpool. Six days later it was torpedoed off the Irish Coast, 7 May 1915. The Lusitania had made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York in September 1907.



Construction on the Lusitania began in 1903 with the goal of building the fastest liner afloat. The Lusitania engines produced 68,000 horse power and pushed the giant through the water at an average speed of 25 knots. The British Admiralty had secretly subsidized her construction and was built to Admiralty specifications with the understanding that at the outbreak of war the ship would be consigned to government service.

As the war clouds gathered in 1913, the Lusitania quietly entered dry dock in Liverpool and was fitted for war service. It included the installation of ammunition magazines and gun mounts on her decks. The mounts were concealed under the teak deck, ready for the addition of the guns when needed.

It was on May 7, 1915, the ti neared the coast of Ireland. At 2:10 in the afternoon a torpedo fired by the German submarine U20 slammed into her side. There was a mysterious second explosion that ripped the liner apart. Chaos reigned that day. The ship listed so badly, quickly that lifeboats crashed into passengers crowded on deck, or dumped their loads into the water. Passengers never had a chance. Within 18 minutes the giant ship slipped beneath the sea. One thousand one hundred nineteen of the 1,924 aboard died. the dead included 114 Americans.

The captain of the U-boat that sank the Lusitania was Walter Schwieger. As he watched through his periscope as the torpedo exploded, he noted the result in his log.

In the ship's nursery Alfred Vanderbilt, one of the world's richest men, and playwright Carl Frohman tied life jackets to wicker "moses baskets" holding infants in an attempt to save them from going down with he ship. The rising water carried the baskets off the ship, but none survived the turbulence created as the ship sank tot he bottom. Vanderbilt and Frohman were claimed by the sea.

The sinking enraged American public opinion. The political fallout was immediate. President Wilson protested strongly to the Germans. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, a pacifist, resigned. In September, the Germans announced that passenger ships would be sunk only with prior warning and appropriate safeguards for passengers. The seeds of American animosity towards Germany were sown, and within two years America declared war.
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