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 15–18 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 the
Titanic. He was assisted by four assessors, Admiral Sir Frederick Samuel Inglefield, Lieutenant Commander Hearn and two merchant navy captains, D. Davies and J. Spedding. The
Attorney General, Sir
Edward Carson, represented the Board of Trade, assisted by the
Solicitor General,
F. E. Smith. Butler Aspinall, who had previously represented the Board of Trade at the
Titanic inquiry, was retained to represent Cunard. A total of 36 witnesses were called, Lord Mersey querying why more of the survivors would not be giving evidence. Most of the sessions were public but two on 15 and 18 June were held
in camera when evidence regarding navigation of the ship was presented.
[47]
Statements were collected from all the crew. These were all written out for presentation to the inquiry on standard forms in identical handwriting with similar phrasing. Quartermaster Johnston later described that pressure had been placed upon him to be loyal to the company, and that it had been suggested to him it would help the case if two torpedoes had struck the ship, rather than the one which he described. Giving evidence to the tribunal he was not asked about torpedoes. Other witnesses who claimed that only one torpedo had been involved were refused permission to testify. In contrast to his statement at the inquest, Captain Turner stated that two torpedoes had struck the ship, not one.
[48] In an interview in 1933, Turner reverted to his original statement that there had been only one torpedo.
[49] Most witnesses said there had been two, but a couple said three, possibly involving a second submarine. Clem Edwards, representing the seamen's union, attempted to introduce evidence about which watertight compartments had been involved but was prevented from doing so by Lord Mersey.
[50]
It was during the closed hearings that the Admiralty tried to lay the blame on Captain Turner, their intended line being that Turner had been negligent. The roots of this view began in the first reports about the sinking from Vice-Admiral Coke commanding the navy at Queenstown. He reported that
"ship was especially warned that submarines were active on south coast and to keep mid-channel course avoiding headlands also position of submarine off Cape Clear at 10:00 was communicated by W/T to her..". Captain Webb, Director of the Trade Division, began to prepare a dossier of signals sent to the
Lusitania which Turner may have failed to observe. First Sea Lord
Fisher noted on one document submitted by Webb for review,
"As the Cunard company would not have employed an incompetent man its a certainty that Captain Turner is not a fool but a knave. I hope that Turner will be arrested immediately after the enquiry whatever the verdict". First Lord
Winston Churchill noted,
"I consider the Admiralty's case against Turner should be pressed by a skilful counsel and that Captain Webb should attend as a witness, if not employed as an assessor. We will pursue the captain without check". In the event, both Churchill and Fisher were replaced in their positions before the enquiry because of the failures of the Gallipoli campaign.
[51]
Part of the proceedings turned on the question of proper evasive tactics against submarines. It was put to Captain Turner that he had failed to comply with Admiralty instructions to travel at high speed, maintain a zig-zag course and keep away from shore. Naval instructions about zig-zag were read to the captain, who confirmed that he had received them, though later added that they did not appear to be as he recollected. This was unsurprising, since the regulations quoted had only been approved on 25 April, after
Lusitania's last arrival in New York, and started distribution on 13 May, after she sank.
[52] Lusitania had slowed to 15 knots at one point because of fog, but had otherwise maintained 18 knots passing Ireland. 18 knots was faster than all but nine other ships in the British merchant fleet could achieve and was comfortably faster than the submarine. Although he might have achieved 21 knots and had given orders to raise steam ready to do so, he was also under orders to time his arrival at Liverpool for high tide so that the ship would not have to wait to enter port. Thus, he chose to travel more slowly. At the time, no ship had been torpedoed travelling at more than 15 knots. Although the Admiralty instructed ships to keep well offshore and it was claimed that Turner had only been 8 miles (13 km) away, his actual distance when hit was thirteen miles (19 km). As a matter of established procedure, only ships travelling closer than five miles (8 km) from shore were ordinarily being censured for being too close.
[53]
Turner stated that he had discussed the matter of what course the ship should take, with his two most senior officers, Captain Anderson and Chief Officer Piper, neither of whom survived. The three had agreed that the Admiralty warning of 'submarine activity 20 miles (32 km) south of Coningbeg', effectively overrode other Admiralty advice to keep to 'mid channel', which was precisely where the submarine had been reported. He had, therefore, ordered the change of course at 12:40, intending to bring the ship closer to land and then take a course north of the reported submarine.
[54]
At one point in the proceedings, Smith attempted to press a point he was making, by quoting from a signal sent to British ships. Lord Mersey queried which message this was, and it transpired that the message in question existed in the version of evidence given to Smith by the Board of Trade Solicitor, Sir Ellis Cunliffe, but not in versions given to others. Cunliffe explained the discrepancy by saying that different versions of the papers had been prepared for use, depending whether the enquiry had been in camera or not, but the message quoted appeared never to have existed. Lord Mersey observed that it was his job to get at the truth, and thereafter became more critical of Admiralty evidence.
[55]
On 10 June, just before the hearing, significant changes were made to the
Defence of the Realm Act, which made it an offence to collect or publish information about the nature, use or carriage of 'war materials' for any reason. Previously, this had only been an offence if the information was collected to aid the enemy. This was used to prohibit discussion about the ship's cargo.
[50] The rifle cartridges carried by the
Lusitania were mentioned during the case, Lord Mersey stating that "the 5,000 cases of ammunition on board were 50 yards away from where the torpedo struck the ship".
[56]
An additional hearing took place on 1 July, at the insistence of Joseph Marichal, who was threatening to sue Cunard for their poor handling of the disaster. He testified that the second explosion had sounded to him like the rattling of machine gun fire and appeared to be below the second class dining room at the rear of the ship where he had been seated. Information about Marechal's background was sought out by the British government and leaked to the press so as to discredit him.
[57]
Captain Turner, the Cunard Company, and the Royal Navy were absolved of any negligence, and all blame was placed on the German government. Lord Mersey found that Turner "exercised his judgment for the best" and that the blame for the disaster "must rest solely with those who plotted and with those who committed the crime".
[58]
Two days after he closed the inquiry, Lord Mersey waived his fees for the case and formally resigned. His last words on the subject were: "The Lusitania case was a damned, dirty business!" The full report has never been made available to the public. A copy was thought to exist amongst Lord Mersey's private papers after his death, but has since proved untraceable.
American court proceedings
In the United States, 67 claims for compensation were lodged against Cunard which were all heard together in 1918. Judge
Julius Mayer, who was chosen to hear the case, had previously presided over the case brought following the loss of the
Titanic, where he had ruled in favour of the shipping company. Mayer was a conservative who was considered a safe pair of hands with matters of national interest, and whose favourite remark to lawyers was to "come to the point". The case was to be heard without a jury. The two sides agreed beforehand that no question would be raised regarding whether
Lusitania had been armed or carrying troops or ammunition. Thirty-three witnesses who could not travel to the US gave statements in England to Commissioner R. V. Wynne. Evidence produced in open court for the Mersey investigation was considered, but evidence from the British closed sessions was not. The
Defence of the Realm Act was invoked so that British witnesses could not give evidence on any subject it covered. Statements had been collected in Queenstown immediately after the sinking by the American Consul, Wesley Frost, but these were not produced.
[59]
Captain Turner gave evidence in England and now gave a more spirited defence of his actions. He argued that up until the time of the sinking he had no reason to think that zig-zagging in a fast ship would help. Indeed, that he had since commanded another ship which was sunk while zig-zagging. His position was supported by evidence from other Captains, who said that prior to the sinking of theLusitania no merchant ships zig-zagged. Turner had argued that maintaining a steady course for 30 minutes was necessary to take a four point bearing and precisely confirm the ship's position, but on this point he received less support, with other captains arguing a two point bearing could have been taken in five minutes and would have been sufficiently accurate.
Many witnesses testified that portholes across the ship had been open at the time of the sinking, and an expert witness confirmed that such a porthole three feet under water would let in four tons of water per minute. Testimony varied on how many torpedoes there had been, and whether the strike occurred between the first and second funnel, or third and fourth. The nature of the official cargo was considered, but experts considered that under no conditions could the cargo have exploded. A record exists that Crewman Jack Roper wrote to Cunard in 1919 requesting expenses for his testimony in accord with the line indicated by Cunard.
[60]
Mayer's judgement was that "the cause of the sinking was the illegal act of the Imperial German Government", that two torpedoes had been involved, that the captain had acted properly and emergency procedures had been up to the standard then expected. He ruled that further claims for compensation should be addressed to the German government ( which eventually paid $2.5 million in 1925 ).
International reaction
Illustration of Lusitania's life boats in the slip in Queenstown
On 8 May Dr.
Bernhard Dernburg, the former
German Colonial Secretary, made a statement in
Cleveland, Ohio, in which he attempted to justify the sinking of
Lusitania. At the time Dernburg was recognized as the official spokesman of the Imperial German government in the United States. Dernburg said that because
Lusitania "carried contraband of war" and also because she "was classed as an auxiliary cruiser" Germany had had a right to destroy her regardless of any passengers aboard. Dernburg further said that the warnings given by the German Embassy before her sailing plus the 18 February note declaring the existence of "war zones" relieved Germany of any responsibility for the deaths of the American citizens aboard. He referred to the ammunition and military goods declared on
Lusitania's manifest and said that "vessels of that kind" could be seized and destroyed under the Hague rules without any respect to a war zone.
[61]
The following day the German government issued an official communication regarding the sinking in which it said that the
Cunard liner Lusitania "was yesterday torpedoed by a German submarine and sank", that
Lusitania "was naturally armed with guns, as were recently most of the English mercantile steamers" and that "as is well known here, she had large quantities of war material in her cargo".
[62]
Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of New York, issued an official denial to the German charges, saying that Lusitania had been inspected before her departure and no guns were found, mounted or unmounted. Malone stated that no merchant ship would have been allowed to arm itself in the Port and leave the harbour. Assistant Manager of the Cunard Line, Herman Winter, denied the charge that she carried munitions:
She had aboard 4,200 cases of cartridges, but they were cartridges for small arms, packed in separate cases... they certainly do not come under the classification of ammunition. The United States authorities would not permit us to carry ammunition, classified as such by the military authorities, on a passenger liner. For years we have been sending small-arms cartridges abroad on the Lusitania.
—
New York Times, 10 May 1915
[63]
The fact that
Lusitania had been carrying shells and cartridges was not made known to the British public at the time.
[64]
One Catholic Centre Party newspaper, the
Kölnische Volkszeitung, stated: "The sinking of the giant English steamship is a success of moral significance which is still greater than material success. With joyful pride we contemplate this latest deed of our Navy. It will not be the last. The English wish to abandon the German people to death by starvation. We are more humane. We simply sank an English ship with passengers who, at their own risk and responsibility, entered the zone of operations.
[67]
In the aftermath of the sinking, the German government tried to justify it by claiming in an official statement that she had been armed with guns, and had "large quantities of war material" in her cargo.
[62] They also stated that since she was classed as an auxiliary cruiser, Germany had had a right to destroy her regardless of any passengers aboard, and that the warnings issued by the German Embassy before her sailing plus the 18 February note declaring the existence of "war zones", relieved Germany of any responsibility for the deaths of American citizens aboard.
[68] While it was true that
Lusitania had been fitted with gun mounts as part of government loan requirements during her construction, to enable rapid conversion into an
Armed Merchant Cruiser (AMC) in the event of war, the guns themselves were never fitted. However, she was still listed officially as an AMC.
[3] Her cargo had included an estimated 4,200,000 rounds of rifle cartridges, 1,250 empty shell cases, and 18 cases of non-explosive fuses,
[69] all of which were listed in her manifest, but the cartridges were not officially classed as ammunition by the Cunard Line.
[70] Various theories have been put forward over the years that she had also carried undeclared high explosives that were detonated by the torpedo and helped to sink her,
[71] but this has never been proven.
Take Up the Sword of Justice, a UK propaganda poster with Lusitania in the background
British and American actions
Schwieger was condemned in the Allied press as a
war criminal.
Of the 139 US citizens aboard
Lusitania, 128 lost their lives, and there was massive outrage in Britain and America,
The Nation calling it "a deed for which a Hun would blush, a Turk be ashamed, and a Barbary pirate apologise"
[72] and the British felt that the Americans had to declare war on Germany. However, US President
Woodrow Wilson refused to over-react. He said at Philadelphia on 10 May 1915:
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.
[72]
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.
[citation needed] On 1 May he stated that "no warning that an unlawful and inhumane act will be committed" could be accepted as a legitimate excuse for that act.
[73]
During the weeks after the sinking, the issue was hotly debated within the administration. Secretary of State
William Jennings Bryanurged compromise and restraint. The US, he believed, should try to persuade the British to abandon their interdiction of foodstuffs and limit their mine-laying operations at the same time as the Germans were persuaded to curtail their submarine campaign. He also suggested that the US government issue an explicit warning against US citizens travelling on any belligerent ships. Despite being sympathetic to Bryan's antiwar feelings, Wilson insisted that the German government must apologise for the sinking, compensate US victims, and promise to avoid any similar occurrence in the future.
Wilson notes
"A letter from the president of the United States". Contemporary US political cartoon
Backed by State Department second-in-command
Robert Lansing, Wilson made his position clear in three notes to the German government issued on 13 May; 9 June, and 21 July.
The first note affirmed the right of Americans to travel as passengers on merchant ships and called for the Germans to abandon submarine warfare against commercial vessels, whatever flag they sailed under (including 3 other ships: the Falaba, the Cushing, and the Gulflight).
In the second note Wilson rejected the German arguments that the British blockade was illegal, and was a cruel and deadly attack on innocent civilians, and their charge that the
Lusitania had been carrying munitions. William Jennings Bryan considered Wilson's second note too provocative and resigned in protest after failing to moderate it, to be replaced by
Robert Lansing who later said in his memoirs that following the tragedy he always had the "conviction that we would ultimately become the ally of Britain".
The third note, of 21 July, issued an ultimatum, to the effect that the US would regard any subsequent sinkings as "deliberately unfriendly".
While the American public and leadership were not ready for war, the path to an eventual declaration of war had been set as a result of the sinking of the
Lusitania. On 19 August
U-24 sank the White Star liner
SS Arabic, with the loss of 44 passengers and crew, three of whom were American. The German government, while insisting on the legitimacy of its campaign against Allied shipping, disavowed the sinking of the
Arabic; it offered an indemnity and pledged to order submarine commanders to abandon unannounced attacks on merchant and passenger vessels.
[74]
The British public, press, and government in general were upset at Wilson's actions – not realizing it reflected general US opinion at the time. They sneered "too proud or too scared?". Shells that did not explode at the front were called "Wilsons".
German policy reversal
German Chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg persuaded the Kaiser to forbid action against ships flying neutral flags and the U-boat war was postponed once again on 27 August, as it was realised that British ships could easily fly neutral flags.
[75]
There was disagreement over this move between the navy's admirals (headed by
Alfred von Tirpitz) and Bethman-Hollweg. Backed by Army Chief of Staff
Erich von Falkenhayn, Kaiser
Wilhelm II endorsed the Chancellor's solution, and Tirpitz and the Admiralty backed down. The German restriction order of 9 September 1915 stated that attacks were only allowed on ships that were definitely British, while neutral ships were to be treated under the
Prize Law rules, and no attacks on passenger liners were to be permitted at all. The war situation demanded that there could be no possibility of orders being misinterpreted, and on 18 September
Henning von Holtzendorff, the new head of the German Admiralty, issued a secret order: all U-boats operating in the English Channel and off the west coast of the United Kingdom were recalled, and the U-boat war would continue only in the North sea, where it would be conducted under the Prize Law rules.
British propaganda
It was in the interests of the British to keep US passions inflamed, and a fabricated story was circulated that in some regions of Germany, schoolchildren were given a holiday to celebrate the sinking of the
Lusitania. This story was so effective that
James W. Gerard, the US ambassador to Germany, recounted it in his memoir of his time in Germany,
Face to Face with Kaiserism (1918), though without substantiating its validity.
Goetz medal
In August 1915,
Munich medalist and sculptor Karl X. Goetz (1875–1950), who had produced a series of propagandist and satirical medals as a running commentary on the war, privately struck a small run of medals as a limited-circulation satirical attack (fewer than 500 were struck) on the Cunard Line for trying to continue business as usual during wartime. Goetz blamed both the British government and the Cunard Line for allowing the
Lusitania to sail despite the German embassy's warnings.
One side of the medal showed the
Lusitania sinking laden with guns (incorrectly depicted sinking stern first) with the motto
"KEINE BANNWARE!" ("NO CONTRABAND!"), while the reverse showed a
skeleton selling Cunard tickets with the motto
"Geschäft Über Alles" ("Business Above All").
[77]
Goetz had put an incorrect date for the sinking on the medal, an error he later blamed on a mistake in a newspaper story about the sinking: instead of 7 May, he had put "5. Mai", two days before the actual sinking. Not realizing his error, Goetz made copies of the medal and sold them in Munich and also to some numismatic dealers with whom he conducted business.
The British Foreign Office obtained a copy of the medal, photographed it, and sent copies to the United States where it was published in the
New York Times on 5 May 1916.
[78] Many popular magazines ran photographs of the medal, and it was falsely claimed that it had been awarded to the crew of the U-boat.
British replica of Goetz medal
British replica of the
Lusitania medal, with the date as "5 May"
The Goetz medal attracted so much attention that
Lord Newton, who was in charge of Propaganda at the Foreign Office in 1916, decided to exploit the anti-German feelings aroused by it for propaganda purposes and asked department store entrepreneur
Harry Gordon Selfridgeto reproduce the medal.
[79] The replica medals were produced in an attractive case claiming to be an exact copy of the German medal, and were sold for a shilling apiece. On the cases it was stated that the medals had been distributed in Germany "to commemorate the sinking of the
Lusitania" and they came with a propaganda leaflet which strongly denounced the Germans and used the medal's incorrect date to claim that the sinking of the
Lusitania was premeditated. The head of the Lusitania Souvenir Medal Committee later estimated that 250,000 were sold, proceeds being given to the Red Cross and St. Dunstan's Blinded Soldiers and Sailors Hostel.
[80][81] Unlike the original Goetz medals which were sand-cast from
bronze, the British copies were of diecast iron and were of poorer quality.
[77]
Belatedly realizing his mistake, Goetz issued a corrected medal with the date of "7. Mai". The Bavarian government suppressed the medal and ordered their confiscation in April 1917. The original German medals can easily be distinguished from the English copies because the date is in German, i.e. with a dot behind the number; the English version was altered to read 'May' rather than 'Mai'. After the war Goetz expressed his regret that his work had been the cause of increasing anti-German feelings, but it remains a celebrated propaganda act.
Last survivor
Cultural influence
Charles Ives's
Orchestral Set No. 2 concludes with a movement entitled,
From Hanover Square North, at the End of a Tragic Day, the Voice of the People Again Arose. It recounts Ives's experience waiting for an
elevated train in New York City as the news of the sinking of the
Lusitania came through. The passengers assembled on the platform began singing "
In The Sweet By and By" in time to a
barrel organ which was playing the tune. Echoes of their voices can be heard at the start of the music, and the hymn tune itself appears at the end.
[84]
The first published book by
H.P. Lovecraft was
The Crime of Crimes: Lusitania 1915 (published in Wales), a poem on the sinking of the vessel.
Controversies
Cruiser rules and exclusion zones
The "
Prize rules" or "Cruiser rules", laid down by the
Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, governed the seizure of vessels at sea during wartime, although changes in technology such as radio and the submarine eventually made parts of them irrelevant. Merchant ships were to be warned by warships, and their passengers and crew allowed to abandon ship before they were sunk, unless the ship resisted or tried to escape, or was in a convoy protected by warships. Limited armament on a merchant ship, such as one or two guns, did not necessarily affect the ship's immunity to attack without warning, and neither did a cargo of munitions or
materiel.
In November 1914 the British announced that the entire North Sea was now a War Zone, and issued orders restricting the passage of neutral shipping into and through the North Sea to special channels where supervision would be possible (the other approaches having been mined). It was in response to this, and to the British Admiralty's order of 31 January 1915 that British merchant ships should fly neutral colours as a
ruse de guerre,
[86] that
Admiral Hugo von Pohl, commander of the German High Seas Fleet, published a warning in the
Deutscher Reichsanzeiger (Imperial German Gazette) on 4 February 1915:
(1) The waters around Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole of the English Channel, are hereby declared to be a War Zone. From February 18 onwards every enemy merchant vessel encountered in this zone will be destroyed, nor will it always be possible to avert the danger thereby threatened to the crew and passengers. (2) Neutral vessels also will run a risk in the War Zone, because in view of the hazards of sea warfare and the British authorization of January 31 of the misuse of neutral flags, it may not always be possible to prevent attacks on enemy ships from harming neutral ships.
[87]
In response, the Admiralty issued orders on 10 February 1915 which directed merchant ships to escape from hostile U-boats when possible, but "if a submarine comes up suddenly close ahead of you with obvious hostile intention, steer straight for her at your utmost speed..." Further instructions ten days later advised armed steamers to open fire on a submarine even if it had not yet fired. Given the extreme vulnerability of a submarine to ramming or even small-caliber shellfire, a U-boat that surfaced and gave warning against a merchantman which had been given such instructions was putting itself in great danger. The Germans knew of these orders, even though they were intended to be secret, copies having been obtained from captured ships and from wireless intercepts;
[88] Bailey and Ryan in their "The Lusitania Disaster", put much emphasis on these Admiralty orders to merchantmen, arguing it was unreasonable to expect a submarine to surface and give warning under such circumstances. In their opinion this, rather than the munitions, the nonexistent armament, or any other suggested reason, is the best rationale for the Germans' actions in the sinking.
Contraband and second explosion
Included in
Lusitania's cargo were 4,200,000 rounds of Remington
.303 rifle cartridges, 1250 cases of empty 3-inch (76 mm)
fragmentation shell casings, and eighteen cases of non-explosive fuses,
[69] all of which were listed on the ship's two-page manifest, filed with U.S. Customs after she departed New York on 1 May.
[89][90] However, these munitions were classed as small arms ammunition, were non-explosive in bulk, and were clearly marked as such. It was perfectly legal under American shipping regulations for the liner to carry these; experts agreed they were not to blame for the second explosion. Allegations the ship was carrying more controversial cargo, such as fine aluminium powder, concealed as cheese on her cargo manifests, or guncotton (
pyroxylene) disguised as casks of beef, have never been proven. Recent expeditions to the wreck have shown that her cargo holds remain intact and show no evidence of internal explosion.
In 1993, Dr.
Robert Ballard, the famous explorer who discovered
Titanic and
Bismarck, conducted an in-depth exploration of the wreck of
Lusitania. Ballard found Light had been mistaken in his identification of a gaping hole in the ship's side. To explain the second explosion, Ballard advanced the theory of a coal-dust explosion. He believed dust in the bunkers would have been thrown into the air by the vibration from the explosion; the resulting cloud would have been ignited by a spark, causing the second explosion. In the years since he first advanced this theory, it has been argued that this is nearly impossible. Critics of the theory say
coal dust would have been too damp to have been stirred into the air by the torpedo impact in explosive concentrations; additionally, the coal bunker where the torpedo struck would have been flooded almost immediately by seawater flowing through the damaged hull plates.
[90][91]
In 2007, marine forensic investigators have become convinced an explosion in the ship's steam-generating plant is a far more plausible explanation for the second explosion. There were very few survivors from the forward two boiler rooms, but they did report the ship's boilers did not explode; they were also under extreme duress in those moments after the torpedo's impact, however. Leading Fireman Albert Martin later testified he thought the torpedo actually entered the boiler room and exploded between a group of boilers, which was a physical impossibility.
[92] It is also known the forward boiler room filled with steam, and steam pressure feeding the turbines dropped dramatically following the second explosion. These point toward a failure, of one sort or another, in the ship's steam-generating plant. It is possible the failure came, not directly from one of the boilers in boiler room no. 1, but rather in the high-pressure steam lines to the turbines. Most researchers and historians agree that a steam explosion is a far more likely cause than clandestine high explosives for the second explosion.
[93]
The original torpedo damage alone, striking the ship on the starboard coal bunker of boiler room no. 1, would probably have sunk the ship without a second explosion. This first blast was enough to cause, on its own, serious off-centre flooding, although the sinking would possibly have been slower. The deficiencies of the ship's original watertight bulkhead design exacerbated the situation, as did the many portholes which had been left open for ventilation.
Wreck site
The wreck of the Lusitania lies on its starboard side at an approximately 30 degree angle in 93 meters of sea water. The keel has an "unusual curvature" which may be related to a lack of strength from the loss of its superstructure.[94] The beam is reduced with thefunnels missing presumably to deterioration.[94] The bow is the most prominent portion of the wreck with the stern damaged from depth charging in the Second World War as well as the removal of three of the four propellers by Oceaneering International in 1982.
"Titanic" in the Thompson Graving Dock
"Titanic"'s boilers await installation
The engines side by side in their shop
"Titanic" slides into the Lagan
