Blunder

RMS Lusitania

Laid down in 1907, Lusitania was the fastest passenger liner afloat.  Her speed was thought to protect her from U-boats.  But there was a problem.  Capable of running at 25 knots (29 miles per hour) her captain was under orders to conserve coal so on her last crossing she ran at 21 knots.

Lusitania arrives in New York on her maiden voyage. September 13, 1907.  She has just taken the Blue Riband, the award for fastest transatlantic crossing.

Captain Daniel Dow.

The penultimate captain of the this mighty liner, Captain Dow, went to the Cunard board and told them he could no longer take the responsibility of shepherding so many lives through the U-boat cordon.  He was relieved and slandered, with Cunard noting that  he was "tired and really ill".

He was replaced by Captain William Thomas Turner, a man of unreproachable ability and reputation.  Winston Churchill blamed him for the disaster knowing full well that Turner had done nothing wrong, and that the Navy bore the entire responsibility for their neglect and  misleading orders.  I think Churchill deliberately sought to have Lusitania sunk.  Now I am rethinking the Dieppe disaster.  Churchill was a very great man and should not have done this to Turner.  Or the Canadians. Getting the Americans into the war was of prime importance, and Winston played for keeps.

The day before her last voyage, the German embassy placed this notice in 50 American newspapers, including New York papers.

Last photo of the doomed ship, taken after a rendezvous with three other vessels on the first day of her last voyage.

UnterseebootKapitan Wather Schwieger.

On May 7th, 1915, Lusitania crossed paths with U-20, commanded by the 6th most successful German submarine captain of the war.  He had already fired on a clearly marked and illuminated hospital ship (and missed)  and was a murderous and very good commander.  The British got his sorry ass in 1917 when they chased him and his boat into a minefield.  It was a Q-ship that did this and to my knowledge is the only time one of those things accomplished sinking an enemy vessel.  Still a good idea.

As single torpedo just below the wheelhouse struck the mighty ship.  A secondary explosion dooms her.  1191 out of 1962 people die.

 The wreck, as visualized by Dakota L Orange, from the DevianArt site, oddly enough.

The Lusitania was carrying a huge amount of explosives, so much so that not too long ago the British warned divers of the dangers.

She was never given an armed escort through the danger zone.

It is known that the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, wanted an incident to get the Americans into the war.

President Wilson was a (incredibly opinionated statement redeacted) so he did nothing about this.

 

This was a medal made by the German artist Karl Goetz to satirize the British.  He felt that putting passengers on a ship carrying munitions through a war zone was murder, and he had a very good point.

The date is wrong by two days.

This medal was a publicity blunder of the first order. 
The Brits successfully convinced the world that the Germans were mocking dead civilians.

The U-20, beached off of Denmark, 1917.

The conning tower of the U-20, Royal Danish Naval Museum.

I have just finished reading Dead Wake, by the incredible historian Erik Larsen.  I cannot recommend this book enough.

The secondary explosion appears to have been caused by the rupture of high pressure steam lines.

One of the three mass graves.  Cobh, Ireland.  Most bodies were never found. In 1982 the British Admiralty warned divers to stay off the Lusitania, as it had explosives on board.  The Germans had every right to sink her.