Unraveling Freedom: The Battle for Democracy on the Homefront During World War I. Ann Bausum
transatlantic crossing carried added risks because of the new European war.
Submarines (U-boat 7), earned the nickname the “assassins of the seas.”
In August 1914, soon after Allied forces from such nations as England and France pushed back against Germany’s invasion of Belgium, the Germans began attacking enemy ships with submarines. Submarine warfare was a new idea then, and there was not yet a code of conduct for using this new technology. Which ships could be attacked? Warships, clearly yes. But what about merchant ships carrying cargo and supplies to enemy countries? Or boats that carried passengers and cargo? Should vessels be forewarned of attack so that they could be evacuated? Or could subs attack without warning? Answers remained unclear, and unease developed in February 1915 after Germany announced that it would begin using submarines to attack other ships, whatever their nationality, if they approached British ports. Since then the Germans had sunk 66 commercial ships; 23 had been attacked just since the Lusitania’s departure from New York.
Thus, the first glimpses by passengers of the Irish coast on the morning of May 7 signified both the nearness of their destination and their arrival in dangerous waters. Many people were on one of the Lusitania’s open-air decks as Captain Schwieger prepared to fire at the passing target. A number of survivors could recall their horror upon glimpsing the silhouette of U-boat 20’s periscope above the calm, sunny ocean. They and others stood mesmerized as they realized that the trail of bubbles advancing toward them marked the unstoppable track of a torpedo set to reach its target in less than a minute’s time. Most on board remained oblivious to the approaching danger until they heard and felt the impact of the torpedo.
Captain Schwieger had aimed his torpedo with dead-on accuracy. Had he fired five seconds sooner or 20 seconds later, the weapon would have skimmed past the liner entirely. As it was, the missile hit the ship broadside, inflicting the maximum possible damage and triggering a sequence of catastrophic injuries to the liner. Some substance—probably coal dust—exploded almost immediately after the torpedo struck, widening the hole in the boat’s side. Thousands of gallons of water began rushing into the Lusitania, causing her to list toward the wound on her starboard side. Additional seawater poured in through open portholes and hatches as they fell below the water line, further dragging the ship off balance. Immediately the captain and crew found themselves without enough power or control to stop the vessel’s forward momentum or steer it toward shore.
Within minutes, the ship’s electrical power system failed, plunging passengers and crew still below decks into darkness. Passengers traveling to the upper decks inside electrically powered elevators found themselves permanently trapped. Crew members working in the deepest bowels of the boat—in areas only reachable by electric elevators—became cut off from all reasonable means of escape.
Even those standing on exterior decks faced uncertain exits from the ship. The Titanic tragedy assured that vessels now had ample lifeboats and life jackets, but most life jackets were stowed in passenger cabins, causing people to rush back and forth down crowded and (within minutes) darkened passageways to find them. As the ship listed to one side, baby carriages, some still occupied by infants, careened across the boat’s decks. Furniture, potted plants, and dishes spilled or broke, leaving decks, cabins, and passageways littered with debris. Halls and stairs became obstacle courses as the increasing slant of the ship upended their usual orientations.
Meanwhile the listing of the ship caused lifeboats on the Lusitania’s port side to bump against the vessel’s exterior hull as they were lowered, spilling evacuees into the sea. Often then the empty boats crashed down on victims below. In the end, many passengers and crew members simply jumped into the water. Others were swept overboard. Countless more remained trapped on board when the ship sank out of sight at 2:28 p.m.
“It was freely stated and generally believed that a special effort was to be made to sink [the Lusitania] so as to inspire the world with terror.”
MARGARET MACKWORTH, PASSENGER ON THE LUSITANIA’S FINAL VOYAGE
No photographs were made of the sinking ship, so artists dramatized the scene. The New York Herald called the sinking “premeditated slaughter,” but Germans defended the attack, charging that the ship secretly carried war supplies, a claim that the Allies denied.
SOS! “Come at once,” signaled the Lusitania’s wireless operator after the ship was attacked by a German U-boat (a torpedo)
A life jacket did not necessarily assure safety in the water. Many people, in panic or ignorance, had put the devices on upside down or backward. Thus the jacket promptly flipped its wearer head first or face down in the water. Floating wreckage offered sanctuary for some but created life-and-death battles among others. People clung to anything that floated, including dead bodies. Calls for help, screams, and the cries of children filled the air around an ever-widening circle of debris floating in blood-red waters. The chill of the spring Atlantic—probably about 52 degrees—shortened the chances of survival for children and the elderly. Even the hardiest faced death by hypothermia within hours of immersion, if not sooner.
Scenes of wrenching separation and miraculous reunions punctuated the chaotic minutes of the ship’s sinking and the hours of waiting and rescue that followed. Gerda Nielson and John Welsh, who had fallen in love during their journey, were pulled from the water by occupants of a passing lifeboat. Norah Bretherton, a mother traveling alone in second class with two young children, was with neither one of them when the torpedo struck. She found, then lost track of, her 15-month-old daughter before escaping with her son in a lifeboat.
Captain Schwieger’s U-boat was long gone by the time the first rescue ship arrived at the field of floating debris about three and a half hours after the Lusitania had sunk. It took until 8 p.m. for an initial boatload of survivors to travel some 12 miles from the wreckage to the Irish seaport of Queenstown, the impromptu home base for rescue efforts. David Thomas, a former member of the British Parliament, was standing on the docks at 11 p.m., scanning the faces of survivors, when his grown daughter Margaret Mackworth struggled ashore. The pair had become separated following the attack. Captain Turner, who had jumped from his ship as she sank and been pulled from the wreckage hours later, arrived on the same boat. More vessels followed.
On dry land. Survivors struggled to comprehend the trauma they had experienced during the sinking of the Lusitania.