Lusitania Essay -- essays research papers

Lusitania It was 2:10 p.m. on May 7, 1915. Leslie Morton, a lookout on the Lusitania, screamed, "Torpedoes coming on the starboard side." Two explosions followed. Within 18 minutes the huge liner, once the largest ever built, sank to the bottom of the Celtic Sea. 1,195 out of the 1,959 people aboard died. Walther Schwieger, commander of the German submarine U- 20, who had fired a single torpedo 750 yards away from the ship, later called it the most horrible sight he had ever seen. The Lusitania entered service between Liverpool and New York on September 7, 1907. Funded by the British Admiralty, the Lusitania, built by the Cunard Steamship Company, was required to double as an auxiliary cruiser in case of war. This was a secret agreement between the Admiralty and Cunard. On May 12, 1913 she was put in drydock to be double plated and hydraulically riveted, as well as modified for the application of guns. War was declared on August 4, 1914, and the ship was sent again into drydock. There she was armed with 12 six-inch guns(Simpson 60). Britain wanted to ship war materials over the Atlantic, but there was an embargo of shipping munitions on passenger ships. America also tended to publish the cargo manifests so that the Allies as well as the Germans would know what is being shipped. Britain found a loophole in this. New cargo added at the last minute did not go on the original manifest, thus a supplementary manifest would be submitted 4 or 5 days later. Also, due to t...