The home port of RMS. Lusitania.
No. 1 for information on the ship and her last Master,
Captain W.T. Turner.
Torpedo U-20 - Torpedo Strike - Panic
Torpedo
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On the afternoon of Friday 7th May 1915, Kapitan-Leutnant Walther Schwieger, Commander of the German submarine U-20, sights a ship with 4 funnels, schooner rig, upwards of 20,000 tons and making about 22 knots. The U-boat's pilot confirms it to be either the Lusitania or Mauretania. Both were listed in Brassey's naval annual as Armed Merchant Cruisers. U-20 alters course to intercept, submerging. Schwieger orders a forward tube loaded with a G-type torpedo. The Lusitania alters course, under Admiralty instructions, to Queenstown (now Cobh). Schwieger fires his torpedo and it hits the Lusitania at 14.10 GMT.
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The Lusitania is 14 miles offshore as she takes the hit just behind the foremast, in the aft end of the cargo hold, ten feet below the waterline. Lifeboat No. 5 is torn from its davits by the descending plume of water and debris following the torpedo strike. The official Admiralty version is that two torpedoes struck the ship. Schwieger's log and the testimony of several survivors shows categorically that he only fired one torpedo; but a larger, second explosion had occurred almost instantaneously, which was highly likely to have been attributable to a particular consignment of 5,000 live artillery shells in the hold. It was the second explosion, caused we think by the sympathetic detonation of these munitions, which was ultimately responsible for the ship's rapid demise. Our book, THE LUSITANIA STORY, covers this aspect in great detail with the help of leading experts from the Imperial War Museum, the Royal Artillery Museum and the Royal Artillery Historical Trust.
The Lusitania, still under way, turns toward land, rolling rapidly onto her starboard side. Panic ensues as the ship sinks by the head, going down in 310 feet of water, in a mere eighteen minutes and taking 1,201 people with her. The wreck site of the Lusitania lies 11.2 miles south, & 3 degrees west, of the Old Head of Kinsale, Southern Ireland. Her momentum carried her a further two miles after she was struck before she sank.
