The Sinking of Lusitania
The Lusitania was a luxury ocean liner that sailed the Cunard Line's Liverpool-New York route from 1907. She was the largest vessel afloat at the time with a total of seven decks. It was estimated that over two hundred thousand people gathered to witness her depart on her maiden voyage. She set off on her last voyage on 1 May 1915, from Pier 54 in New York with some 1,959 people on board. Her cargo was entered in the manifest as foodstuffs, metal rods, ingots and cartridges. She was approximately thirty miles from Cape Clear Island off the coast of Co. Cork, Ireland when she encountered fog and had to reduce speed and crossed the path of a German U-boat. The U-boat fired upon the Lusitania, striking her under the bridge, subsequently there was a much larger second explosion which caused the ship to list heavily to starboard. The ship's captain gave the order to abandon ship, however there were serious problems in launching the lifeboats, out of a total of 48 only six were successfully launched. The Lusitania sank in less than twenty minutes, eight miles off the Old Head of Kinsale. Similar to the Titanic, she sank bow first, with her stern almost fully perpendicular to the water Of those onboard, 761 were rescued, but 1,198 people died with her including one hundred children. The rescue operation was led by Vice Admiral Sir Charles Henry Cooke, the naval commander at Queenstown (modern day Cobh). The political fall-out was massive, many commentators often credit the incident with transforming the prevailing American laissez-faire attitude towards the war in Europe.
