On a windless Spring day off Ireland’s south coast, a magnificent steamship carrying almost 2,000 people was hit by a torpedo. It was a tragedy that would be felt around the world

The passenger liner Lusitania and her sister ship Mauretania were ‘the largest, fastest and most magnificent steamships in the world’, according to Cunard. Promotional posters called Lusitania one of the greatest wonders of the age. But this was an age overshadowed by the gunsmoke and losses of the First World War – a war in which Lusitania would play a large and unhappy part.

It was 1915, and the United States had not yet entered the war. The waters around Britain were a declared war zone, known to be patrolled by German submarines.

Undaunted – perhaps due to the number of neutral American citizens travelling, Lusitania’s famed size and speed, and the liner’s lack of overt military intent – 1,959 passengers and crew boarded. Lusitania left New York for Liverpool, via Queenstown (now Cobh, Co Cork, and back then still part of the UK), on 1 May.

Steaming into danger
It took 6 days to cross the Atlantic, with Captain William Turner in charge. 7 May dawned a beautiful, windless day off Ireland’s south coast. The blue ski sand sunshine betrayed no hint of the danger lurking beneath the surface. At 1.20pm, the crew of German submarine U20, under Captain Walther Schwieger, spotted the Lusitania. At 2.10pm, 8 miles south south west of the Old Head of Kinsale, U20 fired a single torpedo. It struck.

Captain Turner later recalled the initial torpedo impact as being ‘like a heavy door being slammed shut’. Perhaps Lusitania could have survived being holed. But almost immediately, a second, much larger explosion was heard – and felt – around the ship. This second explosion was devastating; Lusitania sank bow-first within 18 minutes.

There has been much speculation on the cause of the second explosion. Some see it as evidence that backs up the German claim that Lusitania was carrying ‘large quantities of war material’ – the reason given for the attack. The Royal Navy denied this.

All that mattered to the rescuers putting to sea that fateful afternoon was that there were people drowning – civilian men, women and children.

Launch the lifeboats!
Courtmacsherry Harbour RNLI Coxswain Timothy Keohane was on government coastwatch duty that day, and saw what happened. He ran to tell the Lifeboat Secretary, the Reverend William Forde. Forde hurried to summon the rest of the crew. Jerry Murphy, who was a crew member in 1915, later told RTÉ Radio’s Donncha Ó Dúlaing: ‘Forde ran over here and he saw me down the back of the house rolling manure and shouted to me: “Come on Jerry, the Lusitania is gone down south there.”’ The 14-man crew gathered at the station at Barry’s Point, and they launched the lifeboat Kezia Gwilt at 3pm.

Meanwhile, the naval station at Queenstown had received the Lusitania’s mayday call at 2.15pm. The man in charge, Admiral Coke, sent all available tugs and trawlers to the torpedo site. Motor lifeboats had not reached the Corconian coast at the time. So one of the tugs towed the Queenstown RNLI lifeboat, James Stevens No. 20, along with her.

There was no such luxury for the men from Courtmacsherry. Their sails were useless in the calm conditions and they faced a 12-mile row – knowing that their chances of pulling survivors from the water diminished with every stroke. Rev Forde, who joined the crew on their mission of mercy, reported in his service log: ‘We did everything in our power to reach the place, but it took us at least 3½ hours of hard pulling to get there – then only in time to pick up dead bodies.’

‘A harrowing sight’
Onboard the Lusitania, the ship’s own lifeboats were launched as quickly as possible. But due to the ship’s severe list, those on the port side could not be lowered, and one was lost in the large explosion. The ship’s lifeboats and their lucky occupants were picked up by the tugs and trawlers from Queenstown, as was anyone alive in the water. In all, there were 761 survivors.

It fell to the Courtmacsherry crew to recover as many bodies as they could. Rev Forde wrote, with an emotion not often seen in official reports: ‘If we had wind or any motor power our boat would certainly have been first on the scene. It was a harrowing sight to witness. The sea was strewn with dead bodies floating about, some with lifebelts on, others holding on to pieces of rafts – all dead. I deeply regret it was not in our power to have been in time to save some.’

The Courtmacsherry lifeboat crew spent nearly 6 hours on the scene, fishing bodies from the water and transferring them to the larger ships to be brought back to Queenstown. At 8.40pm, the exhausted and traumatised crew were towed part way back to Courtmacsherry by a steamdriven fishing vessel. Rowing and sailing the rest of the way, they reached the boathouse at 1am.

Jerry Murphy told RTÉ: ‘It was dreadful. It was a fright to me for I was young. I had never seen a corpse before in the water … I don’t think any man could forget it.’

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A TINY SURVIVOR

Lusitania survivor Audrey Lawson-Johnson said she owed her life to the RNLI and the day’s other rescuers.

Audrey, who died in 2011 aged 95, was just 3 months old on that fateful day in 1915. Her family was emigrating from the US to the UK. Audrey and her brother Stuart were in their cabin with their nanny Alice Lines when the torpedo struck.

Alice brought the two young children onto the deck and jumped with them into one of the ship’s lifeboats. Audrey’s mother Amy was on deck at the time, and saw the torpedo travelling through the water. She also got to safety. But Audrey’s older sisters, Susan and Amy, did not make it.

Audrey grew up hearing how the Courtmacsherry lifeboat crew helped her family and other survivors – and recovered the bodies of those less lucky. She would tell her own children: ‘I was put on this Earth for some reason; I was saved for some reason.’

Audrey’s gratitude towards her rescuers was evident throughout her life, culminating in her funding of two lifeboats for New Quay RNLI – Amy Lea and Audrey LJ.

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LUSITANIA'S AFTERMATH

President Woodrow Wilson was determined to keep the United States out of the First World War. Initially, his citizens were with him. But public opinion in the US turned against Germany, first during a series of atrocities against Belgian civilians in 1914. And in 1915, with the sinking of Lusitania.

UK waters were a declared war zone, but Americans were shocked at the sinking of an unarmed passenger ship with the loss of 1,198 civilian lives (including 128 US citizens). Wilson warned Germany that it would face ‘strict accountability’ if it sank more passenger ships with US citizens onboard. German submarines were ordered not to take down any more civilian vessels.

However, in 1917, unrestricted submarine warfare on all ships heading for Britain was resumed. The United States declared war on Germany on 7 December 1917.

The Lusitania disaster was also a call to arms in Europe. At a time when Irish republicans were rising against British rule, posters demanded: ‘Irishmen, avenge the Lusitania’. Stylised images of the sinking were also used to galvanise public opinion against the Kaiser and his navy in the British local press.