Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

by Erik Larson

  Kinsale followed this message with a report that a schooner, the Earl of Lathom, had been sunk off the Old Head. This was relayed to Blinker Hall and First Sea Lord Fisher, temporarily in charge of the Admiralty. Churchill was expected to arrive in Paris by midnight. The new message, received in London at 10:46 P.M. and noted in a record of U-20’s travels compiled by Room 40, stated that the schooner’s crew had been rescued and brought to Kinsale. The crew reported that when they had last seen the submarine it was heading southeast toward a large steamer.

  At about the same time another telegram reached the Admiralty, this from the Naval Center at Queenstown. The captain of a British ship, the Cayo Romano, was reporting that a torpedo had been fired at his vessel off Fastnet Rock. He never saw the submarine that fired it. This too was noted in Room 40 and relayed to Hall and Fisher.

  Now came a fourth message, also circulated, that a submarine had been sighted 12 miles south of the Daunt Rock Light, a lightship anchored outside the entrance to Queenstown Harbor. The time of the sighting was 9:30 P.M.

  By comparing the locations of these attacks with previously intercepted wireless reports, it should have become obvious to someone—to Chief of Staff Oliver, Captain Hall, or Fisher—that the U-boat involved was Kptlt. Walther Schwieger’s U-20 and that Schwieger was now operating in the heart of one of Britain’s primary sea-lanes. A detailed record of U-20’s travels kept by Room 40 included a precise location for that evening, “51.32 N, 8.22 W.” These coordinates put the U-boat just south-southeast of the Old Head of Kinsale.

  The Admiralty was well aware the Lusitania would soon traverse these same waters but made no effort to provide specifics of the night’s events directly to Captain Turner. Meanwhile, the closely watched HMS Orion continued on its course to Scapa Flow, guarded all the while by the four destroyers assigned as escorts. They accompanied the dreadnought until it was safely in the Atlantic and heading north before beginning their own return voyages. At that point the four destroyers were within range of U-20’s last position and the path the Lusitania soon would follow on its way to Liverpool. No attempt was made to divert the destroyers. One, the HMS Boyne, went directly back to Devonport; the other three returned via the Scilly Islands.

  The Orion continued north on a zigzag course, at 18 knots, a speed deemed more than sufficient to outrun a U-boat.

  NOW FIVE DAYS into its voyage, the Lusitania made its way toward Britain alone, with no escort offered or planned, and no instruction to take the newly opened and safer North Channel route—this despite the fact that the ship carried a valuable cache of rifle cartridges and desperately needed shrapnel shells.

  The absence of any protective measures may simply have been the result of a lapse of attention, with Churchill off in France and Fisher consumed by other matters and seemingly drifting toward madness. It would take on a more sinister cast, however, in light of a letter that Churchill had sent earlier in the year to the head of England’s Board of Trade, Walter Runciman, in which Churchill wrote that it was “most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hopes especially of embroiling the United States with Germany.”

  Though no one said it explicitly, Britain hoped the United States would at some point feel moved to join the Allies, and in so doing tip the balance irrevocably in their favor.

  After noting that Germany’s submarine campaign had sharply reduced traffic from America, Churchill told Runciman: “For our part, we want the traffic—the more the better; and if some of it gets into trouble, better still.”

  LUSITANIA

  HELPFUL YOUNG LADIES

  AT 5:30 A.M., THURSDAY, MAY 6, PASSENGERS IN FIRST-CLASS staterooms arrayed along the port side of the Lusitania’s boat deck—A Deck—heard a commotion outside. Theodate Pope, in A-10, recalled being “wakened by shouts and the scuffling of feet.” Metal clanked against metal; ropes moved through squealing tackle. All this was mingled with muffled curses and the sounds of men working at a task requiring strength, which the crew possessed, and coordination, which it did not.

  With the ship about a day away from entering the Celtic Sea, Captain Turner had ordered the crew to uncover and swing out all the ship’s conventional lifeboats, meaning those that hung from davits along both sides of the boat deck. The two emergency boats were already in position.

  Turner was being prudent. If an emergency were to occur, the boats could be launched from this position more quickly, and with less hazard, than if they were still locked in their deep-sea positions. At this hour, few passengers would be out on deck and thus would be less likely to interfere with the effort or, worse, be injured, though Turner risked causing annoyance by awakening them so early—and these were some of the most expensive staterooms on the ship.

  Third Officer John Lewis, who ran the daily lifeboat drills, also directed this operation. First, he said, “we mustered the cooks, the stewards, the watch of sailors on deck, and any other day men that we could raise.” The crew began with the boats on the port side. Lewis climbed to the navigation deck and positioned himself at its midpoint, outside the Marconi room, so that he could monitor the entire operation at once. Six to eight men were assigned to each boat. To avoid tangled falls and guy lines, all the boats had to be swung out at once, according to Lewis. Next, the men—some eighty in all—shifted to the starboard side and repeated the process. Lewis then dismissed the cooks and stewards, but ordered the deck crew to secure the guy lines and pile the falls in tidy “Flemish” coils. Last, he had the men make sure that each boat contained its required complement of survival gear, including oars, mast, sails, matches, sea anchor, lamp, provisions, and drinking water.

  The process did not go smoothly. First-class passenger Joseph Myers, up early, watched the crew work. “The men were not efficient,” he said. “I saw them trying to throw out the boats, trying to break away the boats from the davits, and it seemed to me that they were not equal to it. They were clumsy handling the ropes. They were bossed by some petty officer; I don’t know who it was but the men did not look to me as if they had been handling the boats before. They handled the ropes and falls like men building a house; they looked more like day laborers than seamen.”

  Passengers who awoke later that morning were greeted by the sight of all the boats swung out and uncovered, with no explanation posted. For most the change was of minor interest; some may not even have noticed. For others, it was disconcerting. “On Thursday morning I felt rather uneasy when I discovered that the lifeboats were hung over the side of the ship,” wrote Jane MacFarquhar, of Stratford, Connecticut. “On inquiry, I was informed that it was essential that they should be so—according to law. I thought it rather strange that they had not been put ready after clearing New York instead of waiting until we were so near the other side. I noticed the other passengers did not seem to bother, so I also began to forget the lifeboats.”

  Nellie Huston, adding a few more paragraphs to her diary-like letter, wrote, “This morning we have all the lifeboats swung out ready for emergencies. It’s awful to think about but I guess there is some danger.” She noted that she and fellow passengers expected British naval vessels to rendezvous with the ship that day, to provide escort.

  She switched to cheerier observations. “What a crowd there are in the boat and all English. I was so pleased to see the Union Jacks on this boat when we were in New York, there are quite a lot of distinguished people in the 1st class but of course you couldn’t touch them with a soft pole! There is a Vanderbilt, one or two bankers. I have made lots of friends and if it wasn’t for the worry I could say we’ve had a lovely trip.”

  THE DECK MEN did the usual “sailoring” to maintain the ship, a process that never ended. Every morning a group of sailors cleaned the brass and glass in the portholes that opened onto the decks. There was always a peek of rust that needed sanding and painting; the brine and dried mist that collected on the deck rails overnight had to be ragged off in the morning, so that the rails shone and did not spoil the dresses and
suits of passengers. All the ship’s plants had to be watered, including the twenty-one large palm trees that stood at the heads of stairwells. Deck chairs had to be straightened, to avoid the haphazard look of a wedding after all the guests had left.

  Seaman Morton was assigned to touch up the paint on the hull of one of the lifeboats. The crew must have swung the boat back in for this, because Morton had to lie underneath to administer the paint. The paint was gray and was known as “crab fat.” It was a messy task. “We were not issued with paint brushes, we had instead a swab of waste”—meaning a rag—“and the paint pot into which we dipped the waste and then applied it to the hull of the lifeboat.”

  Morton was hard at work when he heard the sound of small shoes charging toward him, and looked out from under the boat to see two girls intently watching. These were Anna and Gwendolyn Allan, ages fifteen and sixteen, the two daughters of Lady Hugh Montagu Allan, of Montreal, one of the ship’s most prominent passengers. The three occupied a Regal Suite on B Deck, which included two bedrooms, bathroom, dining room, and parlor. The Allans traveled with two maids, who stayed in a tiny room squeezed between one of the ship’s funnels and the dome of the first-class dining salon.

  The girls were a popular and vivid presence aboard. “I could not help thinking what lovely children they were and how beautifully dressed,” Morton wrote. “I seem to remember the eldest one was wearing a white accordion pleated skirt and sailor blouse.”

  One girl asked, “What are you doing, sailor?”

  Morton answered, “I am painting the lifeboat.”

  “May we help you?”

  Morton noted again the girls’ clothing and also the sound of heavier steps quickly approaching—these the footfalls of a woman who appeared to be a nanny. The woman did not look pleased.

  Morton said, “I don’t think this is a job for little girls.”

  The eldest girl, clearly accustomed to having her way, grabbed the improvised brush, which was soaked with paint, and started applying it to the boat and in the process applied it to her clothing as well.

  “I was horrified,” Morton wrote. He heard the still heavier footsteps of his approaching supervisor, the bosun, or senior deck man, “coming along at the double.”

  The girls fled, and so did Morton. He eased out from under the boat, toward the water, and climbed over the side to the deck below. “I did not feel there was any purpose in stopping to argue the point with either the irate bosun or the extremely angry looking Nannie.”

  A BOY NAMED Robert Kay missed all the morning’s excitement. Kay, seven years old, was an American citizen from the Bronx, in New York City, traveling to England with his British mother, Marguerita Belsher Kay, who was in an advanced phase of pregnancy. She wanted badly to return to her parents’ home in England to have the baby and was willing to brave the passage, despite the German warning and her own tendency to get seasick.

  By midweek Robert himself had begun to feel poorly. The ship’s surgeon examined him and diagnosed a full-blown case of measles. The boy, he said, would have to spend the rest of the voyage in quarantine, two decks down. The Kays were traveling in second class, but his mother chose to go below as well, to room with her son.

  The monotony was crushing, but there was, at least, a porthole through which the boy could watch the sea.

  CAPTAIN TURNER ordered the usual midmorning lifeboat drill. The team of “picked” crewmen climbed into one of the emergency boats as an audience of passengers looked on. One witness was George Kessler, the “Champagne King,” who went up to the sailor in charge, and told him, “It’s alright drilling your crew, but why don’t you drill your passengers?”

  The man replied, “Why not tell Captain Turner, sir?”

  Kessler resolved to do so.

  U-20

  SPECTACLE

  THURSDAY MORNING, MAY 6, FOUND U-20 ADVANCING slowly along the southwest coast of Ireland, into waters mariners knew as the St. George’s Channel. Though the term channel connotes a narrow body of water, the St. George’s at its broadest was about 90 miles wide, tapering to 45 miles between Carnsore Point on the Irish coast and St. David’s Head in Wales. A lightship was anchored at the Irish side to steer ships away from a notorious hazard, the Coningbeg Rock, routinely misspelled by telegraph and wireless operators as Coningberg or Koninbeg. Beyond this point, the waters broadened again to form the Irish Sea, Muir Éireann, with Liverpool another 250 nautical miles to the north and east. Even at Schwieger’s best speed of 15 knots, he would need another sixteen hours to reach his assigned patrol zone.

  But the weather was not cooperating. Persistent fog had forced him to remain submerged throughout the night. Just before 8:00 A.M., he found signs of clearing and brought the boat to the surface, but did so using only its hydroplanes. He kept the diving tanks filled with seawater in case of emergency. The boat moved through striations of heavy fog.

  A steamship appeared ahead, off to starboard. It flew no flag and showed no other indicator of registry. Schwieger ordered his gun crew on deck for a surface attack. Despite the poor visibility, some sharp-eyed soul aboard the steamer spotted the submarine. The ship turned hard and fled at full speed.

  Schwieger raced after it, his gun crew firing round after round. Two shells hit the steamer, but it continued to run. The ship entered a fog bank and disappeared from view. Schwieger followed.

  Clarity returned. Schwieger’s men resumed fire. U-20 was making 15 knots; the steamer probably only 8 to 10. The attack went on for nearly two hours, with U-20 gradually gaining, until one shell struck the target’s bridge. This proved persuasive. The steamship stopped and lowered its boats. One foundered, Schwieger saw, but three others pulled away, “full to capacity.”

  Schwieger brought the submarine closer. He fired a bronze torpedo into the hull, from a distance of 500 meters (550 yards). It exploded at a point opposite what Schwieger believed to be the ship’s engine room. “Effect slight,” he wrote. The ship sagged at the stern but did not sink.

  Schwieger’s gun crew began firing at the ship’s waterline as he brought U-20 slowly around to its stern. The ship’s name had been painted over, but up close Schwieger was able to read it: Candidate. His ship-identification book showed it to be a British freighter of about 5,000 tons, owned by the Harrison Line of Liverpool, a company prone to giving ships such romantic names as Auditor, Administrator, and Electrician.

  Schwieger’s men continued firing until the ship’s bow rose high out of the water and the stern began to sink. He recorded the latitude and longitude of the wreck, which put it 20 miles south of the Coningbeg lightship, at about the middle of the narrowest portion of the Saint George’s Channel. The time was 10:30 A.M.

  Ten minutes later, he sighted another potential target coming over the horizon, this one the biggest yet, on a course that would converge with his. Fog obscured the ship. Schwieger ordered full speed and set a course that he anticipated would put U-20 ahead of the ship and in position to fire a torpedo.

  The big steamer burst from the fog, moving fast. Schwieger saw now that it was a passenger liner of about 14,000 tons. A true prize. He ordered a fast dive and raced at the highest speed his battery-powered engines could muster, 9 knots, but this proved not nearly enough. The ship was still 2 miles off and moving at full speed. Schwieger realized that the best he could do would be to position U-20 so that a torpedo would strike the liner at a glancing 20-degree angle—too oblique to be successful. He called off the attack.

  Although he didn’t name the ship in his log, the liner was the Arabic, of the White Star Line, which had owned the Titanic.

  AN HOUR LATER, shortly before one o’clock, Schwieger spotted yet another target, ahead and to port.

  He set up his attack. This time he chose one of the newer G6 torpedoes and ordered its depth set at 3 meters, about 10 feet. He fired from a distance of 300 meters. The torpedo struck the ship at a point below its forward mast. The bow took on water, but the ship stayed afloat. Its crew fled in boats. Schwi
eger surfaced.

  He determined that the vessel was an English freighter, the Centurion, about 6,000 tons, owned by the same line that owned the freighter he had sunk earlier in the day.

  The fog again began to build. Schwieger did not want to take a chance that the Centurion would survive. He fired a second torpedo, “to make foundering sure.” This too exploded on contact, and Schwieger heard the telltale hiss of air that fled the ship as water filled its hull. U-boat commanders always found this a satisfying moment. Kapitänleutnant Forstner, in his memoir, described how the air “escapes with a shrill whistle from every possible aperture, and the sound resembles the shriek of a steam siren. This is a wonderful spectacle to behold!” Often at this point stricken ships gave one last exhalation as water filled their boiler rooms, causing a final explosion and releasing a cloud of black smoke and soot, known to U-boat commanders as “the black soul.”

  Schwieger did not wait to see the ship disappear below the surface. The fog had grown too thick. At 2:15 p.m., he submerged and set a course that would take U-20 well out to sea so that he could recharge its batteries in safety and consider how next to proceed.

  Schwieger faced a decision. His fuel was running low—surprisingly so—and he had yet to reach his assigned hunting zone off Liverpool, still nearly a day’s voyage away.

  LUSITANIA

  LIFE AFTER DEATH

  THAT THURSDAY AFTERNOON, THEODATE POPE AND Edwin Friend sat in their deck chairs enjoying the fine weather and blue vista. They were not lovers, but Theodate spent most of her time in Friend’s company. While on deck, Friend read aloud to her from a book, Henri Bergson’s Matière et mémoire, or Matter and Memory, published in 1896. Broadly, it dealt with the relationship between mind and body. Bergson, a past president of Britain’s Society for Psychical Research, was sympathetic to the idea that some element of an individual persisted after death.