Aboard the Lusitania

The periscope broke the surface in the grey half-light before dawn, and Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger pressed his eye to the eyepiece and swept the horizon. The sea had gone flat overnight. Visibility was poor. What he could see was empty water from Fastnet Rock to the St. George’s Channel, grey and heaving slightly under a low haze that clung to the surface like gauze. U-20 had been on patrol for six days. She had sunk two vessels, the freighter Ibex among them, and her fuel and torpedoes were running low. Schwieger had already decided, or was close to deciding, that the patrol was nearly over. He would make for home. The boat had done its work.

Then the haze shifted. A smudge of smoke appeared on the northeastern horizon, low and indistinct. Schwieger logged it. He wrote that it might be a warship or a large steamer, too far off to identify with certainty. He stayed at the periscope. The smudge grew.

Seven hundred miles of ocean lay behind the Lusitania. She had left New York on the first of May under a printed German warning that had appeared in the morning papers beside the Cunard sailing advertisement. The crossing had been routine, slowed by fog in the first two days but otherwise adhering to schedule. Captain William Thomas Turner had brought her through the banks and the lanes with the steady competence of a master who had held the Blue Riband and who knew the North Atlantic as well as any man alive.

The passengers had settled into the rhythms of shipboard life. There were 1, 264 of them, plus three stowaways and a crew of 693.

Among the passengers were names that would shortly become famous in death: Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, Charles Frohman, Charles Lauriat, Sir Hugh Lane, Theodate Pope. They ate in the dining saloon. They walked the promenade decks. They read in the library. They slept in cabins that were, by the standards of the day, luxurious.

None of them knew what was in the hold.

The Lusitania’s cargo manifest listed 4, 200 cases of rifle cartridges, 1, 248 cases of shrapnel shells, and eighteen cases of fuses. The cartridges were Remington. 303 caliber, manufactured by the Remington Arms Company and consigned to the British government. The manifest was filed with the collector of customs in New York. It was a matter of record. But the passengers did not see the manifest. They saw their baggage loaded, their cabins assigned, the familiar Cunard routine of departure and sea days. The ship carried them and their unseen cargo across the Atlantic together, and neither knew the other was aboard.

At dawn on the seventh, the Lusitania was making twenty-one knots through a calm sea. The Irish coast was ahead. Turner expected to sight land by mid-morning and to be alongside the Bar lightship by early afternoon. The ship was on time. The fog that had delayed her in the first days out of New York had lifted two days ago, and since then the weather had been fair, the sea manageable, the crossing unremarkable. Turner had reduced speed slightly from the ship’s maximum, conserving coal, as was his habit on the final approach. He was a captain who believed in arriving on schedule but not in burning more fuel than the schedule required. The Cunard line expected punctuality. It did not expect recklessness.

The morning watch changed at eight. The bridge was staffed with Turner, Staff Captain James Anderson, and Junior Third Officer John Lewis. The quartermaster was at the wheel. The lookouts were posted forward and on the crow’s nest.

The wireless room, staffed by operators Robert Leith and Donald Mathieson, had been receiving signals since before daylight. Some were routine traffic—weather reports, position updates from other vessels, the usual chatter of the North Atlantic sea lanes. Others were not routine.

The Admiralty had been sending warnings about submarine activity off the southern Irish coast. These were generic in their language but specific in their geography. They told of U-boats operating in the approaches to Liverpool and in the waters off Fastnet.

Turner read them. He acknowledged them. He adjusted his course to give the Fastnet area a wider berth, steering more to the north than his usual track.

This was a reasonable response to the warnings. It was also, as it happened, a course that would bring the Lusitania directly toward the area where U-20 was patrolling.

Schwieger did not know the Lusitania was coming. He knew only that he had seen smoke on the horizon and that it was growing. He stayed at periscope depth and turned U-20 to intercept. The boat was slow underwater, capable of perhaps nine knots on her electric motors. The smoke was drawing closer from the southwest. Schwieger could not yet see the hull of the vessel that was making it. He waited. The morning light was strengthening. The haze was thinning. The periscope left a thin wake on the flat sea, a line of disturbed water that was visible, from a distance, to any lookout who happened to be scanning the right patch of ocean. No one was.

The Irish coast was the first thing the lookouts saw. At twenty minutes past eleven, a lookout sighted the Old Head of Kinsale. The Old Head is a promontory jutting into the Celtic Sea from the County Cork coast, marked by a lighthouse that was visible for miles in clear weather. The sighting meant the Lusitania was approaching the final leg of her passage. She would round the Old Head, steer north-northeast up the St. George’s Channel, and make for the Mersey bar and Liverpool. The lookouts called the sighting to the bridge. Turner acknowledged it. The ship was where she was supposed to be, at the time she was supposed to be there. The coast of Ireland was a dark line on the water, and the lighthouse was blinking.

Turner was on the bridge. He had received wireless signals throughout the morning, and more were coming. At eleven minutes past eleven, the Lusitania received a wireless message from the Admiralty. It was addressed to all British merchant vessels and warned of submarine activity in the southern Irish Sea. The message was general. It did not name the Lusitania. It did not give a position for the U-boats. It said, in effect, that submarines were about and that ships should take precautions. Turner read it. He had already read several like it. He continued on his course. At 13:00 another message was received, “Submarine five miles south of Cape Clear proceeding west when sighted at 10:00 am”. This report was inaccurate—no submarine had been at that location—but gave the impression that at least one submarine had been safely passed.

At twenty past eleven, the Old Head was sighted. Turner now had a visual fix on his position. He knew where he was. He knew how far he had to go. He ordered a slight adjustment to starboard, bringing the ship closer to the coast. This was consistent with Admiralty advice to stay near land, where submarines were thought to be less likely to operate in the shallower water. Turner adjusted his heading northeast, not knowing that earlier reports related to events of the previous day and apparently thinking submarines would be more likely to keep to the open sea, or that a sinking would be safer in shallower water. The advice was wrong, or at least incomplete. U-20 was lying in water deep enough to submerge, close enough to the coast to see the Old Head from her conning tower when she surfaced.

The morning continued. Passengers were at breakfast. The dining saloon on D deck was serving the mid-morning meal. Waiters moved between tables with coffee and toast. The orchestra played. On the promenade decks, passengers in overcoats and wraps walked in the mild air or sat in deck chairs and watched the coast appear. The Old Head was visible from the starboard side, a dark line on the water with the lighthouse blinking. Some passengers went to the rail with binoculars. They could see the green of Ireland.

They did not know that a periscope had broken the surface astern of them.

At twenty to twelve, the Lusitania was given the wireless signal “Questor.” She replied “Westrona.” This exchange has been interpreted by some as a coded message diverting the ship to Queenstown. It was not. According to the Merchant Vessel codebook, it was a routine query to confirm the Lusitania had the correct edition of the codebook. Turner subsequently stated he had no such intention for a diversion. The ship was identified. The exchange closed. Nothing changed.

What the passengers could not see, and what Turner did not know, was that the Admiralty possessed information about U-20’s patrol that was not being shared with the Cunard liner. Room 40, the naval intelligence unit in Whitehall, had been intercepting and decrypting German naval wireless traffic. The decrypts showed that U-20 had left Emden on the first of May, had rounded the north of Scotland, and had taken up a patrol position off the southern Irish coast. Room 40 knew where U-20 was, or had been. The information was considered secret. It was not passed to the ships at sea. The concern in Room 40 was that if the decrypts were shared, the Germans would realize their codes were compromised and change them. The intelligence was protected at the expense of the ships it might have warned.

This was a calculation. It was made by men in offices who were weighing the long-term value of code-breaking against the immediate safety of merchant vessels. The calculation was not unreasonable on its face.

The long-term value of reading the enemy’s communications was enormous. It could win the war. It could save millions of lives. The immediate safety of one ship, even one carrying a thousand passengers, might seem a smaller thing.

But the calculation depended on assumptions that were not stated and on information that was not checked. It depended on the assumption that the ship would be warned by other means, that the submarine would not find her, that the odds were long enough to justify the risk. None of these assumptions was verified. They were held on faith, in the quiet of a Whitehall office, by men who were not at sea and who did not know what Turner knew and did not know.

The Lusitania continued northeast. The Old Head fell astern. The coast of County Cork opened to starboard, green and low. Turner was bringing the ship in for the final run to Liverpool. He had approximately two hundred and forty miles to go. At twenty-one knots, he would be at the Bar lightship by mid-afternoon. He would dock at the Prince’s Landing Stage by evening.

Aboard U-20, the morning was passing slowly. Schwieger had surfaced at quarter to one in the afternoon. Visibility was now excellent. The haze had burned off. The sea was calm. He could see for miles. He scanned the horizon and saw nothing. The patrol was, he thought, over. He had only three torpedoes left. His fuel was low. He had already sent a wireless message to his base reporting his position and his intentions. He was, by his own account, preparing to head for home.

Then, at twenty past one, something was sighted. A lookout called down. Schwieger was summoned to the conning tower. He climbed the ladder and raised his binoculars. What he saw was a smudge of smoke on the horizon to the southwest, and below it, the outline of a vessel. At first it appeared to be several ships because of the number of funnels and masts, but this resolved into one large vessel. Four funnels. Four masts. A very large ship, making high speed, heading northeast.

Schwieger knew what a four-funnel liner looked like. In the shipping lanes off the Irish coast, there were not many vessels of that description. The Lusitania and her sister ship, the Mauretania, were the most famous four-funnel liners in the world. Schwieger could not yet identify the ship with certainty. But he knew she was large, she was fast, and she was coming toward him.

He decided to attack.

The decision was made quickly. U-20 was on the surface. The target was making approximately twenty-one knots. The range was closing. Schwieger ordered the boat to dive and turned to take up an attack position. The electric motors were started. The boat slid beneath the surface. The periscope was raised. Schwieger began to calculate the target’s course, speed, and angle on the bow. He needed to get ahead of the ship, position himself on her track, and fire when the range and angle were correct. The mathematics of the torpedo firing solution were straightforward. The difficulty was execution. The target was fast. The window for a shot would be narrow.

Below decks, the passengers of the Lusitania were finishing lunch. The dining saloon was clearing. Some passengers had gone to their cabins for a rest. Others were on deck, watching the coast. The weather was fine. The sea was calm. There was no alarm, no warning, no sense of danger. The ship was on time. The coast was in sight. Liverpool was a few hours away.

Turner was on the bridge. He had made his final course adjustment. The ship was steering northeast by east, making for the St. George’s Channel. He had reduced speed slightly, to about eighteen knots, because of the reported submarine activity. Believing he was in a “safe zone”, Turner focused on planning a course to Liverpool through what he understood to be dangerous waters further ahead. He was following the Admiralty’s advice to steer a mid-channel course and to maintain speed. He was also, though he did not know it, steering directly toward U-20’s patrol line.

The Admiralty had sent another warning. It arrived at the Lusitania’s wireless room sometime after one o’clock. The message was from the Admiralty to all ships. It reported that a submarine had been sighted in the area. Turner read it. He had read several such messages. He continued on his course. The warnings were becoming routine. They had been coming for days. No submarine had been seen. The ship was almost home.

What Turner did not know was that the Admiralty had received specific intelligence about U-20’s position. Room 40’s decrypts had placed the submarine in the very waters through which the Lusitania was now passing. This intelligence was not sent to the Lusitania. It was not sent to any ship. It sat in a file in Whitehall, marked secret, protected by the logic that the code must be preserved at all costs.

The cost was about to be calculated.

At ten minutes past two in the afternoon, the Lusitania was approximately eleven nautical miles off the Old Head of Kinsale. The sea was calm. The visibility was excellent. The ship was making eighteen knots on a northeast course. Turner was on the bridge. The passengers were on deck and in the saloons. The ship was on time. From a submerged position 700 metres (2, 300 ft) to starboard, U-20 commanded by Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger prepared to launch a single torpedo at the Cunard liner.

U-20 was submerged. Schwieger was at the periscope. He had maneuvered the boat into a position ahead of the target and to starboard. The range was approximately seven hundred metres. The target was a four-funnel liner, very large, making high speed. Schwieger had identified her as a passenger vessel. He knew she was not a warship. At 14:10, with the target at a 700-metre (2, 300 ft) range, he ordered one gyroscopic torpedo to be fired.

The torpedo left the bow tube. It was a standard German G-type torpedo, carrying a warhead of approximately three hundred pounds of hexanite. It ran at a depth of three metres and a speed of approximately forty knots. The range was seven hundred metres. At forty knots, the torpedo would cover that distance in approximately thirty-five seconds.

Schwieger watched through the periscope. The torpedo was running true. It was on a track that would carry it into the starboard side of the ship. He could see the liner growing larger in the periscope field. He could see the four funnels and the masts and the hull. He could see the wake of the ship foaming white against the dark water.

The torpedo was in the water. Its trajectory was fixed. There was nothing that could be done about it now. The ship was making eighteen knots on a steady course. The torpedo was making forty knots on a converging course. The mathematics were complete. The intersection was determined.

On the bridge of the Lusitania, Turner was looking at the coast. On the promenade decks, passengers were reading and walking and talking. In the dining saloon, the waiters were clearing the last of the lunch service. In the hold, 4, 200 cases of rifle cartridges sat in their packing crates, stowed and lashed, unseen and unthought of by anyone on the decks above.

The torpedo ran.