Lusitania Sinking

Before he returned U-20 to her Fastnet course, Schwieger watched the horror on board the ship he had fatally wounded. He wrote in his war diary:

It looks as if the ship will stay afloat only for a very short time. [I gave order to] dive to 25 metres and leave the area seawards. I couldn't have fired another torpedo into this mass of humans desperately trying to save themselves.

Not many saved themselves, though. It was reproted that 1,198 died. A survivor, Barbara Anderson McDermott, was one of thirty-two children on board. All but four perished. Mrs. McDermott still recalls the horror:

It [the torpedo] went through the front of the boat so the water was naturally going in fast and all those people who were down there [in the lower decks] were getting drowned.

The Bluebell rescued Captain Turner and other survivors. Most bodies were never recovered. Some of the victims could not be identified.

Many people were buried in mass graves in Queenstown/Cobh. The horrifying sight of coffins on top of coffins must have been overwhelming.

Germany, however, was unapologetic. The government had issued its warning. Their actions were justified, they said, because they believed the ship carried arms that would have been used to kill Germans.

But was the ship carrying arms?