In 1915, about three years after the Titanic sinking,
another English large ocean liner went to the bottom; a victim, of a
German submarine torpedo; this was of course the Lusitania.
[The following discussion is based mainly on abstraction
from two books and the Wikipedia article on the Lusitania—Dead Wake by Erik Larson (ref. 5) and Lusitania by Greg King and Penny Wilson (ref.6)]
Sailing from New York to England, the Lusitania supposedly
was carrying only passengers and ordinary freight (at least as far as the
passengers knew). Despite a German
warning, the ship was fully loaded with ordinary passengers. The freight was a different matter
entirely—certainly not ordinary? Not
all the passengers were ordinary though, there were a few that weren’t; like
the multi-millionaire A.G. Vanderbilt, but still nothing resembling the glamour
aboard the Titanic. The German military
had proclaimed a war zone around the British Isles and any vessels, including
passenger liners could be vulnerable to underwater mines and even submarine
attack. Most of the ordinary passengers
would have been unaware of the warning and even those that were, like Vanderbilt,
dismissed it because of the liners great speed (the Lusitania was then the
fastest passenger vessel on the seas; (ref. 8).
Cunard personnel lied to passengers that passage would be made at normal
full speed in an attempt to assuage their anxiety if they had any. Captain Turner had no such intent and some
boilers were never lit. Lusitania’s
speed never exceeded 22 knots as a consequence.
Although it was publicly stated by the Brits that the speed reduction
was to conserve fuel, I suspect there was another reason for shutting down boiler
room # 4. But was it really boilers in #
4 that were shut down?
Before we continue with the Lusitania sinking story, I find it
necessary to dwell on some technical issues.
First there is the matter of boiler room numbering and boiler layout in
response to the last question.
Thus far I have been unable to find readable deck plans for
the Lusitania and have been forced instead to magnify what is available in ref.
8. This procedure results in some
uncertainty so corrections to what follows by those more knowledgeable than
yours truly would be welcomed. It is
well established that the Lusitania had 23 double ended and 2 single ended
scotch boilers and the 4 rooms containing them were numbered fore to aft (i.e.#
1 was closest to the bow) in contrast to the Titanic numbering system. It is not completely clear to me, but my
interpretation of the magnified deck plans is that boiler rooms 2,3,and 4 were
identical in boiler layout with two pairs of 3 double boilers, each abreast one
another and with their 22 ft. length parallel with the ships keel. The number 1 boiler room was laid out
differently, being the most forward, because of the narrowing of the hull. In # 1 then, aft to bow, there was first a row of
three double boilers, then a row of two double boilers, and finally a row of
the two single ended boilers at the bow end of the room; seven in all. Almost every reference I have read states
that # 4 boiler room was shut down if they specify the number at all; many just
mention one out of four boiler rooms being shut down.
Many references that specify number 4 boiler room being shut down, also
state six boilers being involved; this precludes #1 boiler room which had seven
boilers. Mystery—which was it—room 1 or room
4?
From my limited perspective, it seems rather strange that boilers
closest to the engine room would be shut down—call that reason number one; for
those joining me in claiming #1 being shut down. Reason two: pictures of the Lusitania that I
have viewed show little or no smoke coming out of the funnel from #1 boiler
room. This is especially the case with pictures
of the Lusitania undergoing sea trials.
Reason three: with 100 plus tons of water per second flowing into boiler
room #1 (see below), with all seven boilers lit and operating at a 195 psi
pressure, the resulting explosions in room # 1 would have torn the ship to
pieces. I rest my case and await
rebuttal arguments.
Each operational end of these boilers had four doors; each
split in two with the upper half used for loading coal and the lower half for
the removal of ash and clinkers.
At this point I must again part company with other Lusitania
authors. There was a total of 48
operational boiler ends—46 total for the 23 double boilers and two more for the
single ones. Each operational end had
four doors which makes a total of 192 doors; that’s doors not furnaces. To the best of my knowledge, the scotch
double boilers shared furnaces.
Therefore, there would have been 23 times four or 92 furnaces in the
double boilers plus two more times four furnaces in the single boilers for a
total of 100 furnaces; not 192. Just a
minor error perhaps but one must be careful and I’m as mistake prone as the
next guy or author; maybe more so.
On the Lusitania, the coal bunkers were for the most part
laid-out longitudinally i.e. parallel to the keel), battleship fashion at that
time, and next to the hull shell plating.
Thus design was vulnerable to transverse instability if below waterline
plating in these bunker areas was compromised.
Harland and Wolff, designers and builders of the Titanic, wisely
insisted on transverse bulkheads only with transverse coal bunkers on either
side of the bulkheads. British Admiralty
later abandoned the Lusitania bunker concept.
The Lusitania did have one large transverse coal bunker forward of the
single ended boilers with a main structural watertight bulkhead on the forward
side of the bunker.
The Lusitania was about the same size as the Titanic and
steam powered (turbines only unlike the Titanic). On the
last leg of an event free voyage, it had entered the war zone but had its speed
reduced by an additional twenty per-cent
to 18 knots in order for the crew to get
bearings and to wait for high tide at the Liverpool port entry. Unfortunately, the elderly captain was
uncertain about zigzagging to avoid submarines and did not do it—on steady
course the Lusitania became a good target.
The submarine captain could not believe his luck and gave orders to the
torpedo room--fire. Bad luck for the liner
captain, a torpedo hit the bow region at a point below bridge. Within micro seconds there was a second
tremendous explosion which disabled the communication to the rudder mechanism
at the stern and the ship became unsteer-able (ref. 5,6,& 8). Plus, there was now a rapid list
simultaneously to both the bow and starboard (how come these disasters are all
on the starboard side?). Captain Turner
reportedly orders full speed astern but the ship plows on ahead making it
impossible to safely lower the lifeboats
By the time the lifeboats can be lowered as the ship slowed down, they can’t be lowered because the list
to starboard is too great and only a few can make it down to the water’s
surface undamaged. Because of
extensive damage to the hull, the Lusitania disappears in just eighteen minutes
and almost as many passengers and crew were killed as with the Titanic—Captain
Turner was not one of them.
Now about the freight the ship carried; but first a word or
two about the subterfuge the ordinary passengers were unaware of. As far as the Germans were concerned Lusitania
was foremost a war machine. Because she
had been constructed under subsidy, the owners had agreed to have her built
pretty much to battleship standards of the time (e.g longitudinal coal bunkers) including on-deck provisions
for armament. She was registered as an
AMC; that is an Armed Merchant Cruiser.
In addition, the German spies in New York knew that the cargo
onboard was not ordinary cargo. In fact,
an additional manifest provided to US officials four days after the ship left
the New York port, showed hundreds of tons of conventional munitions were stored
in her holds (ref. 8). As far as the
German Military’s rationale was concerned the Lusitania was a legitimate target
and submarines could attack given a chance.
US law said munitions of the type stated on the manifest were ok.
Could there have been more to it, the freight story that
is? The Wikipedia article states “…there was a large consignment of
“fur” from Dupont de Nemours, an explosives manufacturer, and some 90 tons of
butter and lard destined for the Royal Navy Weapons Testing Establishment in
Essex. Although it was May, this Lard
and Butter were not refrigerated…” Dupont was the world's largest manufacturer of explosives at that time. Adding to my suspicsions, there was an additional listing in the manifest of tons of powdered aluminum and bronze which are used in the manufacture of explosives.
So, now my speculation on the Lusitania disaster. During WWI the British were having
battlefield success in Europe using a cheap alternative to TNT— an explosive
known as ammonal. In one instance alone, 10,000 German troops were claimed to have been annihilated. It is made from fertilizer, powdered metal
like aluminum, and a small amount of petroleum.
It was in high demand by the British.
My speculation is that at least some of the 90 tons of “lard and butter
and fur” was in reality, ammonal.
Ammonal is highly shock sensitive and a torpedo explosion would have
detonated it.
As the Lusitania approached the “war zone”, Captain turner
reduced speed to 18 knots (or possibly less?) and, in my opinion, this could
have allowed for boiler room # 2 to be
shut down as well as # 1. The explosion of ammonal would have torn a huge hole in the starboard side of the bow already damaged
and weakened by the torpedo explosion.
The author of ref. 5 states (pg. 147-148): “A hole the size of a small house now existed
below the waterline. Its shape was more
horizontal than vertical, roughly 40 feet wide by 15 feet high.” [how the hole
size and shape was determined is beyond me; that hole size is about what a torpedo would do and does not account for any damage done by the second explosion.] Bulkheads aft may have been compromised such that the watertight doors in boiler rooms # 1 and # 2 did not close as
they should have.
The bulkhead between rooms 2 and 3 could also have been damaged such
that some ocean water from boiler room #2, already quickly flooding, was soon
entering. Since the boilers in rooms 3
and 4 were operating at full pressure, water coming into boiler room #3 would
have given Captain Taylor added incentive to run the turbines even though the
lifeboats could not be lowered safely (if in reality he even knew about it).
TO BE CONTINUED
