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RMS Lusitania
On May 7, 2015 it was 100 years ago the Lusitania disaster took place. This project aims to identify and list the survivors and casualties of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania . The Lusitania project will become an ongoing project with the aim to build all passenger family-trees
Overview
The sinking of the RMS Lusitania , of the Cunard Line
After being torpedoed off the Irish coast by a German submarine in 7 May 1915 while en route to Liverpool from New York City, the Lusitania started to list dramaticaly on one side, and went down in just over a quarter of an hour. Only a handful of her passengers and crew were saved by nearby fishermen who actually saw the ship sink.
On 7 May Lusitania was nearing the end of her crossing, as she was scheduled to dock at the Prince's Landing Stage in Liverpool later that afternoon. She was running parallel to the south coast of Ireland, and was roughly 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale when the liner crossed in front of U-20 at 2:10 p.m. It was sheer chance that the liner became such a convenient target, since U-20 could hardly have caught the fast vessel otherwise. Schwieger gave the order to fire one torpedo, which struck the Lusitania on the starboard bow, just beneath the wheelhouse. Moments later, a second explosion erupted from within the Lusitania's hull where the torpedo had struck, and the ship began to founder in a much more rapid procession, with a prominent list to starboard.
Eighteen minutes after the torpedo struck, the bow struck the seabed while the stern was still above the surface, and in a manner similar to the sinking of the Titanic three years earlier, the stern rose into the air and slid beneath the waves.
Of the 1,959 passengers and crew aboard the Lusitania at the time of the sinking, 1,195 lost their lives that afternoon in the waters of the Irish channel. Just as had been seen with the Titanic, most of the casualties were from drowning or from hypothermia. In the hours after the sinking, acts of heroism amongst both the survivors of the sinking and the Irish rescuers who had heard word of the Lusitania's distress signals brought the survivor count to 764. By the following morning, news of the disaster had spread around the world. While most of those lost in the sinking were either British or Canadians, the loss of 128 Americans in the disaster, including American writer and publisher Elbert Hubbard , outraged some in the United States.
About the Lusitania
RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner, holder of the Blue Riband and briefly the world's biggest ship. She was launched by the Cunard Line in 1907, at a time of fierce competition for the North Atlantic trade.
- Length: 240 m
- Construction started: June 16, 1904
- Launched: June 7, 1906
- Weight: 44,060 tons
- Builder: John Brown & Company
- Place built: Clydebank, United Kingdom
The wreck of the Lusitania
The wreck of the Lusitania lies on its starboard side at an approximately 30 degree angle in roughly 300 feet of water, 11 miles south of the lighthouse at Kinsale. The wreck is badly collapsed onto her starboard side, due to the force with which she struck the bottom coupled with the forces of winter tides and corrosion in the decades since the sinking. The keel has an "unusual curvature" which may be related to a lack of strength from the loss of its superstructure. The beam is reduced with the funnels missing presumably to deterioration. The bow is the most prominent portion of the wreck with the stern damaged by depth charges. Three of the four propellers were removed by Oceaneering International in 1982. Expeditions to the Lusitania have shown that the ship has deteriorated much faster than the Titanic has, being in a depth of 93 metres of water in contrast with Titanic resting at a depth of (3000 metres) 12,000 feet because of the fishing nets that lie on the shattered ghost, the blasting of the wreck with depth charges, and salvage operations and it may be a matter of few more years before the Lusitania collapses in on herself
Nationalities of the passengers
- Canadian
- British
- Danish
- American
- Belgian
- Dutch
- Cuban
- Russian
- Brazilian
- Argentine
- French
- Persian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Swiss
Notable passengers
Passenger lists
The links* below are a full list of passengers and crew who sailed on the the RMS Lusitania Blue links indicate that their profile can be found on Geni. First , second and third class passengers as well as the crew and officers are listed separately.
Saloon (first class passengers)
- 290 RMS Lusitania 1st class passengers, 113 survived, 177 died.
- RMS Lusitania Saloon passenger list
2nd Cabin (second class passengers)
- 601 RMS Lusitania 2nd class passengers, 229 survived, 372 died.
- RMS Lusitania Cabin passenger list
3rd Class passengers
- 373 RMS Lusitania 3rd class (steerage) passengers, 134 survived, 239 died.
- RMS Lusitania 3rd Class Passenger list
Deck crew
- 69 RMS Lusitania deck crew members, 38 survived, 31 died.
- RMS Lusitania Deck Crew members
Victualling crew
- 306 RMS Lusitania victualling crew members, 139 survived, 167 died.
- RMS Lusitania Victualling Crew members
Engineering crew
- 313 RMS Lusitania engineering crew members, 112 survived, 201 died.
- RMS Lusitania Engineering Crew members
Band
- 5 RMS Lusitania band members, 3 survived, 2 died.
- RMS Lusitania Band members
Stowaways
Shortly after Lusitania left New York for the last time, three German stowaways were apprehended in the portside pantry. They were interrogated by Detective-Inspector William Pierpoint, with Adolph Pederson serving as translator. The stowaways refused to answer any questions.
The stowaways were locked below decks, presumably in a cabin as the Lusitania deck plans do not show a jail on board.
“The identity of the men is a mystery but there is little doubt that they were the photographic party ordered by Captain Boy-Ed and organized by Paul Koenig. The steward allocated to the portside pantry was Neil J. Leach [sic, his name was John Neil Leach].” (Simpson, page 116+.) The names of the stowaways are not known, and they drowned when Lusitania was torpedoed.