Secrets Of The Lusitania Revealed

[Alain Dubois-Choulik]

Hi,
HERE (from http://chattahbox.com, December 21, 2008)
Alain

[armand]

Hi

Happy New Years! Hope, we’re all invigorated for 2009!

It isn't a new news. A dive team from Cork Sub Aqua Club, made the first known discovery of munitions aboard in 2006. These include 15,000 rounds of .303 caliber rifle ammunition in boxes in the bow section of the ship. The .303 round was used by the British army in all of their battlefield rifles and machine guns

Under the "cruiser rules", the Germans could sink a civilian vessel only after guaranteeing the safety of all the passengers. Since Lusitania (like all British merchantmen) was under instructions from the British Admiralty to report the sighting of a German submarine, and indeed to attempt to ram the ship if it surfaced to board and inspect her, she was acting as a naval auxiliary, and was thus exempt from this requirement and a legitimate military target. By international law, the presence (or absence) of military cargo was irrelevant.

Lusitania was in fact carrying small arms ammunition, which would not have been explosive. Included in this cargo were 4,200,000 rounds of Remington 0.303 rifle cartridges, 1250 cases of 3 inch (76 mm) fragmentation shells, and eighteen cases of fuses. (All were listed on the ship's two-page manifest, filed with U.S. Customs after she departed New York on 1 May.) However, the materials listed on the cargo manifest were small arms
and the physical size of this cargo would have been quite small. These munitions were also proven to be non-explosive in bulk, and were clearly marked as such. It was perfectly legal under American shipping regulations for her to carry these; experts agreed they were not to blame for the second explosion. Allegations the ship was carrying more controversial cargo, such as fine aluminium powder, concealed as cheese on her cargo manifests, have never been proven. Recent expeditions to the wreck have shown her holds are intact and show no evidence of internal explosion.

More recently, marine forensic investigators have become convinced an explosion in the ship's steam-generating plant is a far more plausible explanation for the second explosion. There were very few survivors from the forward two boiler rooms, but they did report the ship's boilers did not explode; they were also under extreme duress in those moments after the torpedo's impact, however. Leading Fireman Albert Martin later testified he thought the torpedo actually entered the boiler room and exploded between a group of boilers, which was a physical impossibility. It is also known the forward boiler room filled with steam, and steam pressure feeding the turbines dropped dramatically following the second explosion. These point toward a failure, of one sort or another, in the ship's steam-generating plant. It is possible the failure came, not directly from one of the boilers in boiler room no. 1, but rather in the high-pressure steam lines to the turbines. Most researchers and historians agree that a steam explosion is a far more likely cause than clandestine high explosives for the second explosion.

The original torpedo damage alone, striking the ship on the starboard coal bunker of boiler room no. 1, would probably have sunk the ship without a second explosion. This first blast was enough to cause, on its own, serious off-center flooding. The deficiencies of the ship's original watertight bulkhead design exacerbated the situation, as did the many portholes which had been left open for ventilation.

A key and still open question is who decide to put arms ammunition on board and who eventually warned the German about that ?
Some Irishs are convinced Winston Churchill , First Lord of the Admiralty, decided it and organized the warning in order to speed-up the decision of the United States to join the war.

What do you think/sink ?

Kind Regards
Armand

[Alain Dubois-Choulik]

A key and still open question is who decide to put arms ammunition on board and who eventually warned the German about that ?
Some Irishs are convinced Winston Churchill , First Lord of the Admiralty, decided it and organized the warning in order to speed-up the decision of the United States to join the war.

Hi,
Armand : It would not be the first time that one of the belligerents would need to force the destiny and would create for itself an “excuse” !!! But it is also an universal idea to suspect politicians of not saving innocent lives…
Alain