Eighty-five lives were lost, including twenty-one nuns who were serving as nurses.
Notwithstanding the fact that, according to the Germans, God is on their side, some power for good saved most of those on the hospital ship Asturias. She did not sink when struck by the torpedo, but she was rendered helpless by the loss of her rudder. There was no sandy beach in sight, so the captain tried to guide her near the rocky shore where, if she sank, perhaps some might reach land, but he found he could not guide the ship. It was dark night, but guided by some unseen power she dodged a reef upon which she would have gone to pieces, rounded a headland, and beached herself upon the only piece of sandy shore in that vicinity.
The English hospital ship Lanfranc was carrying many wounded Germans to England when she was torpedoed. An English officer gave the following vivid description to a London daily paper:
The Lanfranc was attacked by a submarine about 7:30 Tuesday evening just as we had finished dinner. A few of us were strolling to and fro on the deck when there was a crash which shook the liner violently. This was followed by an explosion, and glass and splinters of wood flew in all directions. I had a narrow escape from being pitched overboard and only regained my feet with difficulty. In a few minutes the engine had stopped and the Lanfranc appeared to be sinking rapidly, but to our surprise she steadied herself and after a while remained perfectly motionless. We had on board nearly 200 wounded prisoners belonging to the Prussian Guard, and about twice as many British wounded, many being very bad cases. The moment the torpedo struck the Lanfranc, many of the slightly wounded Prussians made a mad rush for the lifeboats. One of their officers came up to a boat close to which I was standing. I shouted to him to go back, whereupon he stood and scowled. "You must save us," he begged. I told him to wait his turn.
Meanwhile the crew and the staff had gone to their posts. The stretcher cases were brought on deck as quickly as possible and the first boats were lowered without delay. Help had been summoned, and many vessels were hurrying to our assistance. In these moments, while wounded Tommies—many of them as helpless as little children—lay in their cots unaided, the Prussian morale dropped to zero. They made another crazy effort to get into a lifeboat. They managed to crowd into one, but no sooner had it been lowered than it toppled over. The Prussians were thrown into the water, and they fought each other in order to reach another boat containing a number of gravely wounded soldiers.
The behavior of our own lads I shall never forget. Crippled as many of them were, they tried to stand at attention while the more serious cases were being looked after. And those who could lend a hand hurried below to help in saving friend or enemy. I have never seen so many individual illustrations of genuine chivalry and comradeship. One man I saw had had a leg severed and his head was heavily bandaged. He was lifting himself up a staircase by the hands and was just as keen on summoning help for Fritz as on saving himself. He whistled to a mate to come and aid a Prussian who was unable to move owing to internal injuries. Another Tommy limped painfully along with a Prussian officer on his arm, and helped the latter to a boat. It is impossible to give adequate praise to the crew and staff. They were all heroes. They remained at their posts until the last man had been taken off, and some of them took off articles of their clothing and threw them into the lifeboats for the benefit of those who were in need of warm clothing. The same spirit manifested itself as we moved away from the scene of outrage. I saw a sergeant take his tunic off and make a pillow of it for a wounded German. There was a private who had his arms around an enemy, trying hard to make the best of an uncomfortable resting place.
In the midst of all this tragedy the element of comedy was not wanting. A cockney lad struck up a ditty, and the boat's company joined in the chorus of Raymond Hitchcock's "All Dressed Up and Nowheres to Go." Then we had "Take Me Back to Blighty," and as a French vessel came along to our rescue, the boys sang "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile." The French displayed unforgettable hospitality. As soon as they took our wounded on board, they improvised beds and stripped themselves almost bare that English and German alike might be comfortable.
The destruction of the Llandovery Castle was as bad or worse than those already described. For a time the Huns ceased to sink hospital ships running from France to England, but when they learned, through spies, that the Warilda carried no Germans, she was sunk early in August, 1918, with a loss of one hundred and twenty-three doctors, nurses, and wounded. After the Llandovery Castle, after the Warilda, there could be no further German pretense that Germany was waging any other than a barbarian war.
Such inhumanity seems like the work of madmen. Is the Kaiser insane? Are the German war leaders insane? Or are the German people, all, entirely different from the people we consider sane?
Let us remember that a Roman writer said many centuries ago, "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."