“Seeing a keg, I threw it overboard and sprang after it. A young steward named Freeman also used the keg as a support. Looking back, I saw the boat I had left swamped. We clung to the keg for about an hour and a half and then were picked up by a raft on which were twenty persons, including two women.
“We had oars and rowed toward land. At about four o’clock we were picked up by the patrol boat Brook. She took us aboard and then cruised out to where the Lusitania had gone down, picking up many survivors there, also taking aboard many from boats and rafts.
INJURED BOY SHOWS PLUCK
“A number of those picked up were injured, including a little boy, whose left thigh was broken. I improvised splints for him and set his leg. He was a plucky little chap, and was soon asking, ‘Is there a funny paper aboard?’
“At the scene of the catastrophe the surface of the water had seemed dotted with bodies. Only a few life-boats seemed to be doing good. Cries of ‘Save us! Help!’ gradually grew weaker from all sides. Finally low wailings made the heart sick. I saw many men die.
“There was no suction when the ship settled. It went down steadily. The life-boats were not in order and they were not manned. Weighing all the facts soberly convinces me that it was only through the mercy of God that any one was saved. Are there any bounds to this modern vandalism?”
L. Tonner, a County Dublin man, and a stoker on the Lusitania, who was one of the survivors landed at Kinsale, said:
“There must have been two submarines attacking the Lusitania. The liner was first torpedoed on the starboard side, and right through the engine room a few minutes afterward the Lusitania received a second torpedo on the port side. The Lusitania listed so heavily to starboard that it was impossible to lower the boats on the port side.”
Prominent American Victims of the Lusitania Horror.