SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA
THE JUDICIAL DECISION BY JUDGE J. M. MAYER
The Lusitania sails.
On May 1, 1915, the British passenger-carrying merchantman Lusitania sailed from New York bound for Liverpool, with 1,257 passengers and a crew of 702, making a total of 1,959 souls on board, men, women, and children. At approximately 2:10 on the afternoon of May 7, 1915, weather clear and sea smooth, without warning, the vessel was torpedoed and went down by the head in about eighteen minutes, with an ultimate tragic loss of 1,195.
Passengers and equipment.
So far as equipment went, the vessel was seaworthy in the highest sense. Her carrying capacity was 2,198 passengers and a crew of about 850, or about 3,000 persons in all. She had 22 open lifeboats capable of accommodating 1,322 persons, 26 collapsible boats with a capacity for 1,283, making a total of 48 boats with a capacity for 2,605 in all, or substantially in excess of the requirements of her last voyage. Her total of life belts was 3,187, or 1,959 more than the total number of passengers, and, in addition, she carried 20 life buoys. She was classed 100 A1 at Lloyd's being 787 feet long over all, with a tonnage of 30,395 gross and 12,611 net. She had 4 turbine engines, 25 boilers, 4 boiler rooms, 12 transverse bulkheads, dividing her into 13 compartments, with a longitudinal bulkhead on either side of the ship for 425 feet, covering all vital parts.
The Lusitania unarmed.
The proof is absolute that she was not and never had been armed nor did she carry any explosives. She did carry some 18 fuse cases and 125 shrapnel cases, consisting merely of empty shells without any powder charge, 4,200 cases of safety cartridges, and 189 cases of infantry equipment, such as leather fittings, pouches, and the like. All these were for delivery abroad, but none of these munitions could be exploded by setting them on fire in mass or in bulk, nor by subjecting them to impact. She had been duly inspected on March 17, April 15, 16, and 17, all in 1915, and before she left New York the boat gear and boats were examined, overhauled, checked up, and defective articles properly replaced.
The drills sufficient.
There is no reason to doubt that this part of her equipment was in excellent order when she left New York. The vessel was under the command of a long service and experienced Captain and officered by competent and experienced men. The difficulties of the war prevented the company from gathering together a crew fully reaching a standard as high as in normal times, (many of the younger British sailors having been called to the colors,) but, all told, the crew was good and, in many instances, highly intelligent and capable. Due precaution was taken in respect of boat drills while in port, and the testimony shows that those drills were both sufficient and efficient. Some passengers did not see any boat drills on the voyage, while others characterized the drills, in effect, as formally superficial. Any one familiar with ocean traveling knows that it is not strange that boat drills may take place unobserved by some of the passengers who, though on deck, may be otherwise occupied or who may be in another part of the ship, and such negative testimony must give way to the positive testimony that there were daily boat drills, the object of which mainly was to enable the men competently and quickly to lower the boats.