It took a short while for the Lusitania to go down, but it took rescue boats almost three hours to reach the wreckage. Why? From: SINKING THE LUSITANIA: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY bit.ly/1Jy9EyE
some of the survivors ended up with lungs filled with oil from the sinking. My great grandfather suffered for the rest of his life because of it. Also this isn't an american tragedy alone but a british one and other nationalities.
CSM101 they also carried oil on board, or are you not familiar with engines needing oils or other applications. This man was my family and that's what was on his death certificate, I think the doctors were qualified enough to be able to diagnose that.
CSM, when the Lusitania submerged and hit the bottom, she left behind a huge slick of oil on the surface that did indeed get in people's lungs while they were swimming. It literally bubbled out of the ship as it plunged.
My great-grandmother's family farm faced the stretch of ocean where the Lusitania sank. She watched everything happen from the shoreline as a little girl. Crazy to think our great-grandparents were in close proximity on that day!
I remember listening to Frank and Elsie's story in another documentary by National geographic. They had both been born in England and had been living in Canada since emigrating with their parents in 1907. Their mother had died in late 1913 and now their father was moving them back to England. They had actually planned on travelling aboard the Lusitania in Second Class, but switched to Third Class when George learned their former housekeeper, Annie Marsh was travelling in Third Class with her husband Tom and their infant son. Like the Hooks, the Marshes were also English nationals returning to their home country. Annie survived the sinking, but her husband and baby boy did not. Annie Marsh later remarried and spent the rest of her life in England, living at Faversham, Kent until her death in 1977. The Hooks moved to Australia in 1925. George died in 1963, Elsie died in 1995, and Frank died in 1998.
With all the tragedy, it's nice to read the occasional story that turned out fine after all. Both siblings lived into their 90s, and the company that Frank founded, Hook Plastics, was apparently still in business in Altona North, Australia, until just a few years ago.
@stormtrooper1484 It should also be noted that the British military higher ups actually knew about the u-boat in the area and chose not to warn the captain about it. Makes one wonder if they were being set up.
I can tell you this my great uncle was on the Lusitania and he was on crew when it was sinking Captain Turner ordered him to get on 1 of the 6 lifeboats that were safely launched. He was ordered to get on because the crew member on the lifeboat was crazy and could not control himself and he died but my great uncle survived.
According to several sources there was one particularly strong swimmer aboard who actually did manage to swim to old head of kinsale and make land near the lighthouse.
Honestly they should have had a big screen adaption like Titanic because there were so many interesting people here and to say nothing of which the sumptuous backdrop being every bit an equal if not perhaps a touch more elegant. It's amazing to think in the space of 20 minutes a ship 99 or so feet shorter than Titanic would sink, all the engines failing, electricity shot, and the rapid increasing list. And how minutes could have saved your life or not, that's far more apocalyptic.
Wow Titanic sank in the N.Atlantic Ocean which is FREEZING WATER Lusitania also sank in cold water. Gee,Britannic was the only one that sank in hot water -_-
Learn history. It was smuggling military reinforcements (weapons) for the British, that's why the Germans torpedoed the Lusitania. Get your facts straight before you speak something, it shows your idiocy.
Blurritos Are you saying it didn't have passengers on it? From what I see, Full Dog was simply making a joke and said nothing incorrect. Maybe that says something about your idiocy, hm?
The Lusitania sailed into a known war zone....they were warned and still went. Strike 1. America thought that by using human shields, that Germany wouldnt dare attack the ship. Strike 2. The ship was caring weapons from the U.S to resupply Britain. Thats not neutrality, and Germany didnt tolerate it. Strike 3. Basically, anyone here bashing Germany is dumb. Like the U.S or Britain wouldnt do the same if the roles were reversed. They would. Except they would invent a false story to justify that move.
Bright, sunny day that day with still water; not freezing conditions. This point is only important because this fortunate coincidence may have contributed to the survivability of many of those in the water.
A good read is “Dead Wake.” It really goes into detail surrounding the Lusitania and WW1. The Germans had deliberately sunk ships and waited for the rescue response and continued to sink more ships. I wanna say in one instance, they sunk 3 ships before England mandated that other ships were not to immediately respond to distress signals from torpedoed ships.
I can't tell which one would be my most favorite, not because of the sinking, but because of how the ships looked from an bird eye's perspective. I think I would say Lusitania and then Britannic, especially having Britannic as a hospital ship To me, the Lusitania was the mermaid of the Atlantic until her final plunge in the cold freezing waters
The waters of the Lusitania weren’t exactly freezing. I mean they were cold enough to make people shiver, but most of the people in that water who didn’t drown were able to survive in it for a few hours.
It's so crazy because it was tragedy after tragedy! All of the lifeboats that kept on failing and the people were thrown out. And the other lifeboat that even was landing on top of another lifeboat drowning everybody in the lifeboat underneath.
It was the British government dragging America in another one of Europe war, dont believe me? They wanted America to join the war countless of times , once they knew 200 American passengers were on that ship , they took the course that led them right to the U Boat.
@@reivang7196 as someone on the US army I can’t tell you how much we as country rely on the Uk. They have been with this country through thick and thin and even got involved in our wars just for the sake of helping out. As of Lusitania the blame lies in the captain reports show the British government gave the captain precise instruction which he ignored. Before you act like the Uk was dragging us in wars we have dragged them into more wars then they have dragged us in. And if it wasn’t for them we would honestly be speaking German without their intelligence or their ships for the facts in WW2 we wouldn’t of win the war.
What’s cruel is carrying civilian passengers and war munitions together onto a battlefield. These people were used as human shields and political/diplomatic tools.
British packed the ship with munitions unbeknownst to the civilians on board. That's the real tragedy. Germans most likely intercepted the message and knew full well what the British were up to. On top of that, the British were also known for arming passengers vessels and firing on u boats once they raised to give a warning. At that point, the rulebook went out the window.
@@jaguar4u2012 Well, ocean liners were the way of traveling across the seas before we had airplanes and there were quite a few Titanic survivors who were on the Lusitania when it sank.
Factcheck; Lusitania was carrying ammunition (cartridges) not weapons as such. It was a British auxiliary cruiser of course, with mostly American passengers. Strange thing is that King George V that very morning is recorded as saying to Edward Mandell House (USA envoy) that he wondered whether the Germans would sink the Lusitania! It sank at 2pm same day!
Everyone knows the reason why the Lusitania sank was because it was carrying ammunitions in the luggage hull part of the ship. The captain didn't agree with carrying weapons but he took them anyway. But still, ammunitions can't make a ship sing in 18 minutes. Therefore I will tell the answer, the Lusitania had a bomb in it. A new British Bomb that was supposed to help the Infantry to defeat the Germans.
Idk about one big bomb but they were carrying all sorts of ammunition, some could’ve been small explosives that all went off simultaneously, severely damaging the ship thus making it sink so fast
@@johnmorgan8558 The bomb was never really confirmed and things got embellished as time went by ever since people learn about the ammos being smuggled. The British navy probably did set them up considering they knew about U-20 being in the area the ship was heading to and didn't tell them about it. What should be noted is that even if the ship wasn't carrying any ammos and the Germans knows it, they should still have targeted the ship. The captain of U-20 was especially ruthless on his approach to naval warfare to the point even the Kreigsmarine higher ups were uncomfortable with what he was doing.
@@iamhungey12345 Also, its evacuation from the interior. There were people who got trapped in its elevators and couldn’t find their way to the exits since the power went out so quickly.
Actually, the sinking of the refugee ship Wilhelm Gustloff is the worse. 9,400 of 10,000 people onboard died when the Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine. All the deaths were either by freezing or drowning. (The Gustloff sank in the Baltic Sea in January 1945)
Sad, but the ship was carrying weapons which made it a fair target. The British later to cover it up had the ship depth charged to destroy the wreck and cover the blast from the ships explosives.
I guess there's two sides to every story. I watched another video where they said the captain of Lusitania received many messages that there was a sub in the area. He was told to get the ship to top speed and into a zigzag pattern because when a sub surfaces it can't go very fast and its hard to aim when the ship isn't going in a straight line. It made me think that the captain wanted the ship to sink.
They wanted the ship to sink so theu can have a reason to join the war...creating weapons and selling them made a lot of money for America...after ww1 stopped America was great in the 20's but then all the munition factories closed because there was no war...then the great depression came and ww2 after it...during ww2 america started mass producing weapons again and became a nice country again...thets why america will always be in some kind of war, its the only way they earn money...just look at the facts.. in last 50 years America is always in war because thats the only way they can sustain their ecemony
@@markharrison2544 They didn't know at the time however, the captain of U-20 was especially ruthless on how he does things in that kind of warfare. Even if the ship haven't been smuggling ammos it would still have been a target regardless.
The only munitions on board were small arms ammo, which was allowed under America's neutrality shipping laws. A straight up war crime and Germany knew it. After this they stopped unrestricted submarine warfare for a couple years and publicly shamed the U-boat captain.
Yeah, technically the Lusitania was a war vessel disguised as an extremely luxurious civilian liner, but unfortunately her passengers were unaware of that and didn’t listen to what people said about her being very poorly prepared for her voyage which really made her an even bigger death trap.
Churchill was entirely to blame using his "live bait " policy which broadly meant that because the ship was carrying a substantial American passenger list, it was a way to drag America into the war, as prior to Lusitania, America was neutral , Intelligence on u boats was extraordinalrily accurate for the time and it was known exactly where the German Uboat was and the standard zig zag course to avoid Uboats was countermanded by the Navy who made Lusitania sail in a straight line right in the line of fire for the torpedo's . Forever after known as the "Lusitania outrage" Churchill's name isn't well liked amongst the towns of southern Ireland and in particular the old head of Kinsale where anti Churchill posters still adorn the walls of every public house.
That is not correct, captain Turner was sailing in a straight line because he had been in heavy fog and needed to get a four point bearing which meant he had to sail in a straight line for 30 minutes t to do so. The U boat had pure luck when the ship had to change course and ended up at a perfect 90 degree angle for a clear shot Read Dead Wake by Erik Larson
4:37 they did it rong the bed doesn't look like the one in the picture there was no crutches in the background and frank is supposed to have curly hair not straight hair 🙄
I'm an American Born and Raised and anyone who possesses the tiniest bit of logic and reason understands that the Germans had every right to sink the Lusitania
