Essay Archive - Lusitania
Lusitania
It was 2:10 p.m. on May 7, 1915. Leslie Morton, a lookout on the Lusitania,
screamed, "Torpedoes coming on the starboard side." Two explosions followed.
Within 18 minutes the huge liner, once the largest ever built, sank to the
bottom of the Celtic Sea. 1,195 out of the 1,959 people aboard died. Walther
Schwieger, commander of the German submarine U- 20, who had fired a single
torpedo 750 yards away from the ship, later called it the most horrible sight he
had ever seen.
The Lusitania entered service between Liverpool and New York on September
7, 1907. Funded by the British Admiralty, the Lusitania, built by the Cunard
Steamship C....
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