Lusitania Disaster. Setting sail from New York harbor on May 1, 1915, the R.M.S. Lusitania began a voyage to Liverpool, England. This voyage would be her last; and the last for over 1,000 of her passengers. Of the 1,959 men, women, and children aboard, only 761 passengers would survive the voyage. While on the seas, word made it to the ship that the seas would be increasingly inhabited with German submarines the closer they got to England, so to better prepare the passengers they readied the lifeboats on the ship. On May 7, 1915, without any warning, a German U-boat sent a torpedo into the bridge of the ship before a second torpedo made contact. The Lusitania was only 11 miles from the coast of Ireland, but there was no way to get the ship to safety. It only took a total of 18 minutes for her to completely sink after the second torpedo hit.
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The survivors were surrounded with the floating bodies of the dead, the debris, and the smells from the burning ship. The sinking of the Lusitania resulted in shock and outrage throughout Britain and the United States, as among those that drowned, 128 were American citizens. It is believed that because of the Germans heartless attack on a passenger ship, this event helped the United States choose to join into the
The survivors were surrounded with the floating bodies of the dead, the debris, and the smells from the burning ship. The sinking of the Lusitania resulted in shock and outrage throughout Britain and the United States, as among those that drowned, 128 were American citizens. It is believed that because of the Germans heartless attack on a passenger ship, this event helped the United States choose to join into the