Lusitania by David Ramsay

Author:David Ramsay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2014-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

In another section of his narrative he recounts how he went down to his stateroom on B deck to recover some documents. As he was returning to the boat deck he noticed a number of open portholes. Lauriat’s criticism is well-founded and is confirmed by the accounts of other survivors.8

Lauriat strongly disagreed with Mersey’s conclusion that the boats were in good order at the moment of the explosion and that the launching was carried out as well as the short time, the moving ship and the serious list would allow. Lauriat cites the lack of discipline and inexperience displayed by many of the crew, citing two instances when boats had been dropped some twenty feet into the water as a result of handling errors. He noted Mersey’s comment that ‘since the commencement of the war, the Cunard Company had lost all its fleet reserve and naval reserve men and that the managers had had to take on the best men they could get and to train them as well as might be in the time at their disposal.’ From this he drew the reasonable inference that a makeshift crew could not be trained in a few weeks to the standard where, in Mersey’s words, they could deal with a major disaster ‘with skill and judgment ’. At first sight, Mersey’s conclusion seems extraordinary given Turner’s frank admission that Lusitania’s crew were not proficient in handling boats and James Baker’s evidence that there had been a lack of competent seamen. It becomes more explicable in the light of his determination to avoid giving the Germans too much evidence of the crew’s errors and shortcomings, thus denying them any ammunition with which they could deflect hostile world opinion.

Lauriat was critical of the inquiry’s failure to properly investigate the condition of the collapsible boats which had in the event proved to be both impractical and badly maintained. He could also have criticised the lack of any crew training in their handling. On two further points Lauriat’s censure of the report is less valid. He dismissed the conclusion that: ‘the reduction of … speed was of no significance’. This view was widely held at the time but a fuller examination of the part the liner’s speed played in the tragedy will be found in the chapter The Reasons Why. On this point the author would agree with Lord Mersey. Lauriat sharply disagreed with Mersey’s conclusion that the passengers’ efforts to assist in launching the boats were well-meant but probably disastrous. His annoyance with this conclusion is perfectly understandable, given his valiant efforts to assist its crew’s attempt to free one of the boats from its davits and his commendable performance in the collapsible. However, he left the liner from its starboard side while Mersey’s criticisms related to the attempts to launch the port side boats. Lehmann’s interference with the crew of boat No 18 certainly had disastrous results although this incident was not directly addressed in any of the sessions. To this extent Mersey’s conclusion is not entirely unjustified.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.