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Ordnance found aboard Lusitania
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Divers have located a large collection of rifle bullets aboard the WWI Lusitania wreck off Ireland, suggesting the liner carried war munitions when torpedoed by a U-boat with the loss of 1198 lives.
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The diving on the ship, sunk in 91m of water 10 miles off Cork while on passage from the USA to England, was carried out by four Irish technical divers, operating at their own cost with the permission of the wreck's owner, Greg Bemis.
Eoin Mc Garry (leader), Stewart Andrews, Colm Humphries and Timmy Carey all used Inspiration rebreathers to head, Bemis has stated, for the 'site in the ship which had been carefully diagnosed from previous visits as the most likely area for search [for munitions]'. For some time, Bemis has wished to establish beyond doubt the existence of a munitions cargo.
Carey told Divernet how, through a break in the hull, the divers spotted a large stash of small-arms ammunition, too big to be, say, a store for onboard guards weapons. This was filmed by an accompanying ROV, which at one point had to be cut free from a net.
'The wreck now has a lot of discarded nets in places, rising over 10m off the wreck,' said Carey, who added that 'one of the main video cameras leaked and was destroyed, but backup footage was got with a Veecam'. The divers brought up a few rounds, Remington 303s, for analysis.
The discovery appeared to tally, Bemis said, with ordnance 'listed in the cargo manifest but which had never been corroborated as being on board'. A large munitions cargo would, he said, have made the vessel a 'legitimate target' - tragically for the many civilians who lost their lives.
The sinking, in May 1915, came just three months after Germany announced that it would conduct unrestricted warfare, rejecting an international agreement that non-military vessels suspected of carrying war materials should be stopped and searched rather than sunk immediately.
The old rule would have allowed the Lusitania's complement to abandon the vessel before it was sent to the bottom upon the discovery of munitions. As it was, of 1257 passengers and 650 crew, 785 passengers and 413 crew died, including 100 children. The action put considerable pressure on the USA to join the war in support of Britain.
According to German records, the ship was hit by just one torpedo, yet suffered a second, large explosion, after which it sank in just 18 minutes. Bemis is among those who believe that the second blast was caused by heavy ordnance in the Lusitania's cargo. Others have blamed the liner's steam-generating plant, while some have questioned whether the sub fired more torpedoes than stated.
The latest evidence of small-arms ammunition is, therefore, but the first step in Bemis's aim of getting a full picture of the types and amounts of munitions being carried. The discovery of the bullets has only fuelled his suspicion that heavy ordnance was aboard too.
'This is a classical case of rewriting and correcting history, something that is important both ethically and for the sake of preventing distortion of the truth for political expediency,' he said. The success of the latest project had given 'additional impetus' to his hopes of funding further operations on the wreck.
The raised bullets are being 'carefully preserved in the hands of the Irish authorities until necessary arrangements can be made for their further study and identification'.
The Lusitania, sister to the Mauretania, is designated as a protected historic site under Irish law. But last year the Supreme Court in Dublin ruled that Bemis, who became a co-owner of the wreck in 1968 before buying out his two partners, could mount explorative dives over the next five years.
Before that, Ireland's Arts and Heritage Ministry had refused to grant an exploration licence. This notwithstanding, Bemis first dived the wreck in 2005. Several other diving expeditions, independent of Bemis, have also been carried out in the past decade. |
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