Posted on 07/23/2008 1:00:22 PM PDT by nickcarraway
American entrepreneur Gregg Bemis finally gets courts go-ahead to explore the wreck off Ireland
It is the best known shipwreck lying on the Irish seabed, but it is only today that the owner of the Lusitania will finally begin the first extensive visual documentation of the luxury liner that sank 93 years ago.
Gregg Bemis, who bought the remains of the vessel for £1,000 from former partners in a diving business in 1968, has been granted an imaging licence by the Department of the Environment. This allows him to photograph and film the entire structure, and should allow him to produce the first high-resolution pictures of the historic vessel.
The RMS Lusitania sank off the coast of Cork in May 1915 when a German U-boat torpedoed it. An undetermined second explosion is believed to have speeded its sinking, with 1,198 passengers and crew losing their lives.
Bemis is hoping that the week-long filming project, which begins today, will prove his theory that the Lusitania was carrying explosives, and that these were the cause of the mysterious second blast.
“I want to find out where the second explosion took place and why,” he said. “I believe there were explosives on board. I can tell the whole world that, but they’re not going to believe me until we get down there and get proof.”
JWM Productions will film the project for a television series to be shown on the Discovery Channel next year.
The 80-year-old entrepreneur only won the right to explore the wreckage,
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
This is the only time in history a torpedo caused a secondary explosion < /Rosie>
It was probably the center fuel tank.....
Unfortunetly the germans probably had good reason to sink it. Just saying!
Aw, fer cryin’ out loud!!!!! Do I need an “Imaging Licence” to take a picture of the Blarney Stone, too?????
Of course, if you question whether we should have gotten into the First World War, you must be pro-Hitler.
If it's his, why does he have to get permission to take pictures of it?
It’s not clear from this article what the Department of the Environment’s concern is. Barnacles?
HITLER Was ww2! The germans in WW1 were just honoring treaties with Austria Hungary and Got into the war when Arch Duke Ferdinand was assasinated but the Serbians.
now that’s funny
good job
Aw, fer cryin’ out loud!!!!! Do I need an “Imaging Licence” to take a picture of the Blarney Stone, too?????
Good Night Nurse, Yes.
In England you need a license to keep seeds out of a cucumber.
“I saw a second torpedo shot from the grassy atoll.”
Don't blame me, I voted for Hughes!
Also, the U.S. did not enter the war in 1915, in case anyone forgot. It took the sinking of a DOZEN U.S. ships by the Germans, after repeated promises not to sink neutrals. Any ONE of those should have been grounds for war, and the sickening thing is that Woodrow Wilson waited so long to do what needed to be done in the first place.
The same people who complain about 3,000 civilians being killed at the WTC, which, God knows, must have had SOME offices doing "defense work," hence were "legitimate targets" as the jihadists claim, want to excuse German atrocities at sea. So the question of what the Lusitania was transporting is irrelevant. Even if it was ALL high explosive shells, the U-boats were NOT to be torpedoing passenger liners and they had promised not to do so in any event.
I thought it was already pretty well established that the Lusitania was carrying munitions.
Way too much bureaucratic control.
Thank God I live in America.
I don’t have to put up with my government telling me how much water my toilet can use, or telling me what kind of light bulbs I can put in my own sockets, or who I can hire, or...
Waited? Wilson campaign in the 1916 election campaigned on not entering the War. Then betrayed the American people as soon as he got elected by entering.
“If it’s his, why does he have to get permission to take pictures of it?”
I would ask the same question, but I suspect the answer is the government wouldn’t get any money if they just let people have free access to their own property.
“Bemis is hoping that the week-long filming project, which begins today, will prove his theory that the Lusitania was carrying explosives, and that these were the cause of the mysterious second blast.”
I believe dives have already brought up explosive armaments? I recall seeing a program some time ago where they showed caps made by bethlehem steel that had been recovered.
Hey, I’m glad we got into WWI but munitions should not have been shipped in passenger liners. Bad idea.
Only to those who are confused over their wars :)
Read it was coal dust that caused the major damage when it exploded from the torpedo ....
Their kind of gumbmt is headed our way. Vote Republican!
The Germans were sinking hundreds of American ships before we entered the war 1917. Their aggressive subjugation of Europe and their lunatic Kaiser were unbearable, as were their barbaric cutthroat Ottoman buddies. It was the German Empire which also enabled the Bolshevik Revolution under Lenin. They started a heck of a mess globally. They had to be stopped. The post-war politics and Versailles Treaty were screw-ups however.
There is speculation that churchill (head of the admiralty until the Lusitania sinking iirc) was in fact having passenger liners carry armaments, making them *valid* war targets, in order to try to get one/more sunk and draw the americans into the war.
Horse sh..., uh road apples:
The first clear indication of increased peril to LUSITANIA was the extraordinary notice placed in American newspapers by the German Embassy on 1 May 1915, the day the Cunarder sailed: "Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or of any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk."
“If it’s his, why does he have to get permission to take pictures of it?”
Because the Irish government claimed the wreck as an archaeological site to protect it from the scavengers that had been diving to her and removing relics, as well as various naval entities that had been using her for target practice over the years.
RMS Lusitania was supposedly an “auxiliary cruiser”
of the Royal Navy. Perhaps that was the justification.
Of course its possible that a German sympathizer among
the longshoremen reported the cargo to the embassy.
Fascinating if a message from the embassy in Washington DC
turnsed up in the German archives..
I think the German Army should bring back those spikey helmets. Man those were the bee's knees. Why can't OUR army have spikes on our helmets?
Yeah. Same reason you need a permit to replace your own leaking water heater.
Really? That will stop it? Evidence please?
I know it has become fashionable in certain circles lately to demonize Churchill but I won't buy this until I see some documentation.
“Hey, I’m glad we got into WWI but munitions should not have been shipped in passenger liners. Bad idea.”
Unfortunately because the British government subsidized a good deal of the construction of the Cunard and White Star fleets, there was an agreement in place that during wartime they could use those ships for the war effort, whether it be taking them out of passenger service and conscripting them as troop ships or to carry materials to aid the war effort in the course of their regular travels.
AND the Zimmerman note....
Only to those who are confused over their wars :)
It was attitudes like yours that led to the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor...
I suppose you actually think "your" house is yours, too?
It would seem to me that shipping munitions in a passenger vessel would have been an act of gross negligence and/or provocation on the part of the U.S., and that Germany wouldn’t bear much responsibility at all for the sinking of that ship if it were a legitimate target.
“Waited? Wilson campaign in the 1916 election campaigned on not entering the War. Then betrayed the American people as soon as he got elected by entering.”
So, he was ‘against the war before he was for it.’ Somewhat of a different spin on the standard flip-flopping democrat.
I suspect that every civilian British passenger ship was given a similar designation, since they could be quickly transformed into troop ships. But at the time of the sinking the Lusitania was ostensibly just a passenger liner and munitions don't belong in the cargo of a passenger liner during a time of war.
The so-called Zimmerman telegram was the major factor in the United States entering the war. This telegram was a proposal by the German government for Mexico to invade the United States.
When the British made the telegram public it resulted in a popular call for war. I don’t know that Wilson was ever that keen on going to war.
*shrug* He was a democrat, after all...
I am not justifying the sinking, but I think what you write is misleading. Germany put an advertisement in the paper next to the ad for the Lusitania warning passengers that such ships might be sunk. The media had articles on the subject. Passengers were so worried the Captain of the ship had to reassure them by telling them the ship was too fast to be attacked by submarine. If that wasn’t enough, German spies were arrested on board early in the voyage.
(Note: One of my Great Grandparents traveled on the previous journey of the Lusitania too the U.S.)
You mean like we did in the late 19th century?
While this might have seemed like a good idea it created a gray area where these ships could possibly be considered legitimate military targets. Mixing both civilian and military functions in the same trip was terribly dangerous.
Between 1914 and the spring of 1917, the European nations engaged in a conflict that became known as World War I. While armies moved across the face of Europe, the United States remained neutral. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson was elected President for a second term, largely because of the slogan "He kept us out of war." Events in early 1917 would change that hope. In frustration over the effective British naval blockade, in February Germany broke its pledge to limit submarine warfare. In response to the breaking of the Sussex pledge, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Germany.
In January of 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. This message helped draw the United States into the war and thus changed the course of history. The telegram had such an impact on American opinion that, according to David Kahn, author of The Codebreakers, "No other single cryptanalysis has had such enormous consequences." It is his opinion that "never before or since has so much turned upon the solution of a secret message." In an effort to protect their intelligence from detection and to capitalize on growing anti-German sentiment in the United States, the British waited until February 24 to present the telegram to Woodrow Wilson. The American press published news of the telegram on March 1. On April 6, 1917, the United States Congress formally declared war on Germany and its allies.
Definitely a casus belli.
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