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 ...
Take a ton of anthracite coal, pile it up on top of a fused quarter stick of TNT. Detonate the TNT (while standing well back from the coal). Notice all the dust.
N.B.: This is why warships were being converted to fuel oil at this time.
"Certain circles" means Pat Buchanan and a couple of bloggers who own pit bulls and write Letters To The Editor in green ink.
The secondary was most likely the steam boiler when exposed to the massive inrush of cold water.
The Zimmerman cable had more to do with it than Wilson changing his mind.
The Germans were just plain stupid on that one.
Part of the reason.
Oil fired boilers also made a lot less smoke, thereby making warships harder for the enemy to spot.
The Germans (pre-WWII defeat) had very well-designed military imagery, including uniforms, heraldry, etc. The really powerful totalitarian regimes (not the banana-republic funny-hat dictators) have always had this, as it makes for effective propaganda.
I should have been more clear in my posts. Everything I mentioned related to the German rationale/justification for sinking the Lusitania, not the issue of the secondary explosions and whether they were caused by the munitions, coal dust, etc.
Not quite.
While the torpedo hit would have eventually caused the ship to founder, it was the secondary explosion, and what really caused it, that did the ship and the 1198 passengers and crew who died in. Rather than a much slower sinking which would have allowed nearly all to be safely removed from the ship in time, the second explosion caused not only a fatal list which rendered much of the lifeboats inoperable, but also cause the ship to sink completely in less than twenty minutes time.
The other issue as well is the fact that standard Admiralty protocol in wartime when a ship was close to coastal areas was to operate in a zigzag pattern, making them a much more difficult target for the U-boats to lock onto and for torpedoes to hit.
But Captain Turner of the Lusitania didn’t follow those rules that day.
US regulations wouldn’t apply. It was a British ship operated by a British company sailing to a British port.
“Someone please explain how you buy a shipwreck, and then have to get a license from the government to take pictures of what you purchased???”
Once again, because the Irish government has declared the shipwreck an archaeological site for preservation of the wreckage and environs.
“then the British were committing war crimes by using a civilian transport to carry war munitions and worse, using civilians as human shields.”
War crimes didn’t exist back then, otherwise you would need to retroactively indict nearly every country that ever existed.
“However, whether she was carrying munitions or not is a moot point.”
Not moot from historical interest in understanding british actions in the great war with regard to this topic. I wonder if they were using ALL the large passenger liners for armament shipments (Mauratania, Olympic) as well.
“”Certain circles” means Pat Buchanan”
Buchanan has stated that he feels Churchill betrayed Poland, and I am unable to fault this argument, unless one considers Stalinist occupation for decades ‘saving.’
I recall reading once that a manifest was found detailing some cases of .303 rifle ammunition. if this is correct
it is unlikely to be a source of secondaries.
we tried blowing that kind of stuff up in VN and succeeded
mainly in scattering around the place.
Yes, but not all coal is anthracite. There are varying types of coal (The Germans, for instance, define eight different grades), and each has different properties.
Anthracite is the hardest and least dust making of them all.
“Not moot from historical interest in understanding british actions in the great war with regard to this topic. I wonder if they were using ALL the large passenger liners for armament shipments (Mauratania, Olympic) as well.”
The Mauretania was taken out of passenger service and being used as a troop transport. The Lusitania was being kept IN service for passenger service, due to her high fuel consumption. Cunard had, however, limited her Atlantic crossings to once weekly.
In the case of the White Star liner OLYMPIC, she initially remained in passenger service but was removed and put into service as a troopship in September 1915. Her sister ship, the Brittanic, never saw passenger service and was put into war service as a hospital ship and subsequently sank off the coast of Greece after hitting a mine on September 21, 1916.
i didn’t realize there was an actual photo of the sinking Brittanic! Wiki. has one on their site.
"The obverse text 'KEINE BANN WARE!', around the upper edge, is translated as 'No contraband goods'. The text in five lines in the obverse exergue 'DER GROSS-DAMPFER=LUSITANIA=DURCH EIN DEUTSCHES TAUCHBOOT VERSENKT 5.MAI 1915' is translated as 'The liner Lusitania sunk by a German submarine 5 May 1915'."
My great uncle, former Buckingham Palace Guard, and then Canadian Infantry, bequeathed this medallion to me. He was given it by my great grandfather.
In shortform, I don't think this mystery is going to be solved.
and, as opposed to the Titanic, HMHS Brittanic is still in near perfect shape on the ocean floor, due to being protected from scavengers and tourists by the Greek government as well as not being in as deep water and pressure as the Titanic.
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