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Tarn Stephanos
Member
Username: titanictarn
Post Number: 1937
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - 3:14 pm: | 
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Thanks to Archibald Gracie's reasearch, we know who was in which lifeboat when Titanic sank..
How about the research in regards to Lusitania's lifeboats? Do we know which officers lowered which lifeboats, and which lifeboats collapsed- and which ones were never launched? |
Michael Poirier
Member
Username: mike_poirier
Post Number: 556
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 2:26 am: |
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Hi Tarn-
Well the most succesful officer was Arthur Rowland Jones, in getting away the boats. He was helped a bit by John Idwal Lewis, but most of Lewis's boats did not get away.
I have a good idea who was in 11,13,15 and a sketchy idea who was in 19 and 21. #1 also escaped but with two men, and they added many people from boat 15 which was overloaded and both boats went and rescued people from the water. Portside, boat 14 got away, but capsized in the water. That was a sad one- I wrote an article that was in the Irish Titanic Society Journal on that boat. 22 floated off and was put into good use. 3,7,9 sank with the ship.. filled with people. 5 was unusable. 17 was swamped in lowering. 20 fell down the side of the ship. That had Ogden Hammond in it. 18 I think sank with the ship. Isaac Lehmann thought it got away, but he may have been mistaken. He said it swung in, knocked himself and others over and swung back into position. I think 12 was another that fell while lowering. That would be the one Josephine Brandell was in. I hope this helps.
Sitting on stuff is called, 'squatty toad syndrome'.
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Tarn Stephanos
Member
Username: titanictarn
Post Number: 1944
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 3:03 am: |
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Thanks for the information Mike!
I have to wonder- If the Lucy had been fitted with Welin style davits, would more boats have gotten away? The davits used on the Lusitania didn't look particularly stable... |
Tarn Stephanos
Member
Username: titanictarn
Post Number: 1945
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 3:37 am: |
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Mike, how many lifeboats made it to Queenstown- Did any wash ashore? And do any still exist today?
With the difficulties in launching lifeboats from the lusitania, I wonder if any changes were later made on the Mauretania? Perhaps improved davits?
regards
Tarn Stephanos |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 12965
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 4:59 am: |
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>>I have to wonder- If the Lucy had been fitted with Welin style davits, would more boats have gotten away?<<
I'd be a bit skeptical of that. I've worked a welin type davit and while they're easier to swing out, once you lower a boat, you're still doing it manually.
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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Jim Kalafus
Member
Username: jak
Post Number: 2841
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 11:54 am: |
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To what Mike Poirier said may be added that the failure of any of the port side boats to get away was more the fault of an order being given to evacuate them and cease lowering than it was of the list or the davits. The list was severe at first and then the Lusitania recovered. A uniform theme among survivor accounts of those who were on the port side was that they were at, or in, lifeboats and compelled either not to enter, or to get out, by members of the crew following orders that had been given by an unnamed officer. So, whether it was Welin davits or not is irrelevant~ the relevant fact is that during the time it was possible to get boats safely away from the port side, no effort was made to lower them.
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Martin Owen Cahill
Member
Username: martin
Post Number: 484
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 1:20 pm: |
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Hi Michael Poirier'
Thanks for that. The only sequence analysis I have read has bee from Simpson's book and that book has been questioned more and more.
"orders that had been given by an unnamed officer"
Hi Jim, I thought that was Turner who issued that order and Staff Capt. Anderson drowned trying to carry out. [I think recent discussion suggests he was knocked overboard.] Could the wash have carried him into one of the screws? In the absence of careering lifeboats down the Port boat deck this could be the case. The ship was still underway and the wash could have swamp the boats if lowered too soon.
"I wrote an article that was in the Irish Titanic Society Journal on that boat. 22 floated off"
The boats are an article in their own right. and I would be keen to read both.
"Do we know which officers lowered which lifeboats,"
Hi Tarn,
What I read somewere was that Port was divided between Bestic boats 2-10 and Anderson boats 12-22
with Starboard between Lewis boats 1-9 and Jones boats 11-21.
cheers
Martin
"No Sir, We just hit the cruiser"
helmsman on Queen Mary
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Tarn Stephanos
Member
Username: titanictarn
Post Number: 1948
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 4:58 pm: |
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Hi Martin and Jim
Thanks for the detailed information- Its amazing how we not only know who occupied each of titanic's lifeboats, but we also know the order amd times during which they were launched-
Do Lusitania buffs have a good feel as to the order in which the Lusitania's boats were launched? Of course, having gone down in 18 minutes, there would hardly be enough time to fill and lower all the boats.... |
Jim Kalafus
Member
Username: jak
Post Number: 2842
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 11:47 pm: |
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>I thought that was Turner who issued that order and Staff Capt. Anderson drowned trying to carry out...
Possibly- The passengers, speaking within a few days of the disaster, were specific about the order but vague about who gave it. Nonetheless, it was one of the more regrettable aspects of the sinking and the amount of anger voiced by people who were in the boats and compelled to get out was remarkable ~ Miss Maycock comes to mind, with her bitter letter in which she details this.
>Could the wash have carried him into one of the screws?
I don't know. But, I believe that his body was recovered, which suggests that he was not pulled into the screws.
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Martin Owen Cahill
Member
Username: martin
Post Number: 486
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 12:14 am: |
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"his body was recovered, which suggests that he was not pulled into the screws."
Hi Jim,
If the screws were under power it would be messy but if they were not under power
they could still knock him unconcious or5 kill him. If the body was battered this may explain it
or
#18 sent him flying and killed him.
cheers
Martin
"No Sir, We just hit the cruiser"
helmsman on Queen Mary
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Tarn Stephanos
Member
Username: titanictarn
Post Number: 1950
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 12:24 am: |
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Didn't Charles Lauriat assert that at no time the screws came out of the water? |
Michael Poirier
Member
Username: mike_poirier
Post Number: 560
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 10:49 am: |
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Hi Tarn- I answered that part of your question above. I can find a few more sources for the screws if you want.
Mike
Charles Lauriat was upforward (in the vicinity of boat 7) swimming away from the ship- I highly doubt he would have really noticed.
Sitting on stuff is called, 'squatty toad syndrome'.
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Michael Poirier
Member
Username: mike_poirier
Post Number: 561
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 10:51 am: |
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The last few people who I think saw Anderson was James Brooks and Violet James. He was running aft.
Sitting on stuff is called, 'squatty toad syndrome'.
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Stanley C Jenkins
Member
Username: stanley_c_jenkins
Post Number: 194
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 6:58 pm: |
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A question has been raised concerning the paucity of information available in relation to the Lusitania's boats. I would suggest that this has something to do with the questions that were asked at the appropriate enquiries. In the case of the Titanic, the authorities obviously wanted to know why many boats were only half-filled, and why so many third class women and children were drowned. However, this issue was less pertinent in the case of the Lusitania and, in consequence, the questions were not asked in such detail. |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 13006
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 - 6:41 am: |
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The fact that the ship sank in around 18 minutes may have something to do with it as well. When time is as short as that, you don't bother keeping a logbook noting what time each boat is launched. You have much more important concerns...like just staying alive!
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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Martin Owen Cahill
Member
Username: martin
Post Number: 487
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 - 12:30 pm: |
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"you don't bother keeping a logbook noting what time each boat is launched. You have much more important concerns...like just staying alive!"
"However, this issue was less pertinent in the case of the Lusitania and, in consequence, the questions were not asked in such detail."
Yes I agree with both of you.
Michael,
It gets worse the faster they sink.
I think 18 minutes is bad enough. The film I see in my mind when I read it is horrific. The chaos wouldn't help any attempt to note what was going on in detail. How many never made it to the open decks?
Stanley,
both the Titanic and lusitnia inquiries were politcal. The Titanic was about safety standards in the maritime industry while the Lusitania is investigated within the context of a nation at war and trying not to give its enemies and advantage over the event hence in camera session and the selection of witnesses and the nulification of Joseph Marichel.
Oliver Bernard was not called because he was adament there was only one torpedo. Seen against the allegations that the Lusi was carring ammunition and war materials were witnesses selected in a way to deflect attention from the question of the second explosion. It was a second torpedo and no arms in the hold. I found Lauriat's thoughts on it interesting. He was highly critical of the verdict especially in the area of boat maintainace and the competency of the boat crew. I think Turner could have done more in the in this regard. The boats in my view should have been lowered to the rails and left snubbed and also ensuring that all falls release gear is readilly avaliable to anyone at the falls.
In fairness to the crew many things were very much against them. men who should have worked the boats, many of them were apparently lost in the baggagee hold.
regards
Martin
"No Sir, We just hit the cruiser"
helmsman on Queen Mary
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Stanley C Jenkins
Member
Username: stanley_c_jenkins
Post Number: 197
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 - 3:54 pm: |
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Every enquiry is, to some extent "political", but in a free country with a free press it is very difficult hide the facts - even in wartime.
Reading "between the lines", the truth (or something approaching it) is clear even in the case of Lord Mersey's WWI enquiry. It seems obvious, for example, that the wartime crew were not particularly efficient because many of the best men were in the Navy, and this must have had an impact on their struggle to launch the boats in difficult conditions. Similarly, wartime economies meant that not all of the Lusitania's boilers were in use, and she had thereby lost much of her high-speed advantage.
The vessel was almost certainly carrying war supplies of one kind or another, but I think this was regarded by Lord Mersey as a red herring. The fact is, the Germans had "crossed a line" and escalated the war by sinking a merchant vessel. This was an act of "wilful and wholesale murder" - not my words, not Lord Mersey's words but those of the Kinsale Coroner, a Sinn Fein supporter and no particular friend of the British state. |
Geoff Whitfield
Member
Username: geoff
Post Number: 1106
Registered: 11-2000
| | Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 - 5:06 pm: |
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Staff Capt. Anderson's body was recovered and interred in Kirkdale Cemetery, Fazakerely, Liverpool.
The headstone reads:
Capt.J.C.Anderson
SS Lusitania
7th May 1915
Aged 48 years
A Perfect Manly Life
Completed Justly
& Well Spent.
Geoff |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 13015
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 - 5:10 pm: |
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>>Every enquiry is, to some extent "political", but in a free country with a free press it is very difficult hide the facts - even in wartime. <<
Wanna bet?
In the U.K. at least, the laws were a bit different and in wartime, one only need invoke the contemporary version of The Official Secrets Act to keep some things from coming out. Even in the U.S. the government was able to censor the hell out of things as late as World War Two and get away with it.
In any event, some portions of the Inquiry were held In Camera, which is to say behind closed doors. Further, even if certain embarrassing facts were to come out, an official inquiry offers wonderful opportunities for putting a spin on things so that the people who sare running it can use the facts to lie through their teeth. They did that with Titanic, and the Lusitania was no different.
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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Tarn Stephanos
Member
Username: titanictarn
Post Number: 1951
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 4:54 am: |
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This thread is getting interesting!
Does anyone know the name of the style of davit used on Lusitania? What were the advantages-or disadvantages of Lucy's davits over the wellin style davits? |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 13022
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 5:18 am: |
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>>Does anyone know the name of the style of davit used on Lusitania?<<
Not offhand.
The Welin type davits on the whole were reletively easier to use, and quicker to swing out. All you needed to do to deploy them was to swing them out with a handcrank and they would tilt over into the proper position. The reason I say "reletively" is because I've done this with the set on the Willis B. Boyer and it's still pretty hard on your back, but at least you didn't have to try to twist them around.
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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Martin Owen Cahill
Member
Username: martin
Post Number: 488
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 6:48 am: |
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I know them as Quadrant or Radial davits and they date as far back to the Great Eastern to my reading. I am familiar with the Welin davit deployment having seen ANTR and Titanic but the older style davits are a different story. At least they had been swung out the day before.
cheers
Martin
"No Sir, We just hit the cruiser"
helmsman on Queen Mary
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Tarn Stephanos
Member
Username: titanictarn
Post Number: 1953
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 7:26 am: |
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I'm curious, did Cunard switch to the Welin style davits on their later liners, such as Aquitania? |
Jim Kalafus
Member
Username: jak
Post Number: 2843
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 12:16 pm: |
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The US Limitation of Liability testimony is far better than the gormless Mersey material, if one wants to find useful Lusitania material. However, even there one hits the proverbial wall, because every time a question was asked that might have established Cunard's liability, the company's lawyer objected to it, and the court sustained the objection. (It was 1917, and there was no way that anything other than exhonoration was going to happen) What is fortunate is that although the objections were sustained, the questions that raised them, and the answers to same, were not stricken from the record. So, although these tangents were not pursued in depth, at least a partial record remains of them.
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Stanley C Jenkins
Member
Username: stanley_c_jenkins
Post Number: 201
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 2:51 pm: |
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I cannot, at the present time, find any details about the davits, but would suggest that in the context of the Lusitania the 26 collapsible boats would have played a major part in the rescue - it was very difficult to launch the conventional boats, whereas the collapsibles acted as life rafts when they were washed into the sea. |
Martin Owen Cahill
Member
Username: martin
Post Number: 489
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 3:38 pm: |
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Hi Jim,
I'd love to get my hands of the transcripts of that Limitation of Liability testimony . Maybe if it comes online. I have heard so many bits and pieces that I haven't seen in the Mersey hearings,
rgards
Martin
"No Sir, We just hit the cruiser"
helmsman on Queen Mary
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J. Kent Layton
Member
Username: jkent
Post Number: 61
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 3:57 pm: |
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Tarn,
As Martin pointed out, they were round-bar radial davits. They were common installations on liners of the period - the Germans used them, the "Big Four," etc.; the now-infamous Welin davits used on TITANIC were much newer and less commonly seen. The AQUITANIA also used the round-bar radial davits.
There are some details on the lifeboat setup and on the davits in my book.
Regards,
J. Kent Layton
http:/www.atlanticliners.com/atlantic_liners_book.htm
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