Senan Molony
Member
RIFLE ammunition bound for the Western Front during World War One has been raised from the wreck of the doomed Cunard liner RMS Lusitania.
American-made Remington .303 cartridges were recovered this week [September 23, 2008] from inside the liner, torpedoed off the Old Head of Kinsale on May 7, 1915. They have been handed over to the Revenue Commissioners, the official Irish receiver of wreck.
The bullets were retrieved from the forward end of F Deck, in a place officially shown to be empty on the cargo stowage plan for the fateful final voyage.
The find may be the first tentative evidence that the British Government's eventual 'full disclosure' of the army supplies stacked aboard was not the complete truth.
While it was admitted after the sinking that the liner was carrying four million Remington bullets, controversy has raged over the cause of a devastating second explosion aboard, following the initial torpedo strike, which effectively sent the Lusitania to the bottom.
The German submarine U-20 fired only one torpedo — and was surprised to see giant vessel heel over and sink minutes after another detonation. Some survivors insisted the second explosion was much stronger than the first.
This week's detection of unlisted ammunition could strengthen claims that other secret munitions were on board — which in turn could explain the mystery of the eighteen-minute sinking.
A total of 1,198 passengers and crew died when the 30,000-ton liner went down twelve miles off the coast in afternoon sunshine. The later-admitted cargo plan included bullets of the type now raised, as well as unfilled shells, shrapnel and detonator caps.
But there was never any listing for explosives, such as volatile gun-cotton which reacts violently on contact with water. Instead there were mysterious crates of cheese and butter - consigned to an innocent-sounding firm which happened to share the same address as the Royal Navy experimental station in Shoeburyness.
Despite the area where the ammunition was found this week being designated empty, there was a evidence from a crew witness in March 1918 that the two forward sections of F deck had been filled with unknown cargo - a claim denied at the time.
Tuesday's recovery operation, using the remotely operated vehicle Zeus II, was led by Waterford diver Eoin McGarry on behalf of the wreck's recognised owner, Santa Fe businessman F. Gregg Bemis Junior.
Licensed by the Irish Government, which designated the Lusitania an underwater National Monument in 1985, it follows a number of previously unsuccessful dives.
Last month Bemis chartered the vessel Odyssey Explorer to map the debris field of the wreck. The 80-year-old millionaire was rewarded with High Definition video over a large percentage of the wreck.
It is expected to be used in an envisaged forthcoming TV documentary for the Discovery Channel.
The no-warning destruction of the Lusitania was widely seen as a war crime, taking the lives of two-thirds of those aboard.
While the ship was unarmed, she was carrying war materiel and was listed as an auxiliary cruiser on the Royal Navy list, meaning she could have been converted in time to the war effort.
To conserve coal, the Cunarder was not doing her top speed at any time off the voyage, and had slowed further to take a navigational fix on the Old Head of Kinsale when hit. More than 300 bodies were recovered, most of which are buried in three mass graves in Cobh, formerly Queenstown.
The incident was credited with speeding American entry into the Great War, which finally came about in 1917.
Captain William Thomas Turner was one of the 700-odd survivors of the tragedy, and soon thereafter further escaped a British Government attempt to saddle him with blame for the disaster.
In 2007 Mr Bemis was granted a five year licence by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government under the National Monuments Act to conduct a forensic examination of the wreck, subject to a number of conditions relating to archaeological matters.
Scientific analysis of the bullets will take place, although their innate original safety is unlikely to help Mr Bemis’s efforts to cast further light on the chain of events which led to the sinking.
Under the conditions of the licence the bullets, which are technically considered to be archaeological objects under the National Monuments Acts, were handed over to the Receiver of Wreck responsible for all such finds for the relevant stretch of Cork coastline.
This Revenue Service official is charged with seeking to establish ownership of such objects where possible. If no valid owner comes forward within a stated period the National Museum of Ireland may claim any such archaeological objects on behalf of the State.
The dive was monitored by members of the Department’s Underwater Archaeology Unit, a specialist unit of the National Monuments Service.
American-made Remington .303 cartridges were recovered this week [September 23, 2008] from inside the liner, torpedoed off the Old Head of Kinsale on May 7, 1915. They have been handed over to the Revenue Commissioners, the official Irish receiver of wreck.
The bullets were retrieved from the forward end of F Deck, in a place officially shown to be empty on the cargo stowage plan for the fateful final voyage.
The find may be the first tentative evidence that the British Government's eventual 'full disclosure' of the army supplies stacked aboard was not the complete truth.
While it was admitted after the sinking that the liner was carrying four million Remington bullets, controversy has raged over the cause of a devastating second explosion aboard, following the initial torpedo strike, which effectively sent the Lusitania to the bottom.
The German submarine U-20 fired only one torpedo — and was surprised to see giant vessel heel over and sink minutes after another detonation. Some survivors insisted the second explosion was much stronger than the first.
This week's detection of unlisted ammunition could strengthen claims that other secret munitions were on board — which in turn could explain the mystery of the eighteen-minute sinking.
A total of 1,198 passengers and crew died when the 30,000-ton liner went down twelve miles off the coast in afternoon sunshine. The later-admitted cargo plan included bullets of the type now raised, as well as unfilled shells, shrapnel and detonator caps.
But there was never any listing for explosives, such as volatile gun-cotton which reacts violently on contact with water. Instead there were mysterious crates of cheese and butter - consigned to an innocent-sounding firm which happened to share the same address as the Royal Navy experimental station in Shoeburyness.
Despite the area where the ammunition was found this week being designated empty, there was a evidence from a crew witness in March 1918 that the two forward sections of F deck had been filled with unknown cargo - a claim denied at the time.
Tuesday's recovery operation, using the remotely operated vehicle Zeus II, was led by Waterford diver Eoin McGarry on behalf of the wreck's recognised owner, Santa Fe businessman F. Gregg Bemis Junior.
Licensed by the Irish Government, which designated the Lusitania an underwater National Monument in 1985, it follows a number of previously unsuccessful dives.
Last month Bemis chartered the vessel Odyssey Explorer to map the debris field of the wreck. The 80-year-old millionaire was rewarded with High Definition video over a large percentage of the wreck.
It is expected to be used in an envisaged forthcoming TV documentary for the Discovery Channel.
The no-warning destruction of the Lusitania was widely seen as a war crime, taking the lives of two-thirds of those aboard.
While the ship was unarmed, she was carrying war materiel and was listed as an auxiliary cruiser on the Royal Navy list, meaning she could have been converted in time to the war effort.
To conserve coal, the Cunarder was not doing her top speed at any time off the voyage, and had slowed further to take a navigational fix on the Old Head of Kinsale when hit. More than 300 bodies were recovered, most of which are buried in three mass graves in Cobh, formerly Queenstown.
The incident was credited with speeding American entry into the Great War, which finally came about in 1917.
Captain William Thomas Turner was one of the 700-odd survivors of the tragedy, and soon thereafter further escaped a British Government attempt to saddle him with blame for the disaster.
In 2007 Mr Bemis was granted a five year licence by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government under the National Monuments Act to conduct a forensic examination of the wreck, subject to a number of conditions relating to archaeological matters.
Scientific analysis of the bullets will take place, although their innate original safety is unlikely to help Mr Bemis’s efforts to cast further light on the chain of events which led to the sinking.
Under the conditions of the licence the bullets, which are technically considered to be archaeological objects under the National Monuments Acts, were handed over to the Receiver of Wreck responsible for all such finds for the relevant stretch of Cork coastline.
This Revenue Service official is charged with seeking to establish ownership of such objects where possible. If no valid owner comes forward within a stated period the National Museum of Ireland may claim any such archaeological objects on behalf of the State.
The dive was monitored by members of the Department’s Underwater Archaeology Unit, a specialist unit of the National Monuments Service.
