Captain Turnera scapegoat

[Omar Khokhar]

I suspect that this is a question which only Eric Sauder can answer but maybe someone may be able to help.

I would like to know was Captain Turner made a innocent scapegoat for the Lusitania loss like authors such as Paddy O`Sullivan have suggested.

Or was he as Bailey and Ryan see him,grossly negligent?

Paddy O`sullivan suggests that the Admiralty wanted to cover up the fact that they knew of the existence of the U-boat in the waters into which the Lusitania was sailing i.e May 5th-sinking of the Earl of Latham. And in order to stop questions being asked as to why the Lusitania was not warned or given an escort etc, they decided to blame Turner for the sinking at the subsequent Mersey Inquiry by suggesting he ignored instructions to Zig Zag, stay away from headlands, to steer a mid-channel course and steam harbors at full speed etc. O`sullivan argues he din`t receive such instructions and was only given vague or general warnings.

Bailey and Ryan concentrate on Lord Mersey's Whitewash of Turner," viewing both hearings as a cover-up of negligence or irresponsibility on the part of the Admiralty.

Bailey and Ryan argue that Turner was lax and complacent in the face of repeated warnings of the presence of submarines. Even if Turner had not been violating his instructions to keep in midchannel, he certainly was ignoring those that related to giving a wide birth to headlands like the Old Head of Kinsale." Turner's justification for his course, the need to take a navigational fix. The four-point bearing on which Turner insisted took forty minutes; he could have used his sextant and some quick visual bearings to fix his position in five minutes.

I would like to know who is correct on this issue? Was Turner negligent in the way he navigated the lusitania? Was he aware of the various admiralty instruction, if so did he ignore them? Or was Turner a innocent scapegoat for the Admiralty

Any help would be appreciated

 

[Tom Pappas]

Turner acted negligently. So did the Admiralty. The latter may or may not have deliberately withheld intelligence to protect its secrets, but doing so doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why sacrifice ships to maintain the secrecy whereby you are protecting ships? It's not as if they were going to write off Coventry to keep Ultra secret or something[sup]1[/sup].

This has more holes in it than the Great Titanic Ship-Switch Conspiracy.

[sup]1[/sup]I never bought that explanation. In every other theater, when an enemy movement was discovered through an Enigma decrypt, they sent out a "random" patrol to "accidentally" detect the operation. I think (based upon my knowledge of how armed services function) someone's career was being protected.

 

[Dave Gittins]

I have to agree with Tom. The part I've never understood is why Turner wanted to do a four point fix. The method is not very accurate, as it depends on the accuracy of the course steered and the accuracy of the patent log. It's done by waiting until a landmark is four points off the bow. At that moment, read the log. When the landmark has passed through four points and is dead abeam, read the log again. The distance off the landmark is equal to the distance run.

Bad luck if there is a current.

As Ryan and Bailey say, there were other methods available, though this supposes Turner could see several landmarks. If he could, he could do a fix by cross bearings on three landmarks, using his standard compass. The reference to the sextant is not to celestial navigation but to taking what are called horizontal sextant angles between the landmarks. This is very practicable on a big ship. Even with only one landmark, he could have got a running fix, which would entail holding his course for much less than forty minutes.

Maybe it was a case of force of habit. Mersey blamed the wicked Germans, as was expected of him.

 

[Jesse D O'Neill]

I believe turner was a scapegoat. if you read carefully in bailys book you'll see that while Captain turner had instructions to zig zag, he was not told what type of zig zagging he was suppost to do. as in there there are different types of zig zagging ships do, mainly depending on how many ships there are in formation, the excercise, speed of ship, turning radius, and size (Gross Tonnage, Length, and Beam). paddy sullivans suggestion is also mentioned in other books Colin Simpson "The lusitania", Diana Preston "An epic tragedy, Wilful murder (published as 2 titles, same book), and from what ive heard Daniel butler also suggest this too.