Lusitania Sinking

The Lusitania was a luxury liner, the Cunard Line Liverpool-New York route sailed in 1907. It was the largest ship afloat at the time with seven decks. It has been estimated at more than two hundred thousand people to testify on her maiden voyage to differ gathered. They set out on their last trip to 1 May 1915, from Pier 54 in New York with some 1959 people on board. Their cargo was entered in the manifest as foodstuffs, metal rods, bars and rounds. She was about thirty miles from Cape Clear Iceland off the coast of County Cork, Ireland, when they encountered fog and had to reduce the speed and crossed the path of a German U-boat. The U-boat on the "Lusitania" fired and hit her under the bridge, then there was a much larger second explosion which caused the ship to list heavily to starboard. The ship's captain gave the order to abandon ship, but there were serious problems in the implementation of the rescue boats, out of 48 were started only six successfully. The Lusitania sank in less than twenty minutes, eight miles off the Old Head of Kinsale