Munitions Found on Lusitania

[Guest]

My thanks again to Geoff Sullivan for this very interesting link. WFA Forum

Lusitania.net

27 page supplementary cargo manifest for the Lusitania's last voyage

http://www.lusitania...te Manifest.pdf

Mike

[TeeCeeCee]

I wasn’t quite sure what you were trying to say.

So you were mistaken when you inferred there was an error in my post?

[Simon Mills]

So you were mistaken when you inferred there was an error in my post?

No, I didn't understand what you were trying to say in your post no. 120. Where I disagreed with you was the emphasis of part of your post no. 115.

[TeeCeeCee]

No, I didn't understand what you were trying to say in your post no. 120. Where I disagreed with you was the emphasis of part of your post no. 115.

Oh so you disagreed with the 'emphasis'? Actually, you've said this:

"Yes, but the point is that they never actually entered service as AMCs and were released very soon after they had been requisitioned;"

And I've replied please show me where I've said Lusitania entered or sailed on war service. You disagreed with this 'fact' in my posts #115 and #120, not the 'emphasis' in them.

[Guest]

Centenary News 2/5/2014

Mike

[MikB]

Centenary News 2/5/2014

Mike

But the wreck's been searched again since 1982, and by someone who very much wanted to find munitions, without result. The article's a piece of spin, presenting 30+ year old speculation as fact.

The man who launched the torpedo neither knew nor cared about any of this.

Regards,

MikB

[Guest]

I don't doubt you Mik, just adding it to the mix.

Mike

[MikB]

I don't doubt you Mik, just adding it to the mix.

Mike

And there was me just finished reading the latest in the thread about WW1 spoons, worn at the edge from stirring...

Regards,

MikB

[NigelS]

Difficult to see the wood for the trees on this; articles have also been published in the Daily telegraph & Guardian on this recently see posts #5 & 6 Click

It seems from these articles that, although a trawl through old records by the MOD in 1982 had done nothing to prove that there was anything more than the small quantity of SAA & fuses on board accepted by the American court case of 1918, it was deemed prudent to warn the dive teams just in case there might be - better to play safe than be sorry when there might be further lives put at risk - least that's how I read the government's position in 1982, alternatively, of course, it could be they were being warned off to prevent "something startling" being discovered....

There still doesn't seem to be any concrete evidence that justifies the use of the headline 'Lusitania was carrying First World War explosives from New York when sunk in May 1915, British files reveal' used by centenarynews.com, though.

NigelS

[Guest]

Interesting lecture on 7th May (In Brussels I think) Click

Centenary News

Mike

[RodB]

This refuses to go away. Diana Preston in "A higher Form of Killing" [2015, p. 131] states of the alleged shrapnel shells on board that the ship's Supplemental Manifest described the shells as empty : powder, propellant charge and fuse were to be fitted in Britain. Also (page 285) : "A recent researcher [P O'Sullivan, The Lusitania, unravelling the Mysteries" p. 100] has shown that the individual shell weight of eighteen pounds derived from the manifest and other shipping documents was that of an unfilled shell - a filled one would have weighed twenty-two pounds.". Some confusion here between a manifest stating "18-pounder shrapnel shells" and the weight of the complete round ? She concludes there is no evidence of any filled munitions capable of exploding enough to sink the ship, and that the reported second explosion was a steam explosion, not ammo. Even if they were filled, I can't see filled 18-pounder cartridges and shrapnel shells going off with enough violence to sink a ship, in any quantity. This was't a battle-cruiser blowing up here, crammed with enourmous quantities of Cordite and lyddite and TNT.