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Remembered Today:

Lusitania


kenneth505

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Healdav;

You are entirely right. I read the "Belgian officer" bit 20 years ago, I don't remember if the book actually said where he was going; and then I think I had a lapse back to the Titantic, which is fairly interchangeable with the Lusitania, I think. Since he sued about losing his household effects, it would seem that he was moving somewhere, although it is curious that he seemed to be moving from the US to Europe. It is daylight, and perhaps I can make it to my old office without an utter disaster. (I just looked at another house an hour ago, I may bid on it tomorrow; a good way to deal with my clutter would be to simply move away from it.)

Simon;

Almost entirely in agreement with your useful observations.

Hang on; I will attempt a mad dash for the old office, which I abandoned about 12 years ago.

Well, I actually made it to the Zone of Death, and unfortunately, for the first time, I did not find the damned book when I wanted to, and about 20 minutes of searching did not resolve the problem. My wife works in a library of 8 million volumes, and they are suggesting that I return some of the 30 odd books I have had out for 4 or 5 years, using her precious faculty loan privileges, so a major book search is in order. Have already found one book missing for quite a while. I also have a shelf of nautical books in my living room, mostly "Patrick O'Brians", so I will give that a peek.

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The debate over the sinking of the Lusitania will go on but what highlights the German ineptitude at managing world opinion and politics is the casting of Goetz' original commemorative medal . The Germans may have had the best army in 1915 but had a lot to learn in the more gentler ways of influence and propaganda from the British.

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Steve:

Absolutely correct. The British were usually masters of opinion, deception, etc., while the Germans were usually clumsy in those areas. WW I was, in my opinion, basically a squabble between cousins, and the separation on moral issues was paper-thin, but the Brits handled these issues very well, which was absolutely vital, as US material aid but in particular financial aid was vital. I have heard that without US $$s the French economy would have collapsed, I don't know the details.

But the British have, sometimes, pulled off masterly opinion/intelligence operations that required the sacrifice of innocent lives, for the greater good. That is why I do not have good info about the truth of the book in question's assertions, but I would not reflexively reject it out of hand, although it also is necessary to be skeptical and critical about such dramatic assertions. I have a good example of such an operation, which necessitated the torture and then death of a number of fine British young women. in order to plant false information with the Germans, but from WW II.

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Guest exuser1

Steve:

Absolutely correct. The British were usually masters of opinion, deception, etc., while the Germans were usually clumsy in those areas. WW I was, in my opinion, basically a squabble between cousins, and the separation on moral issues was paper-thin, but the Brits handled these issues very well, which was absolutely vital, as US material aid but in particular financial aid was vital. I have heard that without US $$s the French economy would have collapsed, I don't know the details.

But the British have, sometimes, pulled off masterly opinion/intelligence operations that required the sacrifice of innocent lives, for the greater good. That is why I do not have good info about the truth of the book in question's assertions, but I would not reflexively reject it out of hand, although it also is necessary to be skeptical and critical about such dramatic assertions. I have a good example of such an operation, which necessitated the torture and then death of a number of fine British young women. in order to plant false information with the Germans, but from WW II.

The winners in the Great War was the American companies and financial houses who sold war material and lent the money , not forgetting the 1000s of American share holders , if the Allies lost then America was in financial trouble so ultimately "Money talks America Walks " as to the Lusitania a chapter in a nasty war ,but like the Titanic makes good press and copy .
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But the British have, sometimes, pulled off masterly opinion/intelligence operations that required the sacrifice of innocent lives, for the greater good.

Just as I am sure that every other nation has done in the past but none of this is particularly relevant to this particular thread...

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Also that the ship was formally an auxiliary cruiser of the Royal Navy which had an armament of 6" guns, which were below decks when in port, and taken out and bolted to mounts when at sea. Claimed that the RN dove on the ship many times between the wars and cut that evidence away.

The Discovery channel repeats those 'Treasue Quest' programs, the ship is Oddessy Explorer.

The last one I seen of them was with the 'owner' onboard as they film thr wreck with tethered submersibles. That program reckons the hull is fine, it's the superstructure that's been largely destroyed... they even film a un-exploded Hedgehog mortar amoung the wreckage. Who fired the hedgehogs? the comentary reports shoreside talk of it being the RN in the early 50s for some nefarious reason, while someone had it that it was the Irish Navy practicing their A/S role.

But the clips they display of the s/structure wreckage shows windows out of it, the bridge compass is amoung the junk as is chain from the accom ladder. In other words, it looks a big mess.

It revealed a passanger is rumoured to had had 'old master' paintings aboard sealed in lead tubes. When a diver reported seeing 'tubes', a judge slapped a ban on all diving. I believe the 'owner' was there with OO to try to film coverage that would further his goals. Indeed while they were over it an Irish naval warship come up and put men aboard OE to see what they were up to.

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Guest exuser1

On the discovery of 1950s Hedgehogs , that is not part of a conspiracy plot as its not unusual that in the not to distant past navies have used old wrecks as target practice , the USS Monitor was used as such up until the late 1940s .

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On the discovery of 1950s Hedgehogs , that is not part of a conspiracy plot as its not unusual that in the not to distant past navies have used old wrecks as target practice , the USS Monitor was used as such up until the late 1940s .

Isn't the conspiracy theory that the RN used the above munitions to hide, obliterate or to remove or hinder access to something which shouldn't have been there?

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Isn't the conspiracy theory that the RN used the above munitions to hide, obliterate or to remove or hinder access to something which shouldn't have been there?

If I recall the Timewatch documentary from the early 1990s? one argument was that when the wreck was first dived by divers using aqua lung in the 1950s , there was a famous Irish diver who dived the wreck taking extreme risk with the equipment then available ,he stated that he was not the first to have visited the site as there was evidence that she had been dived and explosives used to enter the wreck , next stop was only people able to do this was RN ? So must have been cover up and conspiracy ? Rather than when the Hedgehog were discovered that the RN had been using the wreck for a bit of target practice which was a practice carried out by various navies .
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The ships in Scapa Flow have all been robbed by private divers. Unless it was the RN trying to cover up thatthey sank the whole fleet by torpedo.

It is an unfortunate fact that there are many people out there who will dive on, dig into, steal, pretty well anything. It would have been amazing if they had not got down to the Lusitania, which isn't very deep.

I have a friend who got on her bike outside her home, and rode off. Seconds later, a lorry went past with a rope swinging from the side. It knocked her off and might have killed her (she wasn't seriously injured). I've said many times that it seems very suspicious to me. Then she got on her bike, and immediately a lorry appears from nowhere and just happens to have a loose rope, which just happens to knock her off her bike.

Very suspicious to me.

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Guest exuser1

The world of wreck diving in the past had a very murky past , seen by some as destroyers of valuable archeology ,and even desecrators of grave sites for monetary gain ,even the HMS Edinburgh dive to recover gold ended in criminal investigations , it's much easier to shout conspiracy and cover up than look those nasty diver types have pillaged the wreck ? Look at the issue surrounding the HMS Hampshire propeller , back to the Lusitania the pocket watches removed from the wreck were advertised and sold by a well known Southampton dealer and used in a famous Antiques year book estimate £14 each take your pick !

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  • 1 month later...
  • 6 months later...

I just came across this edition (totally by accident) of Life magazine from the 13th of October 1972 which mentions a lot of Bob Lembke's points.

http://books.google.ie/books?id=yFYEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true

Added interest is the interspersion of cigarette and obscure whiskey ads!

Dave

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Dave, thanks for pointing this out. This should be made a set book to all the dangerous "half experts and myth believers" roaming around and who think that the British Admiralty was an innocent orphanage and the sinking of Lusitania was illegal. The whole matter was a total sting operation

Report starts at page 59.

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If you have the time this is quite an interesting and detailed analysis of Colin Simpson's book:

http://www.gwpda.org/naval/lusika00.htm

That seems to dismiss the conspiracy theory quite well - it always was a Byzantine piece of logic to suggest that such a stratagem was credible as a deliberate attempt to bring the US in, with so many potential failure points and such severe consequences of public discovery that its application defies rational belief.

None of the arguments about secret gun fits cut much ice either. As well as being fantastically elaborate in themselves, Schwieger (as seems to need pointing out repeatedly) didn't even know what ship he'd attacked, so couldn't deploy such allegations in his defence even if they were true.

Regards,

MikB

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MikB, according to the quoted report, he knew he torpedoed either Lusitania or Mauritania. He knew as well that the Lusitania was misused to transport contraband since the break-out of the war, and he knew that the ship was still listed as Auxiliary Cruiser in the Admiralty list. Nobody should think seriously that the German intelligence was sleeping from August 1914 until the sinking 1915 with regards to all the facts of Lusitania.

The gun fittings were of no significance, more important was the "secret" dry docking of L. to fit her with ammo storage rooms and respective ammo- elevators to serve the guns that could be installed at any time within hours.

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I'm not so sure about that...

Walter Schwieger's own account of the event actually indicates pretty clearly that he didn't know it was the Lusitania until he saw the brass letters on the ship's foc'sle as she was sinking. As to the armaments, there's no evidence that he had any idea what lay in the steamer's holds. According to his own war diary all he saw at 2.20 p.m. on 7th May 1915 was a vessel which he identified as a four-funnelled passenger steamer and which then conveniently altered course so allowing the U20 to take up an attacking position and fire a single torpedo fifty minutes later.

As to Lusitania's cargo, it was by no means a secret that any civilian vessel was allowed to carry non-combustible munitions provided it was shipped according to the existing American safety regulations. No one denies that Lusitania carried .303 cartridges or fuses (not even the British) but this was permissible under the American regulations of the time. A year and a day later the White Star liner Cymric was also torpedoed (curiously enough also by Schweiger in the U20). British Cabinet papers from 1916 acknowledge the fact that she carried munitions and war supplies, although in this case there were no passengers on board. Even so it was acknowledged that like any other American company the New York agents employed by the Admiralty who oversaw the departure of the Cymric (Lunham & Moore) might have had employees of German descent. Because of this the British reluctantly accepted that from time to time sensitive information regarding certain cargos would inevitably find its way into the wrong hands.

Even so there is nothing to suggest that Schwieger knew for sure what ship he was firing at or what cargo she might have been carrying. As I recall the U20 was low on oil, down to her last two torpedoes and actually en route back to Wilhelmshaven at the time of the sinking, and while Schwieger may have speculated that there might have been munitions on board the vessel in his sights, it could be no more than a guess. Howvever he did know that he was firing at a passenger syteamer and had he given the passengers time to escape before attacking then I think it's fair to say that the Lusitania could have been regarded as a legitimate target; instead his decision was to fire without warning and by choosing not to follow the established cruiser/prize rules in force at the time (even if the advent of the submarine warfare had made them largely redundant) the longer term consequences for Germany would be far more significant.

As to the "secret" dry docking, hmmm...

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Simon, sadly you post without having read the above quoted facts from LIVE, and thus stick to the old myth scheme.

Please do read fully before posting. Again- Schwieger did not know which ship he torpedoed, the Lusitania OR Mauretania! He knew very well it is either one of the 2 four-funnel ships!

L's. notorious contraband cargo runs as a listed auxiliary cruiser under false flag were known to the German Naval Intelligence since the outbreak of war (as was the secret dry docking of L. to outfit her with ammo storage rooms, ammo-elevators to the foreseen gun emplacements and the respective gunfittings) and must have been known to all U-Boot captains, to include the submarines officer staffs, in their mandatory intelligence briefings before leaving harbour for any operational combat tour.

If you read the facts, the L. was entering a German Navy declared war zone (kill zone) which has been made known to all belligerents and neutral powers who sail to and from the UK. All ships within this kill zone were subject to sinking without warning. The old start-of-war-procedure of stopping , searching etc was already a fairy tale by 1915!

Despite this, Schwiegers intend was to allow crew and pax to abondon ship by firing only one torpedo. One torpedo hit only does not bring such a massive liner with watertight segments down in some minutes. It was the mysterious second explosion that sealed her fate superfast.

Besides Schwieger, do you have any comments on the British Admiralty's lyings, cover ups of the documented actions/non actions?

P.S. While reading "The Sleepwalkers" , I am not astonished anymore upon the sting ops of the British Admiralty and its 1st Sea Lord and Churchill w/r to the L.

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Egbert:

I actually recall seeing the Life article some years ago as I often find myself in the company of friends and colleagues with a specific interest in researching passenger liners, both in peace and war. Sadly I have to say that in my experience most of the experts who have pursued this particular line of research are more dubious about much of the content of Colin Simpson's book, which by the way I also read some years ago. They have to acknowledge that it exists and that it makes certain claims, but a lot of additional research has been carried out since it was published in 1972 and just because excerpts were published in Life magazine doesn't make it any more believable. Stern magazine had much the same problem when they published the Hitler diaries in 1983, only that particular story fell apart far more quickly...

Conspiracy theories are fine for the mass media and they usually guarantee great headlines which will impact very positively on a publisher's sales figures, just like the conspiracy books regarding the Titanic and Olympic being clandestinely swapped as part of an insurance scam. I have also been researching the HMHS Britannic for a couple of millennia and over the years have conclusively proved that all the original claims of secret name changes, clandestine cargos, an illegal torpedo attack, the wreck being deliberately misplaced and secret Admiralty files have turned out to be little more than speculation. I know this because we have trawled through countless archival documents (company, private and official) and coordinated numerous dives to the wreck site -- in a location confirmed by the original UK and German records, so it wasn't deliberately misplaced after all. Furthermore we have found no evidence whatsoever of any illegal weapons in any of the cargo holds -- not even a single bullet! In fact all of the cargo holds were empty!

I am comparing Britannic to the Lusitania because each ship is as much a victim of the various propaganda issues as the other, and you will always find someone who wants to believe a conspiracy theory. All I can say is that in my experience the conspiracy "evidence" usually falls short when subjected to closer scrutiny and unfortunately I haven't yet seen any source documentation yet that will persuade me that the Lusitania controversy is any different in that respect.

It is for this reason that I do have doubts about many (although not all) of the claims made in Colin Simpson's book. It has been a while since I read it so I am not in a position to list every single point in detail, but based on my own experience of trawling through Admiralty records (and it is pretty extensive) I would say that the case put by Mr. Simpson is far from proven.

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Egbert:

I actually recall seeing the Life article some years ago as I often find myself in the company of friends and colleagues with a specific interest in researching passenger liners, both in peace and war. Sadly I have to say that in my experience most of the experts who have pursued this particular line of research are more dubious about much of the content of Colin Simpson's book, which by the way I also read some years ago. They have to acknowledge that it exists and that it makes certain claims, but a lot of additional research has been carried out since it was published in 1972 and just because excerpts were published in Life magazine doesn't make it any more believable. Stern magazine had much the same problem when they published the Hitler diaries in 1983, only that particular story fell apart far more quickly...

Conspiracy theories are fine for the mass media and they usually guarantee great headlines which will impact very positively on a publisher's sales figures, just like the conspiracy books regarding the Titanic and Olympic being clandestinely swapped as part of an insurance scam. I have also been researching the HMHS Britannic for a couple of millennia and over the years have conclusively proved that all the original claims of secret name changes, clandestine cargos, an illegal torpedo attack, the wreck being deliberately misplaced and secret Admiralty files have turned out to be little more than speculation. I know this because we have trawled through countless archival documents (company, private and official) and coordinated numerous dives to the wreck site -- in a location confirmed by the original UK and German records, so it wasn't deliberately misplaced after all. Furthermore we have found no evidence whatsoever of any illegal weapons in any of the cargo holds -- not even a single bullet! In fact all of the cargo holds were empty!

I am comparing Britannic to the Lusitania because each ship is as much a victim of the various propaganda issues as the other, and you will always find someone who wants to believe a conspiracy theory. All I can say is that in my experience the conspiracy "evidence" usually falls short when subjected to closer scrutiny and unfortunately I haven't yet seen any source documentation yet that will persuade me that the Lusitania controversy is any different in that respect.

It is for this reason that I do have doubts about many (although not all) of the claims made in Colin Simpson's book. It has been a while since I read it so I am not in a position to list every single point in detail, but based on my own experience of trawling through Admiralty records (and it is pretty extensive) I would say that the case put by Mr. Simpson is far from proven.

And thus on page 3 Godwins Law was invoked. :thumbsup:

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And thus on page 3 Godwins Law was invoked. :thumbsup:

Hmmm, I like that analogy, and the interesting thing is that Mike Godwin is probably right. ;)

Even so, to prove that I don't have a Nazi fixation aother analogy might be the publication of the Piltdown Man investigation. Sadly the British scientific world will never live that one down...

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I think it is too late, according to rule you loose.

"Often, an example of Godwin's Rule accompanies hyperbole. The idea is to invalidate the opposition by comparing it to the Nazi Party. However, this can backfire, and usually does. Unless the comparison is valid, the person who brought up Nazis or Hitler is considered to be the loser. In a rational discussion or debate on or off the Internet, resorting to a Nazi comparison is generally a strong indicator that you have run out of material to discuss or support your claims.

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