Authors: Erik Larson
She touched on a peculiar aspect of life aboard such a large ship: you might meet someone who interested you in one way or another, but unless that person happened to be assigned to your table or your room, or occupied the deck chair next to yours, you had little opportunity to build a closer association. The ship was too big. Gertrude Adams, a passenger in second class traveling with her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, wrote later, “
There were so many on the ship that it really was like living in a town, one saw fresh people every day & never knew who they were.”
It was a mark of Prichard’s popularity that so many casual acquaintances remembered him at all.
I
N THE
EVENING
, select guests would be invited to sit at a table presided over by Staff Captain Anderson, or at Captain Turner’s table, on those occasions when Turner was willing to suppress his antipathy toward social engagement. As a rule, he preferred to take his meals in his cabin or on the bridge. He was particularly fond of chicken and during one meal drove his first officer nearly mad with his effort to gnaw every last morsel off a chicken leg.
E
ARLY ON
M
ONDAY MORNING
U-20
WAS SAILING THROUGH
a world of cobalt and cantaloupe. “
Very beautiful weather,” Schwieger noted, in a 4:00
A
.
M
. entry in his log. The boat was abreast of Sule Skerry, a small island west of the Orkneys with an 88-foot lighthouse, said to be the most remote and isolated light in the British Isles.
Schwieger sailed a southwesterly course. He saw no targets but also no threats and was able to stay on the surface the entire day. Toward nightfall, at 6:50
P
.
M
., he at last spotted a potential target, a steamer of about two thousand tons. It flew a Danish flag off its stern, but Schwieger’s war pilot, Lanz, believed the flag was a ruse, that the ship was in fact a British vessel out of Edinburgh. It was heading toward U-20. Schwieger ordered a fast dive, to periscope depth.
Now began the complex choreography that would determine whether he could add this ship to his personal tally of sunk tonnage. Men ran back and forth under the direction of the ship’s chief engineer, to help keep the boat level, as the helmsmen adjusted the horizontal and vertical planes. Schwieger raised and lowered the periscope at brief intervals to keep the steamer in sight but minimize the amount of time the periscope and its wake were visible on the surface.
With his rangefinder, Schwieger gauged the ship’s distance and speed.
Another indicator of velocity was the height to which water rose on the target’s bow. The higher and whiter, the faster. If this had been a French battleship, Schwieger would have had to watch especially closely, for the French navy painted false wakes on the bows of its warships, in an effort to confuse the calculations of U-boat commanders.
Schwieger had two kinds of torpedoes aboard—an old bronze model and the newest G6 torpedoes. The G6, or “gyro,” torpedo was bigger and more reliable, but Schwieger selected one of the bronze models, presumably in order to conserve the better torpedoes for more important targets, like the troop transports he would be hunting in Liverpool Bay. The crew armed it and flooded its launching tube, one of the two tubes in U-20’s bow. The boat had two others in its stern.
The men at the hydroplanes worked to keep the boat as steady and level as possible, lest the conning tower rise too high and betray the submarine’s presence, or the periscope sink below the surface and make aiming impossible.
The freighter approached, clearly unaware that U-20 was ahead. Schwieger positioned his boat at a right angle to the ship’s course and advanced slowly to maintain “steerage,” just enough forward motion to keep the hydroplanes and rudder engaged. The submarine was, in effect, a gun barrel and had to be pointed in the right direction at the time the torpedo was launched.
From the bow a crewman called, “Torpedo ready.”
T
ORPEDOES WERE
weapons of great power—when they worked. Schwieger distrusted them, and with good reason.
According to a German tally 60 percent of attempted torpedo firings resulted in failure. Torpedoes veered off course. They traveled too deep and passed under their targets. Their triggers broke; their warheads failed to explode.
Aiming them was an art. Through the restricted view afforded
by the periscope, a captain had to estimate the forward speed of the target, its course, and its distance away. He aimed not at the target itself but at a point well ahead, as if shooting skeet.
Stories of torpedo mishaps were rife among crews.
One U-boat experienced three torpedo failures in twenty-four hours. In the third of these, the torpedo turned unexpectedly and traveled in a circle back toward the boat, and nearly hit it.
Another submarine, UB-109, of a class used primarily for coastal patrols, tried launching an attack while surfaced. The first torpedo, fired from its stern, left the tube and immediately sank. The captain maneuvered the boat so that he could take another shot, this time from the bow. But, according to a British intelligence report, “This torpedo broke surface 5 or 6 times, described a complete circle, and also missed the target.”
Torpedoes were expensive, and heavy. Each cost up to $5,000—over $100,000 today—and weighed over three thousand pounds, twice the weight of a Ford Model T. Schwieger’s boat had room only for seven, two of which were to be held in reserve for the homeward voyage.
If the performance measured by the German navy were to hold true for Schwieger on this patrol, it would mean that if he fired all seven of his torpedoes, only three would succeed in striking a ship and exploding.
S
CHWIEGER
’
S
TARGET
—the presumed British ship, flying Danish colors—continued its approach. It was 300 meters away, the U-boat equivalent of point-blank range, when Schwieger gave the order to fire. The command was repeated throughout the boat.
What should have come next was a whoosh and a tremor as the torpedo left its tube, followed by a sudden, perceptible rise of the bow due to the lost weight, this immediately suppressed by the men at the hydroplanes.
But Schwieger heard nothing and felt nothing. There was only silence.
The torpedo never left the tube. A misfire—a locking mechanism had failed to release.
The target continued on its way into the safe, deep waters of the North Atlantic, its crew apparently unaware of how close they had come to disaster.
W
ILLIAM
M
ERIHEINA
,
OF
G
ENERAL
M
OTORS
: “T
UESDAY
—Resumption of games on deck today. Dandy sunshine weather.”
N
ELLIE
H
USTON
, thirty-one, second class, heading home to England: “
Tuesday: I didn’t write a letter each day you will notice. On Saturday night after I’d written to you I went to bed and had a fine night. I’ve got the top bunk and really I don’t know if I was supposed to be able to spring right into it but I tried and couldn’t so had to ring for the steward to bring me some steps. They seem to be short of everything so I had to wait quite a while. He tried to persuade me to jump in but I’m too heavy behind.”
J
ANE
M
AC
F
ARQUHAR
, of Stratford, Connecticut, traveling with her daughter, Grace, sixteen; second class: “
I think a happier company of passengers would be impossible to find. They were of all ages: a large number of babies in their mothers’ arms, children of various ages and men and women up to the age of seventy.
“Games were heartily enjoyed on the decks during the daytime and concerts were enjoyed in the evenings—sunshine and happiness making thoughts of danger almost impossible.”
C
HARLES
L
AURIAT
: “
As the days passed the passengers seemed to enjoy them more and more, and formed those acquaintances such as one does on an ocean crossing.”
D
OROTHY
C
ONNER
, twenty-five, of Medford, Oregon, in first class: “
I’d never seen a more uneventful or stupid voyage.”
O
N
T
UESDAY
, M
AY
4,
THE
A
DMIRALTY DECIDED IT
could no longer hold the HMS
Orion
at Devonport but took precautions to make sure the superdreadnought made it safely to the fleet’s base at Scapa Flow.
Admiral Oliver ordered the ship to depart that night, under cover of darkness, and gave strict instructions that it sail 50 miles west past the Scilly Islands before turning north and then keep at least 100 miles out to sea for the remainder of the voyage up the Irish coast. He also assigned four destroyers—HMS
Laertes
,
Moorsom
,
Myngs
, and
Boyne
—to provide an escort until the
Orion
reached deep ocean.
A succession of reports to the Admiralty provided a step-by-step account of the
Orion
’s progress, including changes in speed. It was the most closely watched ship on the high seas.
The Admiralty’s telegraphic records show no reference made at all to the
Lusitania
, by now four days into its voyage and halfway across the Atlantic.
I
N
L
ONDON
, at the Admiralty’s War Room, messages arrived reporting fresh submarine sightings and new attacks.
On the morning of Sunday, May 2, a French ship, the
Europe
, was torpedoed and sunk off the Scillies. A lighthouse keeper elsewhere reported
spotting a “steamer chased by submarine.” An Admiralty collier, the
Fulgent
, was torpedoed off the Skelling Rocks west of Ireland; nine members of its crew were rescued and landed at Galway on Monday evening. Early on the morning of Tuesday, May 4, an observer reported spotting a submarine on the surface northwest of Frenchman’s Rock in the Scillies. He watched it move east, then dive. That same morning, at 3:15
A
.
M
., a coast watcher reported a “
large sheet of flame” rising from the sea off County Mayo.
But in Room 40, Commander Hope and his code breakers heard nothing new from Kptlt. Walther Schwieger. The submarine was too far from Germany to attempt wireless communication. Room 40 could only presume that Schwieger was still on his way to his patrol zone in the Irish Sea.
It was a curious moment in the history of naval warfare. Room 40 knew a U-boat was heading south to Liverpool—knew the boat’s history; knew that it was now somewhere in the North Atlantic under orders to sink troop transports and any other British vessel it encountered; and knew as well that the submarine was armed with enough shells and torpedoes to sink a dozen ships. It was like knowing that a particular killer was loose on the streets of London, armed with a particular weapon, and certain to strike in a particular neighborhood within the next few days, the only unknown being exactly when.
The quiet meant nothing. At some point U-20 would make its presence known.
A
T
7:40
P
.
M
., T
UESDAY
, S
CHWIEGER AT LAST SIGHTED
the coast of Ireland. A lighthouse lay on the horizon, barely visible in the rising mist.
The day had been a disappointment. Strong swells had made the going uncomfortable for the crew below, and Schwieger had found no targets worthy of attack. An armed trawler briefly had come into view, but he realized its draft was so shallow that a torpedo would likely run underneath its keel. Visibility had been poor for most of the day, though by evening it improved to the point where he could see distant objects. The gathering haze, however, foretold a night of fog.
Fifteen minutes later, a steamship appeared, heading in U-20’s direction. It was still far off but looked to be a vessel of significant tonnage. Schwieger ordered a dive to periscope depth and prepared his attack. He placed U-20 at a 90-degree angle to the ship’s course, to set up what he called a “clean bow shot,” and once again selected a bronze torpedo.
As the ship approached, however, it seemed to shrink in size. Something about the fading light and mist had produced an optical illusion that made the vessel at first look large, but the closer it got, the smaller it got. Schwieger estimated its tonnage at a mere 1,500 tons. Still, it was something. He maneuvered so that when
the ship’s course intersected his, he would be just 300 meters away. The target was still a mile off.
And then, as he watched through the periscope, the ship sheered from its course. At that distance, there was no chance for him to catch up.
Even in the spare prose of his log, Schwieger’s frustration was evident. “It was impossible that the steamer could have seen us,” he wrote. He identified the ship as a Swedish vessel, the
Hibernia
, “with neutral signs, without flag.”
Schwieger brought U-20 back to the surface, and continued south, through a night he described as being exceptionally dark.
O
N THAT
W
EDNESDAY
, M
AY
5, B
RITAIN
’
S TOP NAVAL
official, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, left London for Paris. He could do so with relative safety because a combination of protective measures—sea mines and submarine nets at the eastern end of the English Channel and heavy patrols along its length—had made the channel too dangerous for submarines to traverse on a routine basis. Although Churchill traveled incognito and checked into his hotel under a false name, there was little mystery about his visit. He was to meet with Italian and French officials to determine how the Italian navy should be used in the Mediterranean Sea, now that Italy—on April 26—had joined the war on the side of Britain, France, and Russia. Afterward, as he had done on previous occasions, Churchill planned to travel to the front to spend time with Field Marshal Sir John French—Sir John Denton Pinkstone French—commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France.