Authors: Greg King
An anxious Sidney Witherbee had rushed to the pier to make one last plea to his brother’s family. Wealthy Alfred Witherbee, president of the Mexican Petroleum Solid Fuel Company, waited for his lovely young wife, Beatrice, their nearly four-year-old son, Alfred Jr., and his mother-in-law, Mary Brown, to join him at their new home in London. Vivacious Beatrice, called “Trixie,” had hurriedly packed up clothing, furs, jewels, silver, porcelain, and linens—a mountain of belongings bound for
Lusitania
’s cargo holds. The previous night, Sidney had implored Beatrice to take another liner; now, having just read the German notice, he tried again. Beatrice dismissed his concerns:
Lusitania
was faster than any other ship, and the idea of some submarine successfully attacking her seemed so unlikely.
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Immensely wealthy Mary Hammond, too, refused to let the warning dampen the impending voyage: with her husband, Ogden, she would celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary aboard
Lusitania
. Ogden worried:
Lusitania
was a British ship, heading into a declared war zone—it somehow seemed foolish to sail aboard her when they could travel on a truly neutral American liner. He had even more cause to worry as they headed toward the ship that morning. A few days earlier, Mary’s aunt had given the couple some stunning news. Count von Bernstorff happened to be a friend; hearing that the Hammonds were to sail to Europe, he had apparently warned her aunt, “Do not let anyone you know get on the
Lusitania
.” Mary thought it was a joke, but Ogden took the warning seriously enough to ask an official at Cunard Line’s New York office about the potential danger.
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Traveling aboard
Lusitania,
he was assured, was “perfectly safe, safer than the trolley cars.”
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Ogden wasn’t convinced: together with his brother, John, he tried his best to change his wife’s mind. If Mary insisted, John said, at least she should have a will: she was a millionaire, with three young children, Mary, Millicent, and Ogden Jr. And so that Saturday morning, John came aboard
Lusitania,
presenting Mary with a hastily drawn-up document to sign before the ship sailed.
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Mary dismissed the warnings; so, too, did others. A few days earlier, two British cotton dealers working in Texas had boarded a train bound for New York: bulky Robert Timmis was delighted that his friend and fellow dealer Ralph Moodie would also be sailing on
Lusitania
. A few years earlier, Timmis had been blinded in one eye, but nothing could keep him from his annual trip to Europe. Now, he jokingly told his wife, “We may be torpedoed on this trip, but don’t worry. If we should be, we probably will be near the Irish coast.” Even when he saw the German notice that Saturday morning, Timmis maintained an air of jovial dismissal. “We thought little about it at the time,” he recalled, convinced that he was embarking on “just another journey.”
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Canadian Thomas Home was glad that he’d woken early: “Never before,” he wrote, “have I seen so much crowd and so much baggage.”
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The buyer for a Toronto department store had just missed being on
Titanic
three years earlier.
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Now he shuffled along the pier under the watchful eyes of Cunard officials who examined tickets; this, he knew, was unusual—and not a reassuring sign, especially in light of the German notice.
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Mountains of leather valises and wicker cases, steamer trunks and hatboxes, arrived throughout the morning. They contained all the worldly belongings of some passengers, setting off to embark upon new lives in the Old World; many more, though, were filled with a wide range of clothing and accessories necessary to maintain the sartorial traditions and comforts of First Class. Trunks ticketed “Not Wanted” were separated and hoisted into the cargo holds, while stewards supervised as those needed during the voyage were taken to cabins.
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These trunks and suitcases were a source of potential worry. Would a German spy or saboteur conceal some infernal machine amongst stockings or handkerchiefs? Security this May 1 was especially tight. Detectives checked papers and tickets before allowing passengers to approach the ship; luggage had to be personally claimed and identified before it was loaded, and all handbags, packages, and parcels were searched. Officials waiting at the foot of gangways double-checked tickets and papers before allowing passengers aboard.
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Yet such measures were apparently haphazardly enforced. Forty-seven-year-old former deputy sheriff Michael Byrne, off to visit relatives in Ireland, arrived at the pier with his German-born wife and several friends, a large steamer trunk, two suitcases, and an umbrella bag. “No officer or anyone else questioned me or asked about my baggage,” he recalled. Nor did anyone stop his wife and friends from following him aboard to inspect the ship.
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Charles Lauriat was equally surprised when two members of his family, who had come to see him off, were also allowed to join him aboard the ship without any questions being asked.
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Crews cranked newsreel cameras as passengers shuffled along the pier; a few photographers, noting the German warning, joked that they were going to entitle their images “The
Lusitania
’s last voyage.”
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Charles Sumner, general agent for the Cunard Line in New York, seemed equally lighthearted. There was, he insisted, “no risk whatsoever” by sailing aboard
Lusitania
.
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The ship, he promised, could make 25 knots; this was “too fast for any submarine. No German vessel of war can get near her.”
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As for the notice, Sumner—pointing at the lines of passengers—laughingly said, “You can see how it has affected the public.”
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High on the liner’s gently curved bridge, Captain William Turner surveyed the last-minute preparations. He dismissed worries that his ship might be in danger heading into a war zone patrolled by German U-boats as “the best joke I’ve heard in many days.”
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Turner was cavalier when questioned about the German notice and potential danger: “I wonder what the Germans will do next?” he mused. “Well, it doesn’t seem as if they have scared many people from going on the ship by the looks of the pier and passenger list.”
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Lusitania,
he insisted, was entirely safe. “Do you think all these people would be booking passage on board
Lusitania
if they thought she could be caught by a German submarine?” he asked reporters. “Germany can concentrate her entire fleet of submarines on our track and we would elude them.” Besides, he added, “we shall be going faster than any submarine can travel; therefore, they are not likely to sneak up on us.”
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As the crew bustled over the liner’s decks preparing for the voyage, a few of the more superstitiously minded whispered a piece of ominous news: Dowie, the ship’s four-year-old black cat and unofficial mascot, had disappeared the previous night, and no one had seen him since.
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Lusitania
had been scheduled to sail at ten that morning. On this voyage, she would carry the largest number of passengers since the beginning of hostilities.
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Some were off to join the fighting in Europe; others were hoping to join relief efforts, or traveling to reunite with loved ones who were destined for the battlefield. But surprisingly, and considering the state of war and the risks of traveling through an area patrolled by hostile U-boats, many passengers sailed aboard
Lusitania
for holidays and family reunions.
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Following custom, the 373 Third Class passengers had begun forward boarding first, just after seven.
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“This is not, as has been unkindly suggested,” a guidebook warned, “because they only pay low fares, but because there are so many of them, because the number of children in that class is proportionately greater than in any other, and because sufficient time must be allowed for them to settle down before the voyage begins.”
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An hour later, the 601 Second Class passengers embarked, climbing gangplanks at the rear of the vessel. Helpful stewards examined tickets and directed people down decks and along corridors to their cabins.
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The 290 passengers traveling in First, or Saloon, Class began arriving shortly before nine.
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This, as one contemporary noted, “is a more ceremonious affair, for they sometimes include persons of title, holders of high naval or military rank, colonial governors, millionaires, and even members of reigning families. Their arrival is interesting because there is about it a survival of the etiquette of the sailing-ship days, when the owners of the ships saw personally to their departure and were always careful to escort any exalted personages to the ship’s side and present them to the captain.” They disappeared into the pier building, temporarily shielded from clicking cameras as they presented papers and steadily neared the open doors at the side. Emerging into the light of day, they climbed narrow gangways above the dark Hudson that seemed to vibrate ominously with every tread. Once they had entered the hull of the vessel, crisply uniformed officers waited in the First Class Entrance Hall, decorously welcoming these ladies and gentlemen aboard the great
Lusitania
.
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“Such last minute excitement!” was how an earlier traveler described the scene aboard
Lusitania
. “All was confusion—stewards and stewardesses guiding passengers with their suitcases to their staterooms, lifts going up and down, bustle, noise, and hurrying everywhere.”
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Stewards rushed along corridors, bearing an assortment of farewell gifts sent on by friends and relatives of those sailing that morning. There were immense bouquets of flowers; bottles of fine wine and vintage champagne; carefully wrapped boxes of candy or hothouse fruits; packages of books; collections of teas from around the world; decorative tins of delicacies like caviar or exotic tropical jams; and a multitude of cards and letters wishing travelers a memorable voyage.
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More than a few passengers clustered in
Lusitania
’s Reading and Writing Room that morning. Architect and spiritualist Theodate Pope sat there with her traveling companion, Edwin Friend, browsing through the newspaper, when she spotted the German notice. “That means, of course, that they intend to get us,” she commented.
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Others penned farewell notes and letters to friends and relatives, to be sent off the ship when the pilot departed: these were the people who, as Lady Mackworth thought, were “fully conscious of the risk we were running.”
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Elaine Knight, traveling with her brother Charles, wrote out an eerie postcard to her niece: “I am mailing you this card just as we are going on board the
Lusitania
. Will write as soon as we reach the other side, if I am still alive.”
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There was an unexpected delay that morning, when word came that the British Admiralty had abruptly requisitioned
Cameronia,
a smaller liner that was to sail from New York to Glasgow, to use as a troop transport. Forty-one of her passengers and their baggage were transferred to
Lusitania
.
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The delay, Oliver Bernard noted, created some tension as people again worried over safety, though
Cameronia
’s former passengers were “obviously delighted” to find themselves aboard “a faster, and therefore safer, ship.”
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In all, 1,264 passengers sailed on
Lusitania,
less than half of her actual capacity; with a crew of 702, which included the ship’s five musicians, this brought the total to 1,966. By noon, morning rain gave way to patches of sunshine, as a boy wandered over the ship shouting, “All ashore that’s going ashore!”
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Passengers lined
Lusitania
’s decks, shouting farewells and waving handkerchiefs to onlookers below. “It was almost like a personal triumph,” a previous passenger remembered, “to be one of those who stood at the rail, looking down.… You were a part of the ship itself, although you were hardly more than a pinhead along the great expanse of deck rail.”
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An “eager, restless movement of the throng” aboard ship always marked such departures. Writer Theodore Dreiser likened the experience to “the lobby of one of the great New York hotels at dinnertime” as people scampered and scrambled.
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