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the film a more palatable name, The Birth of a Nation.
reduced the ship’s maximum speed by 16 percent,
to conserve energy but also delayed arrival by 1 day.
While diving, a U-boat was at its most vulnerable,
The buoyancy of seawater changed in accord with shifts in temperature and salinity.
Schwieger gave orders to ascend. Now came “the blind moment,” as commanders called it, that dismayingly long interval just before the periscope broke the surface.
“No ocean-going British merchant vessel is permitted to go to the assistance of a ship which has been torpedoed by a submarine.”
idea of subjecting passengers, many of them prominent souls in first class, to the hard and irregular turns of a zigzag course was beyond contemplation.
“The blowing up of a liner with American passengers may be the prelude,” the ambassador
said by us abassador to britain
Passengers drank and smoked. Both; a lot. This was a significant source of profit for Cunard.
The dominant topic of conversation, according to passenger Harold Smethurst, was “war, and submarines.”
“Rest Cure,” a period of forced inactivity lasting up to two months.
cure for depression in women
Charlotte Perkins Gilman published a popular short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” in which she attacked Mitchell’s rest cure.
French navy painted false wakes on the bows of its warships, in an effort to confuse the calculations of U-boat commanders.
60 percent of attempted torpedo firings resulted in failure.
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.
Churchill’s “energy and capacity for work were almost frightening,”
Admiralty now became quiescent, if not to say inattentive.
with churchill in paris and incompetent fisher in charge
Edith’s rejection caused Wilson great sorrow and left him feeling almost disoriented
Also aboard, according to the manifest, were 4,200 cases of Remington rifle ammunition, amounting to 170 tons.
to force us to join Allies
Churchill told Runciman: “For our part, we want the traffic—the more the better; and if some of it gets into trouble, better still.”
“It’s alright drilling your crew, but why don’t you drill your passengers?”
telltale hiss of air that fled the ship as water filled its hull. U-boat commanders always found this a satisfying moment.
releasing a cloud of black smoke and soot, known to U-boat commanders as “the black soul.” Schwieger
sought to bring the principles of scientific rigor to the investigation of paranormal phenomena.
like Edison
Washington Times reported on Wednesday evening that a German submarine, “running amok,” had sunk eleven unarmed fishing trawlers in the North Sea, off England. That night, however, Wilson’s attention was focused solely on Edith.
He set a new course for home. As far as he was concerned, this patrol was over.
The king turned to House at one point, and asked, “Suppose they should sink the Lusitania with American passengers aboard?”
At 2:10 P.M. Schwieger gave the order to fire.
Half the ship’s crew was still gathered in the luggage bay.
heard the cry, “Here is a torpedo coming.”
Hubbard joked that he probably would not be welcome in Germany, given a pamphlet he had written, entitled Who Lifted the Lid Off Hell?, in which he laid blame for the war on Kaiser Wilhelm.
torpedo itself was always well ahead of the track that appeared above.
The track lingered on the surface like a long pale scar. In maritime vernacular, this trail of fading disturbance, whether from ship or torpedo, was called a “dead wake.”
book title
The torpedo “was covered with a silvery phosphorescence, you might term it, which was caused by the air escaping from the motors.” He said, “It was a beautiful sight.” HAD THERE BEEN more time, had the idea of a torpedo attack against a civilian liner not seemed so incomprehensible, had submarine tactics and evasion stratagems been better understood, there would have been a chance—a tiny one—that Turner could have maneuvered the ship to lessen the damage or even avoid the torpedo altogether. He could have engaged the ship’s reverse turbines,
HOW PASSENGERS experienced the blast depended on where they were situated when it happened.
all jackets were stored in passengers’ rooms.
Parents were compelled to hunt for their children among the ever-growing crowds of passengers swarming the boat deck,
There was quiet,
nearly everyone around him had put the jackets on incorrectly. Cunard had not yet established a policy of having passengers try on life jackets at the start of a voyage.
“The Captain says the boat will not sink.”
many people who had been endeavoring to get a place in the boats, turn away in apparent contentment.”
least 70 portholes had been left open
scene was too horrible to watch, and I gave orders to dive to twenty meters, and away.”
schweigers words
strangely, there was also singing. First “Tipperary,” then “Rule, Britannia!” Next came “Abide with Me,”
