World's War Events Volume I Part 31

The precaution of extra lookouts resulted in a prompt report to the Captain, via the bridge, of the sighting of the torpedo. Second Officer Heppert, who was on the bridge, immediately closed all watertight doors worked from the bridge, and the testimony satisfactorily shows that all watertight doors worked by hand were promptly closed. Immediately after Captain Turner saw the wake of the torpedo there was an explosion and then Turner went to the navigation bridge and took the obvious course, i. e., had the ship's head turned to the land. He signaled the engine room for full speed astern, hoping thereby to take the way off the ship, and then ordered the boats lowered down to the rail and directed that women and children should be first provided for in the boats. As the engine room failed to respond to the order to go full speed astern, and as the ship was continuing under way, Turner ordered that the boats should not be lowered until the vessel should lose her headway, and he told Anderson, the Staff Captain, who was in charge of the port boats, to lower the boats when he thought the way was sufficiently off to allow that operation. Anderson's fidelity to duty is sufficiently exemplified by the fact that he went down with the ship.

[Sidenote: The officers display courage and skill.]

Jones, First Officer, and Lewis, Acting Third Officer, were in charge of the boats on the starboard side and personally superintended their handling and launching. Too much cannot be said both for their courage and skill, but, difficult as was their task, they were not confronted with some of the problems which the port side presented. There, in addition to Anderson, were Bestic, Junior Third Officer, and another officer, presumably the Second Officer. These men were apparently doing the best they could and standing valiantly to their duty. Anderson's fate has already been mentioned, and Bestic, although surviving, stuck to his post until the ship went down under him. The situation can readily be pictured even by a novice.

With the ship listed to starboard, the port boats, of course, swung inboard. If enough man power were applied, the boats could be put over the rail, but then a real danger would follow. Robertson, the ship's carpenter, aptly described that danger in answer to a question as to whether it was possible to lower the open boats on the port side. He said:

[Sidenote: Port boats could not be lowered.]

"No. To lower the port boats would just be like drawing a crate of unpacked china along a dock road. What I mean is that if you started to lower the boats you would be dragging them down the rough side of the ship on rivets which are what we call "snap-headed rivets"--they stand up about an inch from the side of the ship, so you would be dragging the whole side of the boat away if you tried to lower the boats with a 15-degree list."

That some boats were and others would have been seriously damaged is evidenced by the fact that two port boats were lowered to the water and got away, (though one afterward filled,) and not one boat reached Queenstown.

Each boat has its own history, (except possibly Boats 2 and 4,) although it is naturally difficult, in each case, to allocate all the testimony to a particular boat.

[Sidenote: Accidents in lowering.]

There is some testimony, given in undoubted good faith, that painted or rusted davits stuck out, but the weight of the testimony is to the contrary. There were some lamentable occurrences on the port side, which resulted in spilling pa.s.sengers, some of whom thus thrown out or injured went to their death. These unfortunate accidents, however, were due either to lack of strength of the seaman who was lowering, or possibly, at worst, to an occasional instance of incompetency due to the personal equation so often ill.u.s.trated, where one man of many may not be equal to the emergency. But the problem was of the most vexatious character. In addition to the crowding of pa.s.sengers in some instances was this extremely hazardous feat of lowering boats swung inboard from a tilted height, heavily weighted by human beings, with the ship still under way.

It cannot be said that it was negligent to attempt this, because, obviously, all the pa.s.sengers could not be accommodated in the starboard boats.

[Sidenote: Six boats get away from starboard.]

On the starboard side, the problem, in some respects, was not so difficult, while, in others, troublesome conditions existed quite different from those occurring on the port side. Here the boats swung so far out as to add to the difficulty of pa.s.sengers getting in them, a difficulty intensified by the fact that many more pa.s.sengers went to the starboard side than to the port side and, also that the ship maintained her way. Six boats successfully got away. In the case of the remaining boats, some were successfully lowered but later met with some unavoidable accident, and some were not successfully launched (such as Nos. 1, 5, and 17) for entirely explainable reasons which should not be charged to inefficiency on the part of the officers or crew.

[Sidenote: Collapsible boats cut loose.]

The collapsible boats were on the deck under the open lifeboats, and were intended to be lifted and lowered by the same davits which lowered the open boats after the open boats had gotten clear of the ship. It was the duty of the officers to get the open boats away before giving attention to the collapsible boats, and that was a question of time.

These boats are designed and arranged to float free if the ship should sink before they can be hoisted over. They were cut loose and some people were saved on these boats.

It is to be expected that those pa.s.sengers who lost members of their family or friends, and who saw some of the unfortunate accidents, should feel strongly and entertain the impression that inefficiency or individual negligence was widespread among the crew. Such an impression, however, does an inadvertent injustice to the great majority of the crew, who acted with that matter-in-fact courage and fidelity to duty which are traditional with men of the sea. Such of these men, presumably fairly typical of all, as testified in this court, were impressive not only because of inherent bravery, but because of intelligence and clear-headedness, and they possessed that remarkable gift of simplicity so characteristic of truly fearless men who cannot quite understand why an ado is made of acts which seem to them merely the day's work.

Mr. Grab, one of the claimants and an experienced transatlantic traveler, concisely summed up the situation when he said:

"They were doing the best they could--they were very brave and working as hard as they could without any fear. They didn't care about themselves. It was very admirably done. While there was great confusion, they did the best they could."

[Sidenote: Captain Turner's comment on the crew.]

It will unduly prolong a necessarily extended opinion to sift the voluminous testimony relating to this subject of the boats and the conduct of the crew and something is sought to be made of comments of Captain Turner, construed by some to be unfavorable but afterward satisfactorily supplemented and explained, but if there were some instances of incompetency they were very few and the charge of negligence in this regard cannot be successfully maintained.

In arriving at this conclusion, I have not overlooked the argument earnestly pressed that the men were not sufficiently instructed and drilled; for I think the testimony establishes the contrary in the light of conditions in May, 1915.

I now come to what seems to be the only debatable question of fact in the case, i. e., whether Captain Turner was negligent in not literally following the Admiralty advices and, also, in not taking a course different from that which he adopted.

[Sidenote: The Captain's judgment free.]

The fundamental principle in navigating a merchantman, whether in times of peace or of war, is that the commanding officer must be left free to exercise his own judgment. Safe navigation denies the proposition that the judgment and sound discretion of the Captain of a vessel must be confined in a mental straitjacket. Of course, when movements are under military control, orders must be strictly obeyed, come what may. No such situation, however, was presented either to the Cunard Steamship Co. or Captain Turner. The vessel was not engaged in military service nor under naval convoy. True, she was, as between the German and British Governments, an enemy ship as to Germany, but she was unarmed and a carrier of not merely noncombatants, but, among others, of many citizens of the United States, then a neutral country, at peace with all the world.

[Sidenote: Admiralty advices considered.]

In such circ.u.mstances the Captain could not shield himself automatically against error behind a literal compliance with the general advices or instructions of the Admiralty, nor can it be supposed that the Admiralty, any more than the Cunard Steamship Co., expected him so to do. What was required of him was that he should seriously consider and, as far as practicable, follow the Admiralty advices and use his best judgment as events and exigencies occurred; and if a situation arose where he believed that a course should be pursued to meet emergencies which required departure from some of the Admiralty advices as to general rules of action, then it was his duty to take such course, if in accordance with his carefully formed deliberate judgment. After a disaster has occurred, it is not difficult for the expert to show how it might have been avoided, and there is always opportunity for academic discussion as to what ought or ought not to have been done; but the true approach is to endeavor, for the moment, to possess the mind of him upon whom rested the responsibility.

[Sidenote: Enemy obligations in care of merchant ships.]

Let us now see what that responsibility was and how it was dealt with.

The rules of naval warfare allowed the capture and, in some circ.u.mstances, the destruction of an enemy merchant ship, but, at the same time, it was the accepted doctrine of all civilized nations (as will be more fully considered infra) that, as Lord Mersey put it, "there is always an obligation first to secure the safety of the lives of those on board."

The responsibility, therefore, of Captain Turner, in his task of bringing the ship safely to port, was to give heed not only to general advices advanced as the outcome of experience in the then developing knowledge as to submarine warfare, but particularly to any special information which might come to him in the course of the voyage.

[Sidenote: Advices of the Admiralty.]

Realizing that if there was a due warning, in accordance with international law, and an opportunity, within a limited time, for the pa.s.sengers to leave the ship, nevertheless that the operation must be quickly done, Captain Turner, on May 6, had taken the full precautions, such as swinging out the boats, properly provisioned, which have been heretofore described. The princ.i.p.al features of the Admiralty advices were (1) to give the headlands a wide berth; (2) to steer a midchannel course; (3) to maintain as high a speed as practicable; (4) to zigzag, and (5) to make ports, if possible, at dawn, thus running the last part of the voyage at night.

[Sidenote: Fastnet given a wide berth.]

The reason for the advice as to keeping off headlands was that the submarines lurked near those prominent headlands and landfalls to and from which ships were likely to go. This instruction Captain Turner entirely followed in respect of Fastnet, which was the first point on the Irish coast which a vessel bound from New York to Liverpool would ordinarily approach closely, and, in normal times, the pa.s.sing would be very near, or even inside of Fastnet. The _Lusitania_ pa.s.sed Fastnet so far out that Captain Turner could not see it. Whether the distance was about twenty-five miles, as the Cunard Steamship Co. contends, or about eighteen and one-half miles, as the claimants calculate, the result is that either distance must be regarded as a wide berth, in comparison with the customary navigation at that point, and, besides, nothing happened there. At 8:30 P. M. on May 6 the message had been received from the British Admiralty that submarines were off Fastnet, so that Captain Turner, in this regard, not only followed the general advices, but the specific information from the Admiralty.

At 11:25 A. M. on May 7 Captain Turner received the wireless from the Admiralty plainly intended for the _Lusitania_, informing him that submarines (plural) were active in the southern part of the Irish Channel and when last heard of were twenty miles south of Coningbeg Light Vessel. This wireless message presented acutely to the Captain the problem as to the best course to pursue, always bearing in mind his determination and the desirability of getting to the Liverpool Bar when it could be crossed while the tide served and without a pilot. Further, as was stated by Sir Alfred Booth, "The one definite instruction we did give him with regard to that was to authorize him to come up without a pilot." The reasons for this instruction were cogent and were concisely summed up by Sir Alfred Booth during his examination as a witness as follows:

[Sidenote: The Mersey sandbar.]

"It was one of the points that we felt it necessary to make the Captain of the _Lusitania_ understand the importance of. The _Lusitania_ can only cross the Liverpool Bar at certain states of the tide, and we therefore warned the Captain, or whoever might be Captain, that we did not think it would be safe for him to arrive off the bar at such a time that he would have to wait there, because that area had been infested with submarines, and we thought therefore it would be wiser for him to arrange his arrival in such a way, leaving him an absolutely free hand as to how he would do it, that he could come straight up without stopping at all. The one definite instruction we did give him with regard to that was to authorize him to come up without a pilot."

The tide would be high at Liverpool Bar at 6:53 on Sat.u.r.day morning, May 8. Captain Turner planned to cross the bar as much earlier than that as he could get over without stopping, while at the same time figuring on pa.s.sing during the darkness the dangerous waters from the entrance of St. George's Channel to the Liverpool Bar.

[Sidenote: The Captain decides to work insh.o.r.e.]

Having thus in mind his objective, and the time approximately when he intended to reach it, the message received at 11:25 A. M. required that he should determine whether to keep off land approximately the same distance as he was when he pa.s.sed Fastnet, or to work insh.o.r.e and go close to Coningbeg Lightship. He determined that the latter was the better plan to avoid the submarines reported in midchannel ahead of him.

[Sidenote: Taking a bearing.]

When Galley Head was sighted the course was changed so as to haul closer to the land, and this course was pursued until 1:40 P. M., at which time Captain Turner concluded that it was necessary for him to get his bearings accurately. This he decided should be done by taking a four-point bearing, during which procedure the ship was torpedoed. It is urged that he should have taken a two-point bearing or a cross bearing, which would have occupied less time, but if, under all the conditions which appealed to his judgment as a mariner, he had taken a different method of ascertaining his exact distance and the result would have been inaccurate, or while engaged in taking a two-point bearing the ship had been torpedoed, then somebody would have said he should have taken a four-point bearing. The point of the matter is that an experienced Captain took the bearing he thought proper for his purposes, and to predicate negligence upon such a course is to a.s.sert that a Captain is bound to guess the exact location of a hidden and puzzling danger.

[Sidenote: Testimony about the ship's speed.]

Much emphasis has been placed upon the fact that the speed of the ship was eighteen knots at the time of the attack instead of twenty-four, or, in any event, twenty-one knots, and upon the further fact (for such it is) that the ship was not zigzagging as frequently as the Admiralty advised or in the sense of that advice.

Upon this branch of the case much testimony was taken, (some in camera, as in the Wreck Commissioners' Court,) and, for reasons of public interest, the methods of successfully evading submarines will not be discussed. If it be a.s.sumed that the Admiralty advices as of May, 1915, were sound and should have been followed, then the answer to the charge of negligence is twofold: (1) that Captain Turner, in taking a four-point bearing off the Old Head of Kinsale, was conscientiously exercising his judgment for the welfare of the ship, and (2) that it is impossible to determine whether, by zigzagging off the Old Head of Kinsale or elsewhere, the _Lusitania_ would have escaped the German submarine or submarines.

As to the first answer I cannot better express my conclusion than in the language of Lord Mersey:

[Sidenote: Lord Mersey's opinion.]

"Captain Turner was fully advised as to the means which in the view of the Admiralty were best calculated to avert the perils he was likely to encounter, and in considering the question whether he is to blame for the catastrophe in which his voyage ended I have to bear this circ.u.mstance in mind. It is certain that in some respects Captain Turner did not follow the advice given to him. It may be (though I seriously doubt it) that had he done so his ship would have reached Liverpool in safety. But the question remains: Was his conduct the conduct of a negligent or of an incompetent man? On this question I have sought the guidance of my a.s.sessors, who have rendered me invaluable a.s.sistance, and the conclusion at which I have arrived is that blame ought not to be imputed to the Captain. The advice given to him, although meant for his most serious and careful consideration, was not intended to deprive him of the right to exercise his skilled judgment in the difficult questions that might arise from time to time in the navigation of his ship. His omission to follow the advice in all respects cannot fairly be attributed either to negligence or incompetence.

[Sidenote: Skilled and experienced judgment.]

"He exercised his judgment for the best. It was the judgment of a skilled and experienced man, and although others might have acted differently, and, perhaps, more successfully, he ought not, in my opinion, to be blamed."