War-time Shipwrecks

On the morning of May 1, 1915, a warning appeared in U.S. newspapers. Germany published a notice to Americans not to travel on British ships -- Germany and England were at war, and British ships were targets. That was the morning the Lusitania set sail, and her passengers probably never saw the notice.

The Lusitania
The British passenger ship Lusitania was heading from New York to Liverpool, loaded with civilian passengers. Six days into her voyage, a German submarine spotted her and fired a torpedo without warning. The torpedo struck the ship and caused a second explosion onboard. Britain claimed the second explosion resulted from coal dust; Germany claimed it was gunpowder. The ship sank in 20 minutes off the southern coast of Ireland, killing approximately 1,200 people and igniting a controversy that could have changed the course of history.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress Lusitania at sea (left) and arriving in New York for the first time, Sept. 13, 1907

Britain claimed the Lusitania was a civilian ship with no military ties. Germany claimed the Lusitania was in fact carrying munitions for the Allies. When the ship sank with more than 100 Americans onboard, the U.S. population called for military action against Germany. U.S. President Wilson resisted the cries for war, and instead insisted on reparations from Germany. Although Germany maintained that there were munitions on the ship, she eventually took responsibility for the misdeed. This helped to delay U.S. involvement in World War I. Later, WWI recruitment posters would read "Remember the Lusitania."

Years after the incident, British documents revealed that the ship was in fact carrying munitions for the Allies. The Lusitania was transporting 4.2 million rounds of Remington .303 rifle cartridges, 1,250 cases of shrapnel shells and 18 cases of fuses. And according to the Discovery Channel, at the outbreak of the war in 1914 the Lusitania had been fitted with a broadside for potential use by the Royal Navy.

The Lancastria
Another British luxury cruise liner, the Lancastria, was sunk easily by Germany, this time in the second World War. This shipwreck was the biggest maritime disaster in the history of England.

In 1939, the Lancastria had been requisitioned by the Royal Navy for troop transport. On June 17, 1940, she was evacuating British troops from France when she was spotted by several German war planes. The Lancastria was a sitting duck, anchored off St. Nazaire, France, and still taking on troops when the first bomb struck. She was ultimately hit four times, with one of the four bombs dropping straight down the smokestack and blowing the ship apart. The Lancastria took 20 minutes to sink, and with German aircraft overhead, rescue was almost impossible. It's not known how many people were onboard when the Lancastria was hit because the troops were still being loaded. The best guess is that there were about 7,000 people on the ship, and of those, 4,500 died in the wreck.

Photo courtesy Royal Naval Heritage The Lancastria

Prime Minister Winston Churchill feared that Britain couldn't handle news of the loss, so he ordered the press in England not to report the incident. Those 4,500 soldiers were listed as missing in action. About six weeks later, the story broke in several New York newspapers, and the secret was no more.

The captain of the Lancastria, Rudolph Sharpe, survived the bombing. He had also been an officer on Lusitania's crew, but had disembarked just before she was attacked. His luck ran out when he took charge of the Laconia, which was sunk by a German sub in 1942. Captain Sharpe died in that wreck.

The Bismarck
Probably the grandest naval battle of World War II took place in 1941 and ended with the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck. She was a massive ship, about 17 stories tall and 300 yards (275 meters) long, and was one of the fastest (30 knots) and most heavily armored warships of her time. On her maiden voyage, she ended up in an epic, eight-day cat-and-mouse chase across the Atlantic involving two German ships and at least six British ones.

Photo courtesy Naval Historical Center The Bismarck

In the first major confrontation at Denmark Strait, the Bismarck and her sister ship destroyed the British ship HMS Hood (the largest battle cruiser in the world at the time). Their 203-mm shells struck the Hood and blew up the explosives on deck, and their 380-mm shells blew right threw the deck and reached the ammunition below. The Hood was a total loss, and almost 1,400 sailors died. Also at Denmark Strait, the German ships crippled the HMS Prince of Wales, but the Prince of Wales hit Bismarck a few times, too, which would haunt the German ship and ultimately be her downfall. The Prince of Wales struck her engine room, taking out two boilers, and ruptured the fuel tanks in the bow. The Bismarck no longer had enough fuel to get back to Germany, and her top speed had dropped to 28 knots. Bismarck's Admiral Lutjens changed course and headed to the nearest German-occupied French port.

On her way to safe harbor for repairs, the Bismarck took air fire from British torpedo planes, but none of the torpedoes got through her armor. After some evasive maneuvering, Bismarck escaped the British ships, and Admiral Lutjens then took the chance of sending a message to Berlin about the battle and her status. But the message was too long -- almost 30 minutes. British ships picked it up and pinpointed Bismarck's location. They resumed pursuit and caught up with her off the coast of Ireland.

Bismarck took heavy fire from both air and sea in what would turn out to be her final battle. In total, she took 400 hits from British battleships and at least 12 hits by torpedo planes. She was crippled, but she still wasn't sinking. It was the German sailors onboard who sunk the ship when it was clear they could no longer fight or escape. Bismarck sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic with most of her crew, including Admiral Lutjens. Of the 2,200 German sailors onboard, only 115 survived the wreck. In 1989, a crew led by Dr. Robert Ballard, who also discovered the wreck of the Titanic, found the Bismarck under 15,000 feet of water just south of Cork, Ireland.

The Belgrano
About 40 years later, Britain was involved in a much less dramatic but far more controversial shipwreck. In the early 1980s, Britain was in a dispute with Argentina over possession of the Falkland Islands. In 1982, the two countries were still going the diplomacy route. All that ended when the British submarine HMS Conqueror sunk the Argentine warship General Belgrano in the South Atlantic. Three-hundred Argentine sailors died on impact, and another 68 died from injuries or drowning.

Argentina and many British politicians claimed the Belgrano was headed away from Falkland Islands, out of the war zone, when she was attacked. In this scenario, the British sub attacked a ship that was posing no threat at all. But all official releases from the British government maintained that the Belgrano was a threat to British ships in the area. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was publicly harangued for her role in the incident.

The Belgrano shipwreck made up more than half of Argentina's casualties in the Falklands War. In response to the attack, Argentina sunk the HMS Sheffield destroyer, and weeks of naval fighting ensued. In 1985, a government leak pointed to the original Argentine claim as correct. The General Belgrano was outside the war zone when she was attacked. The Belgrano shipwreck still has not been discovered.

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