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Old July 6th, 2012 #1
John sholtes
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Default The Sinking of the Lusitania

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Her sinking with the loss of almost 1,200 lives caused such outrage that it propelled the U.S. into the First World War.
But now divers have revealed a dark secret about the cargo carried by the Lusitania on its final journey in May 1915.
Munitions they found in the hold suggest that the Germans had been right all along in claiming the ship was carrying war materials and was a legitimate military target.

Doomed: A contemporary view of the sinking of the Lusitania off Ireland in May 1915

The Cunard vessel, steaming from New York to Liverpool, was sunk eight miles off the Irish coast by a U-boat.
Maintaining that the Lusitania was solely a passenger vessel, the British quickly accused the 'Pirate Hun' of
slaughtering civilians.

The disaster was used to whip up anti-German anger, especially in the U.S., where 128 of the 1,198 victims came from.

A hundred of the dead were children, many of them under two.
Robert Lansing, the U.S. secretary of state, later wrote that the sinking gave him the 'conviction we would ultimately become the ally of Britain'.
Americans were even told, falsely, that German children were given a day off school to celebrate the sinking of the Lusitania.
The disaster inspired a multitude of recruitment posters demanding vengeance for the victims.


One, famously showing a young mother slipping below the waves with her baby, carried the simple slogan 'Enlist'.
Two years later, the Americans joined the Allies as an associated power - a decision that turned the war decisively against Germany.
The diving team estimates that around four million rounds of U.S.-manufactured Remington .303 bullets lie in the Lusitania's hold at a depth of 300ft.
The Germans had insisted the Lusitania - the fastest liner in the North Atlantic - was being used as a weapons ship to break the blockade Berlin had been trying to impose around Britain since the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914.

Winston Churchill, who was first Lord of the Admiralty and has long been suspected of knowing more about the circumstances of the attack than he let on in public, wrote in a confidential letter shortly before the sinking that some German submarine attacks were to be welcomed.
He said: 'It is most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hope especially of embroiling the U.S. with Germany.
'For our part we want the traffic - the more the better and if some of it gets into trouble, better still.'
Hampton Sides, a writer with Men's Vogue in the U.S., witnessed the divers' discovery.
He said: 'They are bullets that were expressly manufactured to kill Germans in World War I - bullets that British officials in Whitehall, and American officials in Washington, have long denied were aboard the Lusitania.'
The discovery may help explain why the 787ft Lusitania sank within 18 minutes of a single German torpedo slamming into its hull.

Some of the 764 survivors reported a second explosion which might have been munitions going off.
Gregg Bemis, an American businessman who owns the rights to the wreck and is funding its exploration, said: 'Those four million rounds of .303s were not just some private hunter's stash.
'Now that we've found it, the British can't deny any more that there was ammunition on board. That raises the question of what else was on board.
'There were literally tons and tons of stuff stored in unrefrigerated cargo holds that were dubiously marked cheese, butter and oysters.
'I've always felt there were some significant high explosives in the holds - shells, powder, gun cotton - that were set off by the torpedo and the inflow of water. That's what sank the ship.'
Mr Bemis is planning to commission further dives next year in a full-scale forensic examination of the wreck off County Cork.
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz1zt6q9l8p

http://thesecrettruthabout.com/1373/...assenger-ship/
 
Old July 7th, 2012 #2
littlefieldjohn
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No one can fault Germany for working towards saving German lives by sinking this weapons-delivering ship. Proper warnings were issued which were downplayed by the government.
 
Old July 7th, 2012 #3
DiCarlo
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Lusitania's Secret Cargo Volume 62 Number 1, January/February 2009
by Erin Mullally

The nearly century-old debate about whether the passenger liner Lusitania was transporting British war munitions when torpedoed by a German U-boat is over. Physical evidence of just such a cargo has been recovered from the wreck, which rests 12 miles off the Irish coast in 300 feet of murky, turbulent water.



Bullets from the ship now confirm it was carrying military cargo. (Courtesy Eoin McGarry)
Lusitania was sunk off County Cork on May 7, 1915. The attack killed 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, and helped push the United States into World War I. Ever since the ship went down, there have been suspicions that Lusitania was carrying live munitions. Under the rules of war, that would have made the liner a legitimate target, as the Germans maintained at the time.

The British government has always been evasive about the presence of munitions on Lusitania. Two cargo manifests were submitted; the second, filed after the ship sailed, indicated there were light munitions on board. Some believe the ship was carrying much more, however, and that the British Navy attempted to destroy the wreck in the 1950s to conceal its military cargo.

Now a team led by County Waterford-based diver Eoin McGarry, on behalf of Lusitania's American owner, Gregg Bemis, has recovered live ammunition from the wreck. Bemis was granted a five-year license in 2007 by the Irish government to conduct limited excavations at the site. He originally bought the vessel in 1968 for $2,400 from the Liverpool & London War Risks Insurance Association.

This past September, Bemis's team used a remotely operated vehicle to penetrate the wreck. They were able to clearly identify a vast amount of ammunition in an area of Lusitania not believed to have carried cargo. The Remington .303 caliber bullets the team discovered on the ship had been used by the British military during World War I. Ten of the bullets were brought to the surface.

"Further research needs to be conducted, but if the discovered ammunition was found in an area where cargo was not known to be stored on board, it strongly supports the argument that the Lusitania was functioning as more than a passenger liner," says Fionnbar Moore, senior archaeologist with the Underwater Archaeology Unit of the Irish Department of Environment, which monitored the dive.

The bullets are in the hands of Irish authorities, who under maritime law are now responsible for establishing their owner. Further expeditions will search for additional evidence of munitions.

"The charge that the Lusitania was carrying war materiel is valid," says Bemis. "She was a legitimate target for the German submarine."

http://www.archaeology.org/0901/tren...usitania.html/
 
Old July 7th, 2012 #4
Donald E. Pauly
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Smile Warnings Published Before Sailing

Quote:
Originally Posted by littlefieldjohn View Post
No one can fault Germany for working towards saving German lives by sinking this weapons-delivering ship. Proper warnings were issued which were downplayed by the government.
I personally read the full page warning published before the sailing of the Lusitania in the Des Moines Register. It warned all Americans not to sail on the vessel because it was carrying arms and was a legitimate war target. This is classic proof that history is written by the victors. It reminds me of the saying:

Quote:
War is the harvest of the Jews.
 
Old July 8th, 2012 #5
Roy
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Germany not only posted ads, but also posted men at the gangway, warning passengers that they were entering a war zone.

 
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