Lusitania Telegraph Recovered

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227KB, 1361x870px

Why did it sink?

Was this an intentional operation to send a passenger ship, with military supplies, into a dangerous area, as a justification for entering WWI?

http://archive.is/N2Bn2

For years, divers have searched for clues amid the twisted wreck, which lies on the ocean floor roughly seven miles off the southern coast of Ireland. Each discovery holds the potential for answers. Their most recent find: the ship’s main telegraph, a sturdy metal contraption whose retrieval was announced last week by the Irish government.

These questions stem from an unexplained second explosion that occurred deep inside the ship shortly after it was struck by a torpedo on May 7, 1915. That second explosion is still being investigated, but speculation has long focused on whether it was caused by munitions on board, a charge German officials made at the time, said Diana Preston, a British author and historian.

The attack on the Lusitania — which killed 1,198 people, including over 100 Americans — outraged the British and American public and was frequently used in war propaganda in both countries to illustrate German atrocities.

It is true that some weapons were aboard, Ms. Preston said. The ship’s manifest made no secret that it carried weapons in its hold, including 4,200 cases of Remington rifle cartridges and 1,250 cases of shrapnel shells and fuses. But they would not have caused the kind of volcanic one-two punch that doomed the ship, she said.