Dead Wake archives the sinking of the RMS Lusitania of the Cunard line. Our story begins with the great liner docked at Pier 54 in Manhattan in late April of 1915. The liner, Lucy, as her nickname was, needed to be laden with 5,690 tons of coal, enough to propel her across the Atlantic at 24 knots. She was built like a battleship, with her coal bunkers along the hull on the outer edge, this would prove devastating. Captain William Thomas Turner would oversee all this. Turner had worked for Cunard before, trying desperately to become a captain, but Cunard would not let staff become captain unless they were trained outside of the line. So he built up credentials and became a captain with great heroism, having saved a boy from freezing water …show more content…
Passengers scrambled back to rooms for life jackets. Then, a second explosion shook the ship, believed to be a steam pressure drop. With the ship moving at 18 knots the water flooding in caused the bow to sink and the stern to lift, and a list towards the starboard, as a result of the empty coal bunker filling up. The men in the forward baggage holds, where the torpedo hit, were all killed or trapped, and they knew how to launch a life boat. The deck was in chaos, the starboard boats were too far for a person to get in them off the deck and the port ones were not over the water. People started to jump and few lifeboats launched. The Lusitania went under in 18 minutes. Now, all that was left were people and debris floating. The passengers adrift faced cold water, drowning, exhaustion, or no life jacket. After a few hours, 10 ships, trawlers, fishing boats and torpedo boats came to rescue the passengers, some were unconscious but alive. Some were far beyond alive. The admiralty were quick to blame turner, but they provided no escort for Lucy or anti sub patrols. Turner avoided blame. Cunard took the time and care to photograph and log every single dead body. OF the 1,962 passengers, 1200 kicked the bucket, and then, America got involved in World War I. It reminds you of how no ship, is