28/10/2026
Did you know?
Before RMS Lusitania left New York on 1 May 1915, passengers had already been warned that the waters around Britain and Ireland had become a war zone.
A notice from the German authorities appeared in a New York newspaper on the day the ship sailed, warning travellers that vessels entering those waters could be attacked. Despite this, passengers still boarded for the Atlantic crossing.
At the time, there was confidence that Lusitania’s speed would help protect her from submarines. In his conclusion, Michael Martin questions that reassurance, pointing out that speed offered little protection if a submarine was already waiting unseen along the ship’s route.
Six days later, on 7 May 1915, the ship was torpedoed off the Cork coast.
It is one of the questions that continues to surround the story of Lusitania: how much did passengers really understand about the danger they were sailing into?
Want to explore the Lusitania story in more depth? Michael Martin’s book, RMS Lusitania: It Wasn’t and It Didn’t, is available at titanic.ie.
