RMS Lusitania Timeline

Lusitania, commanded by Commodore James Watt, moored at the Liverpool landing stage for her maiden voyage at 4:30 pm on Saturday 7 September 1907 as the onetime Blue Riband holder RMS Lucania vacated the pier. She was designed to carry 2,198 passengers and 827 crew members in her original configuration.

On her second voyage in better weather, Lusitania arrived at Sandy Hook on 11 October 1907 in Blue Riband record time of 4 days, 19 hours and 53 minutes, wresting the fastest Atlantic crossing from German ships which had held it for a decade.

In December 1907, sister ship Mauretania entered service and took the record for the fastest eastbound crossing, beginning a long period during which the two Cunard 'ocean greyhounds' dominated the transatlantic speed records.

Image source: RMS Mauretania (1906)

Lusitania made her fastest westbound crossing in 1909 after her propellers were changed, averaging 25.85 knots (47.87 km/h). She briefly recovered the overall record in July of that year, but Mauretania recaptured the Blue Riband the same month, retaining it until SS Bremen took it in 1929.

Lusitania and other ships participated in the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York City from the end of September to early October 1909, a grand festival commemorating the 300th anniversary of Hudson's voyage and Fulton's steamboat.

Image source: Hudson–Fulton Celebration

On 10 January 1910, Lusitania was two days into a voyage from Liverpool to New York when she encountered a rogue wave 75 feet (23 m) high. Damage suffered in this incident was linked to structural factors that would be examined later.

The British commission that investigated the sinking of Titanic in 1912 heard testimony on the flooding of coal bunkers lying outside longitudinal bulkheads — a design feature Lusitania shared. Notably, Lusitania did not carry enough lifeboats for all aboard at her maiden voyage, carrying four lifeboats fewer than Titanic would carry in 1912.

In 1913, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill announced that Lusitania would be converted into a warship, 'indistinguishable in status and control from men-of-war', if war was declared. Her silhouette was later listed in Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships and Brassley's 1914 Naval Annual categorised her as a 'Royal Naval Reserved Merchant Cruiser'.

On 4 February 1915, Germany declared the seas around Great Britain and Ireland to be a war zone, warning that Allied ships in the area would be sunk without warning beginning by 18 February. By early 1915, the new threat of submarines had begun to grow.

Image source: Unrestricted submarine warfare

On 17 April 1915, Lusitania left Liverpool on her 201st transatlantic voyage, arriving in New York on 24 April. She was next scheduled to arrive back in Liverpool on 6 March... rather, she prepared for what would become her final return crossing to Liverpool.

The German embassy in the United States placed fifty newspaper advertisements warning people of the dangers of sailing on a British ship in the war zone area, which happened to appear just as RMS Lusitania departed Pier 54 in New York at 12:20 pm on 1 May 1915 on her final voyage.

The sinking killed 128 US citizens and significantly increased American public support for entering World War I, contributing to the United States declaration of war on Germany in 1917 after the torpedoing of three other US merchant ships and the Zimmermann Telegram.

Image source: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

The German submarine U-20 hit Lusitania with a torpedo on 7 May 1915 at 14:10, 11 nautical miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, leading to her sinking about 18 minutes later. She was nearing the end of her 202nd crossing bound for Liverpool, scheduled to dock that afternoon.

The Germans decided on 9 September 1915 that attacks were only allowed on ships that were definitely British, while neutral ships were to be treated under Prize Law rules, and no attacks on passenger liners were to be permitted at all. However, in January 1917 the German government announced it would again conduct full unrestricted submarine warfare.

When Britannic, working as a hospital ship during the First World War, sank in 1916 after hitting a mine in the Kea Channel, already davited boats were swiftly lowered saving nearly all on board — but the ship took nearly three times as long to sink as Lusitania, giving the crew more time to evacuate passengers.

Image source: HMHS Britannic

The resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare pushed American public opinion over the tipping point, and the United States Congress followed President Wilson to declare war on Germany on 6 April 1917, fulfilling the consequences set in motion partly by the Lusitania sinking.

Image source: United States declaration of war on Germany (1917)

In 1923, 278 claimants were initially awarded $23 million (equivalent to about $330 million in 2024). On 23 February 1924, the Seattle Star reported that Judge Edwin B. Parker denied 40 claims and settled on a final payout of $841,000 ($12 million in 2024).

In 1935, a Glasgow-based expedition launched to find the wreck of Lusitania succeeded after three months of searching: the wreck was discovered on 6 October 1935, 11 miles (18 km) south of the lighthouse at Kinsale. Between 1931 and 1935, Simon Lake's salvage contract with British authorities expired without any salvage work done.

In 1967, the wreck of Lusitania was sold by the Liverpool & London War Risks Insurance Association to former US Navy diver John Light (1932–1992) for £1,000. In 1993, Bemis granted permission to Titanic wreck explorer Robert Ballard to explore the wreck.

American venture capitalist Gregg Bemis (1928–2020) became a co-owner of the wreck in 1968, and by 1982 had bought out his partners to become sole owner. Also in 1982, three of the four propellers were removed by Oceaneering International for display, though one was melted down.

The judge ruled in The Lusitania [1986] QB 384 that the Crown has no rights over wrecks outside British territorial waters, even if recovered items are subsequently brought into the UK. As of 1998, the case remained the leading authority on this point of law.

Image source: Sinking of RMS Lusitania

In 1995, the Irish Government declared the Lusitania a heritage site under the National Monuments Act, prohibiting anyone from interfering with her or her contents. This followed Ballard's 1993 exploration authorised by Bemis and restricted later access.

After protracted legal wrangling, the Supreme Court in Dublin overturned the Arts and Heritage Ministry's refusal to issue Bemis an exploration licence, ruling that the minister had misconstrued the law when refusing Bemis's 2001 application.

In late July 2008, Bemis was granted an 'imaging' licence allowing him to photograph and film the entire wreck, producing the first high-resolution pictures. Results provided to researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory led them to conclude in 2012 that the ship was sunk mainly by the effect of the torpedo, with a secondary boiler explosion not significantly affecting events.

To commemorate the centenary of the sinking, on 3 May 2015 a small fleet of ships sailed from the Isle of Man, culminating in the 100th commemoration of the sinking of the Lusitania on 7 May 2015, one hundred years after she went down off the Old Head of Kinsale.

Continuing to attempt to prove British involvement, in July 2016, Bemis's diving partner Eoin McGarry attempted to recover but lost a telegraph machine from the ship. In November 2018, Bemis discussed logistical complications of a maritime archaeological expedition to penetrate the hull on live radio.

In 2020, Gregg Bemis, the American venture capitalist who had owned the Lusitania wreck outright since 1982 and fought lengthy legal battles to explore it, died at the age of 91 or 92, ending decades of personal stewardship of the historic site.