- 6/9/2025
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00:00I was 16 years old and I was traveling with my father and my brother and my brother had
00:13his little boy three years old and we were traveling to go to Scotland I was just 12
00:25and we're going up the gangplank dad said to me bend your knees because I
00:29was very tall and then you look smaller and you look younger so I got through a
00:35half price all I could see was a great big monster ship it looked a monster well it was a monster
00:52well I was four years old then I was ending my eighth year when I
00:58boarded the Lusitania my father had deserted us and my mother decided that perhaps it would
01:07be better if she went back to her parents in England and that's why she sailed on the
01:12Lusitania with six children I don't think she even knew that it was in danger
01:19did you know that it was filled with contraband
01:31well there's been some cover-up about that Lusitania it was really murder really
01:37she left New York on May 1st 1915 bound for Liverpool one of the biggest and fastest ocean
01:49liners in the world
01:55she carried 1265 passengers and a crew of 694 but she was also rumored to be carrying something else
02:06something for the British in their war against Germany
02:16on May 7th she reached the southern coast of Ireland
02:21a little after lunchtime in sight of land she was hit by a single torpedo from a German U-boat
02:27moment
02:32moments later she was rocked by a second much larger explosion
02:39almost immediately the great ship listed sharply towards the wound in her starboard side
02:45and began to sink
02:46less than 20 minutes later she disappeared beneath the calm flat sea
02:59the Lusitania was gone and 1195 men women and children had gone with her
03:06practice
03:16we had gone with her
03:19we had gone with
03:50The sinking of the Lusitania was perhaps the single most controversial act of the First
04:06World War. Almost overnight, it cast England in the role of helpless victim, and Germany
04:13as the ruthless villain.
04:15In the United States, outrage at the loss of American life helped propel this country
04:22into the war on Britain's side, even though no one really knew what sank the ship.
04:28But there have always been whispers that the Lusitania was not as blameless as she appeared.
04:38Some historians have speculated that when the Lusitania left New York, she carried a secret
04:44cargo of high explosives, and that when the German torpedo struck, those hidden explosives
04:50blew up and sank her.
04:53One thing is certain. When the Lusitania steamed into history, she left many unanswered questions
05:00in her wake.
05:05The truth about what actually happened to the Lusitania on that long-ago afternoon
05:10in May lies just off the southern coast of Ireland. And in the next two weeks, ocean explorer
05:16Bob Ballard, the man who found the Titanic and the Bismarck, will find something just as
05:22remarkable at the bottom of the sea.
05:24The Lusitania is one of those great unsolved mysteries. Well, the mystery is, why did the
05:32Lusitania, which was really an auxiliary heavy cruiser, I mean, it was really well built,
05:38much better built than the Titanic, had many more compartments, why did this ship sink so
05:46quick? I mean, the Titanic hit an iceberg and was opened up for 300 feet and took hours
05:51to sink. Yet the Lusitania was hit with one torpedo and sank in less than 15 minutes.
06:00Uh, why?
06:09The seeds of the controversy were planted in the constantly shifting tactics of the First
06:13World War.
06:17In the spring of 1915, England and Germany were deadlocked on the battlefields in Europe.
06:23The British needed supplies, and the only way they could get them was by ship. But a new
06:30German weapon, the U-boat, was starting to sink supply ships. The British Admiralty, led by
06:39a young Winston Churchill, decided that the most effective countermeasure was to strike first.
06:46British merchantmen were instructed to carry concealed weapons and open fire on any U-boat that stopped
06:52them.
06:56Germany countered with a threat. It declared that any British ship carrying war supplies would
07:02be subject to attack without regard for the safety of passengers or crew. Churchill seemed
07:10to foresee the consequences of this new escalation. In a letter written three months before the
07:17Lusitania was sunk, he stressed the importance of attracting neutral shipping to England. Quote,
07:22in the hope, in the hope especially of embroiling the United States with Germany. For our part, we want the traffic. The more, the better. And if some of it gets into trouble, better still.
07:40The mystery of what happened to the Lusitania is a complex technical puzzle.
07:44This is all one case. All one case. Everyone agrees that there were two explosions, and that
07:51the second was much more powerful than the first. We know that the first explosion occurred when
08:00the torpedo struck. We don't know what caused the second. The documents from the official U.S.
08:08inquiry into the tragedy still sit in a New York archive. She did carry 18 fuse cases and 125 shrapnel cases.
08:28Although Britain initially denied it, today we know that the Lusitania was carrying military supplies.
08:35British U-mark 7, 174 grain bullets. This is what they're admitting to. Winchester repeating arms.
08:44But bullets and shrapnel aren't explosive enough to sink a large ship. Since we know that something blew up, the possibility exists that the Lusitania might also have been carried out.
08:57They also have been carrying a more dangerous cargo, like bombs, or gun cotton, or TNT.
09:04regular 1080 If so, it would have been stored here, in the forward cargo magazine, which is almost precisely where the torpedo struck.
09:22torpedo struck.
09:29The resulting explosion might have sunk the ship, but it would certainly have destroyed
09:33the magazine.
09:35In either case, the signs of that massive damage should still be lying at the bottom
09:40of the sea, waiting for someone to find them.
09:54The Irish Channel, thirteen miles south of the lighthouse at Old Kinsale.
10:01Bob Ballard's research vessel is anchored directly over the spot where the Lusitania
10:05sank.
10:11For this investigation, Ballard has assembled the same team and much of the same equipment
10:16that helped him find the Titanic and the Bismarck.
10:26This time, the location of the sunken ship is known, but not what sank her.
10:33I sort of view what we're doing as investigative reporting.
10:35We're going out now with an extremely advanced technology that has never been available before.
10:42And we're going down and something else happened.
10:46And what was that something else?
10:51Ballard is not the first person to explore the Lusitania since she sank, just the first
10:56to use such sophisticated technology.
11:05In the 1960s, an American diver named John Light claimed to have found evidence that the
11:10Lusitania was destroyed when her own cargo exploded, and that the British government tried
11:16to cover it up.
11:19He was obsessed with the idea, and many people believed him.
11:27Light made a series of dives that pushed the primitive technology of that time to the limit.
11:32With a narrow beam of light to guide his way, he seldom spent more than a few minutes at a
11:38time on the wreck, and could only glimpse the enormous hull in fragments.
11:43But he did find something.
11:46What he described as a huge gaping hole in the Lusitania's bow on the port side, directly
11:52opposite from where the torpedo struck.
12:02The underwater robot called Jason is in the water for the first time.
12:09It is about to reveal the Lusitania in a way John Light could only dream of.
12:15But shortly before this expedition began, he died at the age of 59.
12:21Ballard is hoping to confirm Light's discovery with irrefutable photographic evidence that something
12:27in the Lusitania's forward magazine exploded.
12:30Today, the Lusitania lies in about 300 feet of water on her starboard side, the side where
12:42the torpedo struck.
12:47Travelers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists
12:52between Germany and Great Britain, and that travelers sailing in the war zone on ships of
12:56Great Britain do so at their own risk.
13:01The day the Lusitania was set to sail, this notice appears in the New York newspapers.
13:07Believing that the Lusitania is too big and too fast to be threatened by a submarine, the
13:12Cunard Line makes no attempt to alert passengers of the German warning.
13:18Nine-year-old Edith Williams was traveling with her mother and five brothers and sisters.
13:23No, I don't think she even knew that it was in danger.
13:28If she did, she certainly kept it quiet.
13:30We never knew anything about it.
13:34We left New York on the 1st of May, 1915, on the Lusitania.
13:47Father, mother, brother, baby, sister, 20 months, and myself.
14:01Each time the Lusitania sails from New York, it is a glittering social event.
14:07On this voyage, bystanders might have caught a glimpse of millionaire Alfred Vanderbilt,
14:12or theater impresario Charles Froman, who once introduced a play called Peter Pan to American
14:18audiences.
14:19I remember the band playing and people waving flags at the docks as if it happened yesterday.
14:29You know, all this, it's all excitement.
14:32You know, this little girl who'd never seen anything like that in her life.
14:36And that, it just, it was great, it was beautiful.
14:41On a dockside swarming with German spies, the Lusitania's cargo holds are loaded with last
14:49minute provisions, including a few hundred cases of bullets and shrapnel shells hidden
14:54among barrels of cheese.
14:56I can't believe they'd be carrying arms in a passenger ship.
15:07Because it was, it was a, well, it was the largest ship then and it was all wealthy people
15:11going back and forwards from Britain to America, you see.
15:15They should have been very careful about that sort of thing.
15:18But they were not very careful.
15:22As far as the German government is concerned, the Lusitania is a legitimate target of war.
15:29But for her passengers, that war is still a week and an ocean away.
15:47It is still the first day of Ballard's survey.
15:50He is looking for the large telltale hole that would confirm a massive explosion in the ship's
15:55forward magazine.
16:00When the ghostly image of the bow appears in Jason's cameras, it seems to be intact.
16:08Seems like I need to come left.
16:14But as Jason moves slowly over the exposed port side, more and more damage becomes apparent.
16:21Seventy-five years of winter tides and corrosion have taken their toll.
16:26Some place it was definitely bowed out, but it looks like someone took a pair of scissors.
16:31Yeah, yeah.
16:32I see all that.
16:33It's a mess.
16:40We can see the extent to which it's really been flattened and squashed.
16:43We can tell that instead of being maybe 80 or 90 feet off the sea floor like we could expect,
16:51it's only about 30 feet.
16:57As the survey continues, Jason's cameras detect some smaller holes, but not near the magazine
17:03where the explosives would have been stored.
17:18At the very bottom of the bow, a large section of the ship is missing, but the damage is well
17:23forward of the magazine.
17:28It's not what Ballard expected to find.
17:32As far as he can tell, the gaping hole reported by John Light simply doesn't exist.
17:40Ballard thinks he understands the reason for Light's mistake.
17:44These are divers.
17:45This is a technology of, you know, holding your breath almost and running down there and getting
17:50narcisized and getting somewhat narcotic.
17:53I mean, you lose your, you know, you're a little drifty down there at 300 feet on compressed
17:58air.
17:59I mean, they were pushing the limits of diving technology.
18:03Even using exotic gases, you're under a lot of stress when you're underwater and you got
18:07a little flashlight and you're looking around a little flashlight.
18:10You know, I don't think they knew where they were exactly.
18:14A controversial theory that's been around for decades has suddenly collapsed.
18:22Ballard is no closer to knowing what sank the Lusitania than before.
18:27For the moment at least, Ballard's investigation has reached a dead end.
18:34First and foremost, the magazine did not explode.
18:39I'm confident of that.
18:40I went right in, thumped up against the hull.
18:42I couldn't have had my hand of the vehicle more than feet from where the magazine is and
18:53the armament or the munitions.
18:56I would be led to believe that whatever they put in the forward cargo hull didn't explode.
19:05It's not what I had hoped.
19:07It's not pretty.
19:09And it makes our investigative reporting that much more difficult.
19:13Plus, she's laying on her starboard side.
19:15That's the side where the torpedo hit.
19:19That's where the answer to the mystery is.
19:23Wednesday, May 5th, 1915.
19:35A German submarine commanded by Captain Walter Schweiger surfaces in the waters just south
19:41of Fast Neck Rock.
19:45U-boat 20 left Germany the day before the Lusitania sailed and has made her way around
19:50the west coast of Ireland.
19:53Like the Lusitania, she's also bound for Liverpool.
19:57On the surface, she can make 15 knots, underwater about 9.
20:03Only the slowest ships would be unable to outrun her.
20:07Her crew takes any chance they can to escape the cold, stinking interior of their ship.
20:15A thousand miles to the west, the Lusitania's passengers are experiencing the Atlantic somewhat
20:22differently.
20:27She is 785 feet long and 88 feet wide midway between bow and stern.
20:36She has seven decks towering above the water line and three more below.
20:43She can maintain a speed of 25 knots.
20:46But on this trip, the number four boiler room has been shut down to save coal.
20:55She is commanded by Captain William Turner, a veteran seaman with 32 years of service with
21:00the Cunard line.
21:02Her four dining rooms can serve over 10,000 meals a day and her first class kitchen rivals
21:13the best in Europe.
21:20She has a library and a doctor's office, smoking salons, a music room.
21:28She even has elevators and a two-story first class dining room capped by an elegant dome,
21:37a floating palace, a floating palace, someone called her.
21:44But for nine-year-old Edith Williams, the Lusitania is a floating playground.
21:50I walked a lot on board on a ship.
21:53I was in a new world, really.
21:57Can you imagine being in all this glamorous stuff?
22:05Alice Lyons was 18 years old, a nurse in charge of a three-month-old baby named Audrey.
22:11It was just so gorgeous.
22:12It was like travelling in a hotel.
22:15We had dances, we had lovely meals.
22:18There was no talk of war at all with anybody.
22:24The only thing I remember fairly clearly, every morning, Dad got me up early and we walked
22:34all around the Lusitania.
22:36It was good and we had a very calm voyage, no sea symptoms.
22:44One thing I remember about the Lusitania was there I had my first drink of cold refrigerated milk.
22:56Every day was a dream.
22:58It was something, how beautiful, because we lived, you know, very poorly.
23:02We were poor, hungry.
23:05And to find something like this, it was, can you want to explain it, really?
23:12Wednesday, May 5th, evening.
23:17In the past 24 hours, the U-20 has sunk one ship, a schooner carrying some bacon.
23:23But she needed deck cannon and grenades to do it.
23:28The one time she attempted to fire a torpedo on this mission, it got jammed in the tube.
23:34Now she will have a second chance.
23:37At 8.30 that evening, Captain Schweiger spots a steamer through the fog.
23:42The U-20 fires one torpedo at point-blank range.
23:48This time it clears the tube, but doesn't explode.
23:53The submarine's activity is reported to the Admiralty Office in London.
23:57But no one quite knows what countermeasures to take, except watch and wait.
24:0424 hours later, Thursday, May 6th, the Lusitania stands poised to enter British coastal waters and the war zone.
24:16The lifeboats have been swung away from the ship in the unlikely event they will be needed.
24:21After briefly attending a cocktail party with Charles Froman and Alfred Vanderbilt, Captain Turner returns to the bridge to find a telegram waiting for him.
24:33Submarines active off south coast of Ireland.
24:37Minutes later, another message arrives.
24:40Avoid headlands. Pass harbors at full speed.
24:43Steer mid-channel course. Submarines off fast net.
24:48Captain Turner orders the curtains drawn in all staterooms and passes the word that gentlemen wishing to smoke an after-dinner cigar should not do so on deck.
25:00The night before we were torpedoed, the steward came into my room and drew all the curtains.
25:11And I said, was this awful?
25:14And he said, well that's my orders.
25:16That night after dinner, the Welsh choir gives a concert.
25:23A fight erupts among a group of men playing cards in the first class smoking room.
25:29And Edith Williams takes a stroll with her mother.
25:34On the deck one time she said to me, she did say this and I remember it.
25:39That if we're to be drowned, let us hope that we'll all be drowned or all say something to them.
25:48Probably in prayer she said it.
25:50That's all I remember about my mother.
25:52And below decks, the endless movement of wheel barrels from the coal bunkers continues until they are empty of nearly everything but dust.
26:04A few hundred miles away, Captain Schweiger congratulates his crew for the two cargo ships they have sunk that day.
26:14And plays a record by Wagner on the ship's gramophone.
26:22Then he makes a decision that will change history.
26:26Instead of continuing on to Liverpool, he will cruise the Irish Channel with his remaining three torpedoes.
26:44Although Ballard's investigation is at an impasse, he is not yet prepared to admit failure.
26:57He knows that something must have caused the second explosion that sank the Lusitania.
27:09But if her cargo didn't blow up, what did?
27:13Ballard decides to have a look for himself in the two-man submarine called Delta.
27:34One approach to the wreck is along the line that the Lusitania herself followed as she sank.
27:40A trail of coal marks the way.
27:49Coal. The Lusitania carried 5,000 tons of it in a series of massive bunkers arranged along both sides of the ship.
28:03And those bunkers lie directly behind the undamaged magazine.
28:10It's only the smallest clue, but it means that as the Lusitania sank, the coal bunkers on her starboard side must have been opened to the sea.
28:20Friday, May 7th, 1915, shortly before one o'clock.
28:45After a morning of slow progress through heavy fog, the Lusitania rounds the southwest tip of Ireland.
28:54She is finally inside of land.
28:58I was six years old, and we were standing on the coast of Southern Ireland off the old head of Kinsale on a lovely sunny afternoon, enjoying the scenery, and we saw this liner coming round the corner.
29:12I'd never seen such a big liner as this in my life before, and we were fascinated watching it coming towards us virtually. Wonderful sight.
29:27It was a fine day. Yes, it was a fine day. And that morning, Dad, when we come from breakfast, Dad said, look out there. And he said, what can you see? That was the Irish coast we were on.
29:42About 15 miles away, U-boat 20 is running on the surface when a lookout spots four funnels on the horizon.
29:57Though he has no hope of catching this unidentified liner, Captain Schweiger gives the order to submerge.
30:05At almost the same moment on the bridge of the Lusitania, Captain Turner orders a turn to starboard toward Liverpool and puts his ship directly in the path of the onrushing submarine.
30:18Captain Schweiger cannot believe his luck.
30:24It is just after two o'clock. In the Lusitania's dining room, second lunch is being served.
30:30The Lusitania is 1,000 meters away from the U-boat and closing fast.
30:41At 700 meters, Captain Schweiger gives the order to fire one torpedo.
30:46We were at lunch, and this girl who shared the cabin with me, she thought we should be starting to pack.
31:01So, of course, I left the table and went with her to the cabin. And we were just inside when there was this noise.
31:06Oh, it was a terrific explosion. A terrific one. And it sounds as if it was right near two. It frightened the life out of me.
31:23The torpedo strikes the ship just behind the bridge. A spout of water, steam, and black dust erupts somewhere behind the forward crow's nest.
31:32All people pushing, shoving, to get up as high as they could, getting near the back.
31:42Almost immediately, the ship lists sharply to starboard. The lifeboats on that side swing away from the ship.
31:49On the port side, the lifeboats swing in. Lowering them becomes almost impossible.
31:54The lifeboats went up and down, and they were out of order because they couldn't run. They were all crooked.
32:01So they had just to fill the boat and load it down by hand. And then when they got to the water, they cut the rope.
32:07And, of course, the first two overturned, and the people were thrown in the water.
32:16We come to an open space. Got me hands in prayer. And I said, please, God save us. Please, God save us.
32:23In the mounting panic, nursemaid Alice Lines wraps three-month-old Audrey into a shawl and ties it around her neck.
32:33Then she heads for the lifeboat with Audrey's older brother in tow.
32:36I followed, best I could, to get into the lifeboat. And an officer came and grabbed me. He said, you can't go in. That's full.
32:49And I said, I must. My boy is in there. I just put my boy there. I must.
32:56I got myself free from him. And they were lowering the lifeboat. And I jumped.
33:03Trying to escape the onrushing seas, other passengers climbed to the highest points on the ship.
33:10I had my sister Florence with me. We got to the poop deck next to the funnels.
33:17And so we went down with a sink, and when she got to where we were, on the top, we just went into the ocean.
33:24My lifebelt slipped off. And I was holding on to Florence, but I couldn't hold on any longer.
33:35I had to let her go. That was very traumatic. That lasted this hand. It was this hand.
33:43It lasted till I was 19 or 20 years old. That's extraordinary. I still could feel the grip.
33:48And very gradually, the bows went down. And as the bows went down, the stern came up.
34:05Until the propellers were out of the water. She was quite clear of the water.
34:09And at an angle, I would think, of about 45 degrees, she set poise.
34:15And then, as if just on the slide, she slowly slid down, quite dramatically, below the waves.
34:23The sea was boiling. And the liner disappeared.
34:27Three hundred feet below the surface, the great ship came to rest.
34:49Inside her were those who had never even made it to the decks.
34:56When the power failed and plunged the ship into darkness, they were trapped in the boiler rooms, the cargo holds, the second-class cabins, the first-class elevators.
35:11A hatch door still stands open, a last desperate effort to escape as the ship went down.
35:30Off to one side, part of a woman's shoe.
35:34Three hundred feet above the liner, death is assuming a different form.
35:52Scattered in a great swath that runs for a mile, those who survived the sinking itself are beginning to die from exposure in the frigid sea.
36:02When I came up, there was nothing in sight at all.
36:06The boat was disappeared, and all I could see was heads bobbing up and down, and chairs, tables, and things like that, and people calling out.
36:15And these two men were on a lifeboat upside down, two of them, and they dragged me on with them.
36:24I know I was in the water, and crying, and being picked up.
36:32I just think there were only seven lifeboes, but they grabbed me, and it was Mr. Hook that pulled me out.
36:41I didn't see the Lusitania go down, but I seen this row of people moaning.
36:53And it was like a half a circle of people moaning in the water.
36:58There was just a moaning, constant moaning, and it gradually got less and less.
37:11Over a week has passed since Ballard started his investigation, and he's beginning to focus on an idea suggested by retired Captain Cyril Spur, a British munitions expert who's just joined his team.
37:26Spur has pointed out that if the torpedo had struck at any point behind the forward magazine, it would have hit a coal bunker.
37:34Since the ship was at the end of her crossing, the bunkers would have been almost empty, except for a thick layer of coal dust on the floor.
37:51How many of those bunkers would have to be violated for the ship to sink the way it did?
37:58The Lusitania was built so as to float, with two compartments open to the sea, and with more compartments open, she could not stay afloat.
38:11What is the explosive nature of coal dust? Is there a gas buildup in these things?
38:18With a disruption, there could be a serious cloud of coal dust, which would be very explosive indeed.
38:25We heard a sharp explosion initially, which would have been the torpedo, and a rumbling.
38:34That would match a dust explosion more accurately.
38:42You still have the classic ingredients for an explosion, provided that you've got a source of ignition.
38:49Must have a source of ignition.
38:50So you have the torpedo coming in, and hitting right about there, somewhere in that neck of the woods, just below the water line in the red.
39:06And you would have had an initial explosion, a sharp explosion, which everyone reported.
39:10And that would have blown out plating.
39:14And then that explosion, that fireball that it ignited, then ignited what I think was the coal dust.
39:20It shook the bunker, got the coal up in the air, the remaining dust, and then ignited that.
39:26And so now the sea is going to pour into that area, and the ship is going to immediately list to starboard, dumping coal on the floor of the ocean as it goes from the ruptured bunkers, and then crack on the bottom.
39:45And the forces of gravity would have slowly caused it to settle to where it's now sort of a sealed tomb.
39:58Although we may never know the whole truth, it now seems likely that the sinking of the Lusitania was simply one of those strange quirks of fate that happened in war.
40:12The Cunard Archive in Liverpool.
40:33Today, the Cunard line records of the Lusitania disaster fill only a few shelves.
40:40In the haste to find answers and assign blame, the human stories have been largely forgotten.
40:59May 7th, 1915, evening.
41:02The first victims of the sinking arrive in the Irish port of Queenstown.
41:10By the following morning, the Lusitania has made headlines everywhere around the globe.
41:20In Liverpool and New York, anxious relatives and friends gather for word of their loved ones.
41:26The sea has been remarkably democratic in who it claimed.
41:29The sea has been remarkably democratic in who it claimed.
41:33We lost a little sister.
41:41Twenty months old.
41:43I suppose she was drowned as soon as she entered the water, I expect.
41:50It wasn't much chance of a little girl like that, was it?
41:53Gradually, the dimensions of the disaster become apparent.
41:54Of the 1,959 people aboard the ship, there are only 764 survivors.
42:00The Cunard line offers a cash reward for the bodies that have started to float ashore as far away as far away as the sea.
42:07The Cunard line offers a cash reward for the bodies that have started to float ashore as far away as the sea.
42:10Only 289 are recovered.
42:11Of these, 65 are never identified.
42:12Of these, 65 are never identified.
42:13The Cunard line offers a cash reward for the bodies that have started to float ashore as far away as the sea.
42:18The Cunard line offers a cash reward for the bodies that have started to float ashore as far away as the sea.
42:31Only 289 are recovered.
42:34Of these, 65 are never identified.
42:39There were just rows and rows of people who had been taken out of the sea who were dead.
42:45I went over quite a number, and then I saw my father's body.
42:50And that was that.
42:52I didn't do any more after that.
42:54When we arrived in Queenstown, they told me I cried for my mother all night.
43:11Wondered where she was.
43:13You girl naturally would want to know where her mother was.
43:19So, they said, oh, she's probably perhaps in another hotel, et cetera.
43:28So, but she was never found like a thousand other people.
43:33Sir, the following message is copying ink pen on brown paper enclosed in a bottle was picked up near Waterford on the 18th
43:47and delivered to me today, quote,
43:50No other papers to be God.
43:53Going down with Lusitania.
43:55Torpedoed off old head Kinsale.
43:58M. McManus. Goodbye.
44:07In the weeks to come, Great Britain will deny that the Lusitania was carrying arms
44:12and set up an official inquiry, which will promptly blame Germany for the disaster.
44:21Winston Churchill would talk of resigning, but end up leading his nation to victory in another war against Germany 30 years later.
44:29The German people will welcome the crew of U-Boat 20 like heroes when they return home.
44:42And in the United States, there will be an immediate outcry for a declaration of war against Germany.
44:49But nearly two years will pass before that happens.
44:52When you have a disaster like this where so many truly innocent people,
45:03I mean, they were innocent children, women, people from neutral countries that had absolutely nothing to do with the war, died.
45:10You always want to say, well, who's to blame? Who do we pin this on?
45:15And from what I can see, everyone was to blame.
45:22It was not a good performance on the part of the human race.
45:31Seventy-nine years have passed since Alice Lyons wrapped three-month-old baby Audrey in her shawl and jumped for a lifeboat.
45:39She's a very dear, close friend, and made a great deal to me because she saved my life.
45:46You did cry a lot. That's no doubt. I thought you were a cry-papy.
45:50Yes, you did tell me that.
45:52Yes.
45:53But as a six-year-old boy, it was something that would stick in my mind, as it has done, for the rest of my life.
46:08And although time fades and the little grey cells get worn out, I can still sit here now and see that liner just sliding beneath the waves.
46:23Oh, I think that, uh, it still could have a lot of war materials aboard that aren't undocumented.
46:35I think it becomes more and more a footnote, though, as we show that it wasn't the explosion of those war materials that put her to the bottom.
46:45I'm content with what we found out, and now it's time to move on to another piece of history.
46:52You know, another piece of history.
47:22You know, another piece of history, the two harps, the two harps.
47:29I wish I had a plan, and I'd say, yes, you know, dear.
47:34This was a good idea.
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