Queenstown remembers World War I devastation

World War I came to the doorstep of Queenstown, Ireland, on the afternoon of May 7, 1915, when a German U-boat fired a torpedo that penetrated the side of the Lusitania, a British steamship.

She had departed from New York City and was headed to Liverpool, England. The blast triggered multiple explosions aboard the luxury liner. With 1,960 people onboard, the vessel sank in 18 minutes, according to the U-boat captain’s clock.

In the end, 1,197 people died in the attack, including 128 Americans. The Lusitania went down in the Celtic Sea, just 11 miles off the southern coast of Ireland near The Old Head of Kinsale. From the lighthouse on the cliff there, observers watched in horror.

Kinsale is about 15 miles from Queenstown, both within County Cork. Small boats of all descriptions sped to the scene to gather survivors and collect bodies. Most were brought into port at Queenstown.

Ronan McGreevy of The Irish Times in Dublin, Ireland, wrote: “The grim reality of the first World War came washing up on the shores of Queenstown. The people responded with a sense of purpose that remains a source of pride for the town.”

Irish soldiers were immediately summoned to prepare gravesites within in the Old Church Cemetery, two miles outside of Queenstown. “When the undertakers in Queenstown and nearby Cork could not make enough coffins, more were brought in by train from Kildare and Dublin,” McGreevy said.

“On May 10, thousands of mourners and locals arrived to pay their respects.” (In all, 169 bodies from the Lusitania were buried in three mass graves and 20 individual plots.)

Writing for History.com, Annette McDermott said: “Days before the Lusitania was scheduled to leave New York City in 1915, the Imperial German Embassy in Washington, D.C., placed advertisements in American newspapers warning that “vessels flying the flag of Great Britain or of any of her allies are liable to destruction.”

(Dagnabbit it all; the cautionary alerts were ignored by the U.S. commercial sailing lines.)

Walther Schweiger was the commander of the U-20 and responsible for sinking the Lusitania. The U.S. National Archives website contains a translation of Schweiger’s log.

At 700 meters (inside a half mile), his torpedo struck the starboard side close behind the bridge. “An extraordinarily heavy detonation, with a very large cloud of smoke. A second explosion followed.”

“The ship stopped immediately and quickly listed sharply to starboard. It appeared as if it would capsize in a short time. Great confusion arose on the ship….”

The U-boat dived and ran toward the sea. Schweiger wrote that he restrained from firing “a second torpedo into this swarm of people who were trying to save themselves.”

The sinking of the Lusitania “provoked revulsion” in Great Britain, McGreevy said, “but it was not the catalyst for American entry into the first World War. That did not happen for another two years.

It was, however, the beginning of the end of U.S. neutrality in the conflict.”

On April 6, 1917, the United States formally declared war against Germany and entered the conflict in Europe. Britain, France and Russia welcomed news that American troops and supplies would be directed toward the Allied war effort. Under the command of Maj. Gen. John J. Pershing, more than 2 million U.S. troops went into action.

The fighting would end on Nov. 11, 1918. History.com reported: “At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies.”