RMS Lusitania. Killing 1,195 men, woman and children. (120 Americans died on the ship including One Bonesman … who didn’t get the message in time)
The lower decks of the RMS Lusitania had been removed, the hull filled with shells manufactured by JPMorgan for WW1 and destined for UK. The existance of the shells were denied after the sinking of the Lusitana (as this legitamised the ship as a target) . The wreck of the Lusitania has subsequently been found with shells / arnaments on board. JPMorgan and Partners had become increasingly concerned that the UK Government (who had borrowed money from them) would lose the war and therefore wanted the United States to join the war to protect their investment and further profits. They knowingly sold passengers seats on vessel carrying araments and despite German warnings.
22 Apr 1915 - Imperial German Embassy advert in U.S. Newspaper … “NOTICE! TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britian and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in acoordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
26 Apr 1915 - Captain Guy Gaunt called Ritter Von Rettegh to his office and asked what the effect would be of sea water coming into contact with guncotton. The chemist explained there were two types of gun cotton - trinitro cellulose, which sea water would not affect, and pyroxyline, which sea water could cause to suddenly explode, as a result of chemical changes.[7,13] (Signed affidavit by Dr. E. W. Ritter von Rettegh a chemist employed by Captain Guy Gaunt, the British Naval Attache in Washington)
27 Apr 1915 - Gaunt visited the Du Pont (13 bloodlines) munitons plant and shipped tons of pyroxyline to NYC where it was loaded onto the Lusitania. Ships manifest 3,813 40-pound contains of “cheese”, which were shipped along with 696 containers of “butter”. That these packages were not butter and cheese that is clear: Not shipped in refrigerated packages; their destination was listed as the Royal Navy’s Weapon Testing Establishment; and no one filed an insurance claim for the lost “butter and cheese”.[4,14]
2 May 1915 - five days before the Lusitania was sunk – Hines Page (US Ambassador to UK who recieved a private annual stipend of \(25k (>\)500k 2018) from munitions magnate Cleveland Dodge so that he could live in “proper ambassadorial style” ) wrote to his son: “If a British liner full of American passengers be blown up, what will Uncle Sam do? That’s what’s going to happen.”[4,8]
5 May – two days before the tragedy – Winston Churchill (Freemason) met with Admiral Fisher (Freemason. First Sea Lord), Admiral Oliver (Chief of Naval Staff), and Commander Joseph Kenworthy (Naval Intelligence), in the Admiralty’s map room. Here a great grid showed locations of British ships and hostile ships, marked with pins. The map showed the Lusitania and U-20 on a collision course. What was said is unrecorded, but Kenworthy wrote in his postwar book The Freedom of the Seas: “The Lusitania was deliberately sent at considerably reduced speed into an area where a U-boat was known to be waiting and with her escorts withdrawn.” However, the publisher deleted the word “deliberately” at the Admiralty’s insistence.[4,16]
Lusitania’s captain David Dow informed Cunard (ship owner) he could no longer mix carrying passengers with Munitions (due to increase in submarine warfare). As a result he was replaced by William Turner.
6 May 1915 - U Boat (U-20) sinks two steamers.
7 May 1915, On previous voyages, destroyers had accompanied the Lusitania where the submarines threats existed. However, on May 7, no destroyers were designated to protect her, even though four were lying idle in the nearby port of Milford Heaven,[4,17] and despite the U-20’s known presence in the south Irish Seam where it had sunk two steamers the prevous day. The only warship assigned to meet the Lusitania was an aging cruiser, the Juno. However, the Juno was ordered back to the port of Queenstown on Ireland’s southern coast - on the justification that she was vulnerable to submarine attack ! Yet the Lusitania received no instructions to divert to Queenstown.[4]
Morning 7 May 1915 - Col. Edward M. House met with Edward Grey (Freemason, Apollo Lodge), Britain’s Foreign Minister. House recorded: “We spoke of the probability of an ocean liner being sunk, and I told him if this were done, a flame of indignation would sweep across America, which would in itself probably carry us into the war.” Later that day, House and Grey met with King George V at Buckingham Palace. House wrote: “We fell to talking, strangely enough, of the probability of Germany sinking a trans-Atlantic liner… . He [the king] said, ‘Suppose they should sink the Lusitania, with American passengers on board?’”[4,10] (These quotes appear in Houses’s official biography, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House.)[4]. The meeting was two hours before the Lusitania was sunk[6].
7 May 1915 - Lusitania directed to area were the two steamers had been sunk the previous day.[6]. German U-Boat (U-20) sunk the Lusitania, killing 1,195 men, woman and children. (120 Americans died on the ship). The ship was carrying 173 tons of remmington rifle cartrdiges, 50 tons of shrapnel shells (not supposedly loaded, but sea divers have found them), 46 tons of aluminum hydroxide (British military explosive), 18 cases of mercury fulminate (powerful military explosive) and > 100 tons of gun cotten which the British used in sea mines.[6]
The Lusitania had been ferrying munitions, from America to England, time after time and the Germans knew this and couldn’t let it go on. (the munitions were being used against Germany soldiers on European front)
8 May 1915, Ambassador Page cabled Wilson:
“The freely expressed universal opinion is that the United States must declare war or forfeit European respect. So far as I know this opinion is universal. If the U.S. does come in, the moral and physical effect will be to bring peace quickly and to give the U.S. a great influence in ending the war and in so reorganizing the world as to prevent its recurrence… .”[4,11]
Same Evening, a splendid dinner was given honoring Edward Mandell House; numerous British dignitaries attended, including Grey, and – at House’s request – Lord Mersey, the Wreck Commissioner, who would later oversee the inquiry regarding the Lusitania. During this dinner the news arrived of the great ship’s sinking. House announced to the assembled guests that America would enter the war within the month.
6 Apr 1917 - U.S. Declared War on Germany. The sinking of the Lusitania presaged the United States declaration of war on Germany. (WW1… 28 Jul 1914 to 11 Nov 1918).
WW1 - Mid 1918 - Trained American forces would not begin arriving at the front in large numbers until mid-1918.
Skull and Bones / Others / Related - to be completed
Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (S&B 1899) - A Telegram warning Vanderbilt not to sail was delivered to the Lusitania before it sailed - but never reached Vanderbilt. Consequently, Vanderbilt went down with the ship.
Frederic Kernochan (S&B 1898) - WW1 - Chairman mayor’s committee on protection of shipping during World War.
[1] - Spartacus Educational - Lusitania
[2] - Spartacus Educational - Sinking of the Lusitania and War Propaganda
[3] - FYI - Wiki - RMS Lusitania
[5] - The Guardian, 1 May 2014 - The Lusitania and the secrets of war, revealed
[6] - SGT Report - 13 Pieces of the Jigsaw by James Perloff (inc Lustania)
Comments