The Lusitania Sinking (01 May 1915-Eyewitness Accounts From Survivors) PDF
Preview The Lusitania Sinking (01 May 1915-Eyewitness Accounts From Survivors)
Anthony Richards is at his best in this ground-breaking history.’
- Richard van Emden (Naval Historian).
"We went up on deck and were looking around when the awful crash came.
The ship listed so much that we all scrambled down the deck and for a moment everything was in confusion.
I glanced around but could find no trace of Mr Prichard."
- Grace French
The Lusitania sinking is an event that has been predominantly discussed from a political or maritime perspective.
For the first time, The Lusitania Sinking tells the story in the emotive framework of a family looking for information on their son’s presumed death.
On 1 May 1915, the 29-year-old student Preston Prichard embarked as a Second Class passenger on the Liner RMS Lusitania, bound from New York America to the port of Liverpool, England.
By 1400 Hours on the afternoon of 7 May 1915 after successfully crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the liner was approaching the Irish coastline when she was sighted by the Commander of the German submarine U-20.
A single torpedo caused a massive secondary explosion inside the Lusitania’s hold, tearing the ship apart and the ship sank rapidly.
Preston like so many others was never seen again, and officially recorded as being 'Missing - Presumed Drowned'.
Uncertain of Preston’s fate, his family leaped into immediate action after news broke that the liner had been sunk.
His brother Mostyn, who lived in Ramsgate, travelled to Queenstown to search morgues but could find nothing.
Preston’s mother wrote hundreds of letters to survivors to find out more about what might have happened in his last moments.
The Lusitania Sinking compiles those responses with official replies.
Perhaps sensing his fate, Prichard had put his papers in order before embarking and told a fellow student where to find his will if anything happened to him. During the voyage, he was often seen in the company of Grace French. Alice Middleton, who had a crush on him but was too shy to speak to him throughout the entire voyage, remembered that he helped her in reaching the upper decks during the last moments as the liner started to list to a more pronounced degree.
''[The Lusitania] exploded and down came her funnels, so over I jumped. I had a terrible time in the water bashing about among the wreckage and dead bodies… It was 10.30 before they landed me at the hospital in an unconscious condition. In fact, they piled me with a boat full of dead and it was only when they were carrying the dead bodies to the mortuary they discovered there was still life in me.''
This is not a traditional 'war story', it is a story of unimaginable grief and survival, told from one Family's point of view, speaking on behalf of so many more who shared that same overwhelming feeling of loss at a loved one never returning.
16 BW Pictures.
Originally Published in 2019 on the Anniversary of the loss of the RMS Lusitania.
Anthony Richards has worked at the Imperial War Museum for more than twenty years, where he is responsible for the document and sound archives. A qualified and respected archivist, he has contributed to many publications and media projects based on personal written testimony of the two world wars, including articles for The Telegraph newspaper, the Royal Mail Stamp Yearbook, and the ITV series The Great War: The People’s Story (2014).
He is also the author of The Somme: A Visual History and In Their Own Words; (both IWM, 2016) and Documents That Changed History (IWM, 2018).
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