On 7 May 1915, Oliver Bernard, a young British theatre designer, was taking a post-lunch stroll on the deck of the luxury Cunard liner RMS Lusitania when he saw to starboard what appeared to be the “tail of a fish” in a sea so still it looked like an “opaque sheet of polished indigo”.
Convinced the object was a submarine periscope, he stared hard until he picked up “the fast-lengthening track of a newly launched torpedo, itself a streak of froth”. He stared open-mouthed as an American woman beside him asked: “This isn’t a torpedo is it?” Bernard felt sick, unable to answer. It was left to a broad-shouldered American male to state the obvious: “By heavens, they’ve done it.”
Read Full Article »