A Look at the Lusitania Wreck Yields Answers
https://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse/?cuecard=910
General Information
Source:
Creator:
Event Date:
Air/Publish Date:
NBC Today Show
Bryant Gumbel/Bob
Jamieson
05/07/1982
05/07/1982
Resource Type:
Copyright:
Copyright Date:
Clip Length
Video News Report
NBCUniversal Media,
LLC.
1982
00:03:00
Description
Salvage engineers investigate the sinking of the RMS Lusitania. The British ocean liner was torpedoed by
a German submarine on May 7, 1915, ultimately drawing America into World War I.
Keywords
Lusitania, World War I, Shipwrecks, Ireland, Germany, Ocean Liners, Submarines, Torpedoes, England,
Great Britain, Explosives, Remington Arms, DuPont Chemicals, Colin Simpson, Barry Lister, John Pierce
, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York, WWI, Great War
Citation
MLA
"A Look at the Lusitania Wreck Yields Answers." Bob Jamieson, correspondent. NBC Today Show.
© 2008-2015 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 1 of 3
NBCUniversal Media. 7 May 1982. NBC Learn. Web. 1 April 2015
APA
Jamieson, B. (Reporter), & Gumbel, B. (Anchor). 1982, May 7. A Look at the Lusitania Wreck Yields
Answers. [Television series episode]. NBC Today Show. Retrieved from
https://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse/?cuecard=910
CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE
"A Look at the Lusitania Wreck Yields Answers" NBC Today Show, New York, NY: NBC Universal,
05/07/1982. Accessed Wed Apr 1 2015 from NBC Learn:
https://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse/?cuecard=910
Transcript
A Look at the Lusitania Wreck Yields Answers
BRYANT GUMBEL, anchor:
On Close-Up this morning; the sinking of the Lusitania. It was 67 years ago today, off the coast of Ireland
that a German U-boat sent the British liner Lusitania to the bottom with a loss of some 1,200 lives. The
Allies charged atrocity; the Germans said it was justified. From London, Bob Jamieson reports on some
detective work.
BOB JAMIESON, reporting:
On a clear day in calm seas the motor-sailer Cous Bay puts out from the Irish coast to gather what
scientist aboard her believe will be the last piece of evidence to solve a 67 year old mystery. Below decks
is John Pierce with a British underwater camera technician who will help Pierce and his partner take one
more look at the wreck Lusitania lying 12 miles off the coast in almost 300 feet of water. The Lusitania
sank in 1915 with the loss of 1,201 lives; she was torpedoed by a German submarine on the last leg of a
voyage from the United States. But the Lusitania, thought unsinkable, went down in just 18 minutes, a
puzzle since the 30,000-ton liner had taken only one torpedo. Angry demonstrations erupted in Britain, at
war with Germany. The sinking of an innocent passenger liner was unconscionable, but was the Lusitania
innocent? The Germans said no, that she carried munitions, a claim denied by Britain and the United
States. The emotional reaction ultimately swept America into World War I against Germany. But Pierce
and his partner Barry Lister have concluded that the Lusitania was carrying munitions and that those
explosives, not the torpedo, caused her to sink. On the last day of their investigation the scientists
launched a remote control television camera from the Cous Bay sent down to the wreck aboard an
underwater sled. And they find what they’re looking for, evidence of damage from an explosion that
began inside the ship.
Mr. PIERCE: The vessel was certainly sunk by a massive internal explosion. That’s pretty well confirmed
from what we’ve already found.
Mr. LISTER: A large section of the bow, or behind the bow, on the keel area--missing, totally away from
© 2008-2015 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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where the torpedo entry occurred.
JAMIESON: But what caused the explosion? If you believe the British admiralty and the US government,
148 tubs of butter. This is the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York. Among the papers
there is the Lusitania’s manifest. It shows that 148 tubs of butter were shipped by that well-known dairy
Remington Arms and its parent company DuPont Chemicals to the British admiralty. It was stored aboard
the Lusitania at the point where the scientists have found the massive damage; apparently what was
shipped was gun cotton, a volatile explosive used in mines, which can be set off by contact with seawater.
Journalist Colin Simpson…
Mr. SIMPSON: What happened was there was a longitudinal bulkhead there. Seawater got in; probably
because of the bulkhead, the flash of the torpedo, you had a combination of seawater and a flash of white
heat. That ignited what the admiralty cares to call 148 tubs of butter.
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