How the Lusitania horror hit home, 100 years ago
After a German U-boat sank the Lusitania on May 7, 1915, much of the initial newspaper attention focused on the fates of millionaire Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and Broadway producer Charles Frohman.
The story came much closer to home for Pittsburgh readers as The Gazette Times and The Pittsburg Press sifted through conflicting reports on what had happened to more than a dozen southwestern Pennsylvanians reported to be aboard the doomed ocean liner 100 years ago.
An optimistic United Press news service bulletin appeared in the late edition of The Press, an afternoon newspaper, on May 7. It claimed “all the Lusitania’s passengers were saved.”
That report soon proved untrue. The May 8 edition of The Gazette Times reported 1,409 people dead and just 658 survivors. In the days that followed the number of survivors rose and number of fatalities fell, but the scope of the disaster remained immense. Of the British ship’s 1,959 passengers and crew members, only 761 people survived. Those casualties included 128 Americans, but the fate of many people with Pittsburgh connections remained heartbreakingly unclear for several days.
When the Lusitania was sunk, World War I had been underway in Europe for nine months. The
United States had remained neutral in the conflict. Britain’s powerful navy had cut off most German shipping — including food — with a blockade. Kaiser Wilhelm’s government had responded with submarine warfare, sinking British merchant ships and threatening passenger liners suspected of carrying military supplies.
The Imperial German Embassy in Washington had issued a warning to passengers traveling on British ships just before the Lusitania sailed on May 1 from New York. The statement gave “formal notice” that “vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction” when passing through war zones. Those war zones included “the waters adjacent to the British Isles.”
Changing plans
That warning was enough to persuade North Side resident Robert Spiers to reconsider his decision to sail on the British-flagged ship, according to a story in the May 8 edition of The Gazette Times.
He was unable, however, to persuade his niece, Margaret Anderson, to change her plans. Mrs. Anderson, who lived on Liverpool Street in Pittsburgh’s Manchester neighborhood, had boarded the Lusitania to visit her family in Belfast, Ireland. She and her traveling companion, Margaret Kelly, another North Side resident who worked as a stenographer, had adjoining second-class staterooms, according to The Gazette Times.
“Last night Mr. Spiers said that he had been unable to sleep since the departure of his niece as he had a deeprooted premonition that misfortune would befall the steamer,” the newspaper story said.
The Lusitania was within a dozen miles of the coast of British-ruled Ireland when a German submarine fired a torpedo shortly after 2 p.m. local time.
The ship sank in just 18 minutes.
An undersea cable had linked Britain and the United States for decades, and both news stories and messages about survivors and victims were transmitted quickly across the ocean.
The sinking of the Lusitania reminded many of the loss of the Titanic after it struck an iceberg in 1912. “The memory of the terrible scenes on board the Titanic … brought terror to scores of Pittsburghers when they learned that their friends and relatives … might be among the hundreds reported drowned,” The Gazette Times said.
Fates unknown
By Sunday, May 9, the deaths of Vanderbilt and producer Charles Frohman had been confirmed. The status of hundreds of other passengers, including many from Pittsburgh, remained unknown.
“Residents of nearby towns known to have been rescued are Mrs. James Tierney and her daughter, Nina, of Vandergrift,” The Gazette Times reported. “Those yet to be reported either safe or lost” included Mrs. Anderson, Miss Kelly and a third North Sider, Miss Winifred Kilawee. (Her last name was also spelled Killawee in some stories.)
“Yesterday witnessed a continual stream of visitors at the local steamship offices,” the story said. “Some of the scenes around the agencies were pathetic. George A. Anderson of the Crucible Steel Co., whose wife was a passenger on the vessel, was in the office every few minutes hoping to hear news of his wife. He had not slept for 48 hours. All his telegrams to New York had failed to bring real information regarding her fate.
“Shortly after noon, James Tierney … came into the office and with a sigh of relief told the attaches that after walking the streets all night he had learned his wife and daughter had been rescued.”
The early reports of those saved also included North Siders Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Brownlee, several people from Wilkinsburg and a mother traveling with her two young sons from Ellwood City. Mrs. Herbert Owens was reported safe but her two sons, Ronald, 11, and Reginald, 8, were still missing. “It is feared also that the two sons of Mrs. Owens perished, her name alone appearing in the list of rescued.”
Miss Kilawee, whose fate remained unknown, was a 46-year-old immigrant from Ireland’s County Sligo. She had worked as a house servant in Sewickley and later as a waitress at a Downtown restaurant. She was traveling on the Lusitania to see her invalid mother back in Ireland, the newspaper reported.
The May 10 edition of the Gazette Times brought renewed hope about the fate of Miss Kilawee. “The mention in the latest list of additions to the list of survivors may lead to the discovery that Miss Winifred Killawee of Pittsburgh has been saved,” the story said. Her name had been transmitted as “W. Kennaway,” according to the paper.
Herbert Owens in Ellwood City also got some good news that day. His wife cabled from Queenstown, Ireland, that she was sailing back to America immediately. Queenstown is now Cobh. “While Ronald and Reginald … have not been officially reported saved, Mr. Owens believed they must have been rescued or Mrs. Owens would not start for home so soon,” the story said.
No news and bad news
George Anderson remained in suspense.
He got a cablegram from his father-in-law saying only “No information. Will wire if saved.”
The next day’s newspaper, however, reported better news. A follow-up telegram from his father-in-law said, “Margaret safe.”
Mr. Anderson and his wife had been married for about a year.
He had been preparing to cancel contracts for construction of their new home when he got word of his wife’s survival. “The little house will be built after all,” the Gazette Times said on May 11.
Sadly, a third telegram followed: “Awful mistake, dear Maggie lost. Deepest sympathy,” her father wrote his son-in-law the next day.
The May 13 edition of the Gazette Times contained more bad news. In addition to Mrs. Anderson, Mrs. James Tierney and her daughter, Nina, who originally had been reported to have been saved, had perished. The death of Miss Kelly, the North Side stenographer, also was confirmed. Thomas Brownlee, initially reported rescued, had not survived the sinking. “The latest bulletins state that only Mrs. Brownlee was rescued.
That day’s paper did contain a piece of good news. “Wilfred Kanaway” was believed to actually be Pittsburgh’s Miss Winifred Killawee.
“Her friends are now certain that Miss Killawee is the person mentioned in the telegram,” the Gazette Times reported on May 13.
That information was confirmed in the next day’s paper.
“It is now definitely known that Miss Winifred Kilawee ... was saved and is now in a Queenstown hospital,” the Pittsburg Press reported on May 14. “Her injuries are not considered serious … .”
While the sinking of the Lusitania and the deaths of so many U.S. citizens turned much of American public opinion against Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany, President Woodrow Wilson resisted calls for a declaration of war. His position was helped by a German apology and a modification of the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
Eighteen months later, in November 1916, President Wilson won re-election to a second term, campaigning with the slogan, “He kept us out of war.”
Shortly after Wilson’s election victory, Germany reinstated its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. On April 2, 1917, Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany, and the U.S. entered World War I.