The Lusitania's Last Voyage: Being a Narrative of the Torpedoing and Sinking of the RMS Lusitania by a German Submarine off the Irish Coast May 7, 1915

by Charles E. Lauriat Jr.

A first-hand account of the Lusitania’s doomed final voyage.

On May 7, 1915, the German U-boat U-20 fired a torpedo into the side of the passenger liner R.M.S. Lusitania as it passed the Old Head of Kinsale in Ireland on its way to Liverpool, England. This act of war had a terrible toll—of the 1,962 passengers and crew, 1,191 lost their lives, many of them women and children.

One of the passengers on the ship was Charles E. Lauriat, Jr., a rare book dealer who traveled regularly to London for business. When the German embassy placed a warning notice in several New York papers stating that any ships of Great Britain and her allies would be considered fair targets, Lauriat, along with most of the other passengers, dismissed the notion that a civilian liner would actually be attacked.

Lauriat’s memoir of the journey recreates the torpedo attack—describing the listing ship as it filled with water and people scrambled for lifeboats, too often finding them inaccessible or unusable—and details the rescue that came too late for most of his fellow passengers. Lauriat then points out the many faults of the official inquiry, telling the true story of that tragic day.
With a new foreword and photos of the ship, The Lusitania’s Last Voyage is a gripping account of one of history’s greatest naval disasters.

Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1915

Reviews

[Jason Rumfelt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up as supplemental reading in addition to Larson’s “Dead Wake.” This was a much shorter account but one that laid out the same details in a clear and concise way. I was surprised however that he glossed over the fact that the original Charles Dickens classic “A Christmas Carroll” was lost with the ship (a detail that Larson spoke of at length). Good supplemental reading for sure.

[Avis Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lauriat was one of the passengers on the Lusitania when it was torpedoed. This book is his personal account of what happened, and he claims the official report was a lot of bunk that covered up the incompetence of the captain.

After being hit, the captain refused to lower the lifeboats, claiming the ship's watertight compartments would prevent it from sinking. When it became apparent the Lusitania was going down anyway, the angle of the vessel was so extreme that the lifeboats could no longer be properly launched, thus dooming most of the passengers to a watery grave.

The official report does hint that by 1915, the best British sea captains were serving in the navy, and those still in commercial service were the B Team.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as a follow up to Erik Larson’s “Dead Wake”.

[Devon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Lusitania’s Last Voyage by Charles E. Lauriat Jr. is a survivor’s account of the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-boat. It happened so fast, which the foreword tries to impress upon the reader—20 minutes and it was gone. Lifeboats weren’t launched properly, people weren’t wearing their life jackets, and there was chaos; it didn’t help that the captain seemingly ordered people to not get into lifeboats. It all led to a tremendous loss of life, with almost a full 2/3 perishing in the disaster.

Lauriat writes in a zippy, straight-forward way, and I get the impression I would have loved to have heard him tell the story in person. He also has a palpable, righteously bubbling anger for those who sat in on the inquest and not only decided the captain to have done everything he ought and thus hold no blame, but to also poke at the efforts of passengers to save themselves.

A good, quick read, but it’s depressing to stop and look people up from the text or the newspaper images at the end and see 1915 listed as their death dates. That poor honeymooning couple shown in the newspaper, for example, married for only 16 days before dying, possibly losing their lives trying to find each other in vain, and now one is buried in Ireland and the other in Massachusetts.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a first-person account of the torpedoing and sinking of the Lusitania during WWII, written by American businessman Charles E. Lauriat, Jr. He brings by describing the disaster almost immediately after it occurred (I believe he wrote that section on the day following the sinking.) He then goes back to describe what happened in a more sequential manner. In the last section, he includes the post-disaster maritime inquiry that occurred in England, along with the conclusions that were arrived at by the team of assessors and a judge (Judge Mersey), who found neither the co-captains nor any of the Lusitania's crew to be at fault, placing the entire blame on the German submarine and the wartime government who allowed for it to happen, this despite the acknowledged fact that the Lusitania was carrying munitions and not merely civilian passengers.

[Jeff Koslowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good primary source from someone on board. It helps that the author has a background in books because it makes this writing all the more readable. This is truly one of the few and better readings about the Lusitania that deals primarily with the passenger reaction. Most information is about the ship from a geopolitical standpoint so this reading is refreshing.

[Mallory · Rating 2 out of 5]

Part 1 was good and the others less so.

[Cynthia Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a good read for sure. Another perspective , one from someone who was there. Riveting story , well told with many details.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short little book is very informative on the sinking of the Lusitania written by a survivor. A subject matter I previously knew nothing about.

[Sonja]

Ok I'm in the Lusitania rabbit hole now and Charles Lauriat was a real one for this.