False Flags: The Lusitania's Sinking

In 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed the Lusitania, sinking it off the Irish coast, and killing over 1000 people. The attack devastated the American public, and justified America’s entry into World War I. But rumors of a top-secret British navy operation, the ship’s hidden second manifest, and a decades-long cover-up all led people to ask: Was the sinking an inside job? Help us reach 10k followers on Instagram! @⁠theconspiracypod⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Pearl Harbor, the USS Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin, 9/11. All devastating tragedies where our enemies outwitted one of the strongest military defenses in the world. And all flashpoints that justified an American declaration of war. Each declaration was so quick, almost convenient. People wondered if these attacks were planned. False flag operations, inside jobs. Maybe our enemies didn’t outwit us. Maybe they had undercover help. Because contrary to what it may look like, your average American doesn’t constantly

• 0:51Speaker 00

  thirst for war. Take World War I. The US declared neutrality until a German U-boat torpedoed the Lusitania, killing over 1,000 people and over 100 American civilians, including babies and children. But was the Lusitania sinking purely German aggression? Or was it engineered to force the US to join the Allies and fight a global war? Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I’m Carter Roy. New episodes come out every Wednesday.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  We would love to hear from you, so if you’re listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts, or check us out on Instagram at the conspiracy pod. This episode contains discussions of war, weapons, drowning, disaster, and manslaughter. Consider this when deciding how and when you’ll listen. Stay with us.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  The Lusitania was a marvel. The luxury liner took its name from ancient Rome and offered passengers the excesses of the Caesars. They could borrow a book from the shipboard library, read it under potted palm trees and gilded ceilings, enjoy multi-course fine dining, and cap off the day with a glass of the Cunard Cruise Line's branded Scotch. At least, if they booked first class. But even economy tickets on the Lusitania felt bougie. Second class was as nice as other ships' first. And the people in the third-class bunk beds breathed easy, knowing their transatlantic journey would be over in just five days. A record at the time.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  Now, if you aren't watching the video, picture the Titanic. Except, I mean, not Kate and Leo, of course. The Lusitania was a little shorter, but they had similar paint jobs, four funnels, and sailed between New York and England. They were direct competitors, and both were dubbed unsinkable. Well, I'm serious. Everyone on board the Lusitania in 1915 thought it couldn't possibly sink, even though the Titanic sank just three years before. Now, to be fair, the Cunard Line had never had a single accidental death, unlike the White Star Line with a Titanic.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  And after the Titanic, new legislation required ocean liners to be outfitted with enough lifeboats to carry every passenger. So, the Lusitania was safer. The ship even kept a detective on board to watch for sabotage attempts. So, with lifeboats, life vests, and their own personal cop, it really felt like the Lusitania had everything taken care of. Even when sailing international waters during the biggest war in memory, passengers felt safe. And, this is the most important fact about the Lusitania: It was a passenger liner.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Yes, it transported some goods, but its primary function was transporting people.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Lusitania passengers put their trust in Captain William Turner. No, not Orlando Bloom's character in The Pirates of the Caribbean. This Will Turner was an experienced and decorated seafarer in his 50s. Ironically, the day before the Lusitania's last trip, he served as an expert witness in a civil suit for Titanic survivors. His testimony helped prove that the White Star Line screwed up. No one in the courtroom expected that barely a week later, Captain Turner would be on his own sinking ship. The trouble began on May 1, 1915,

• 4:57Speaker 00

  when the Lusitania set sail on its 202nd voyage after two and a half hours of delays. Once at sea, the Lusitania didn't even get up to its record-setting high speed. War-induced labor shortages meant the ship was understaffed, missing 83 people in the boiler rooms alone. They could only run three of the four boilers. Typically, the ship hit close to 30 miles per hour, but on this voyage, it went more like 20. This slower speed added an entire day to the voyage, six days instead of five. Bummer for everyone in the third-class bunk beds. It also made the ship an easier target,

• 5:42Speaker 00

  especially as they headed away from the safe, neutral United States and directly into a war zone. For those who might need it, here's a quick World War I refresher. In 1915, Britain, France, and Russia teamed up as the Allied Powers, fighting Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, aka the Central Powers. With France and Russia mounting a land campaign, Britain took on a naval campaign, strangling the ocean shipping lanes to Germany's northern coast. This essentially put Germany under siege. Without food and supplies, they'd have to surrender soon. But Germany fought back by deploying the Unterseeboot, or U-boat.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  These submarines were the newest warfare tech, able to sneakily attack the dominant British destroyer ships.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  By this point in the war, U-boats had sunk several British ships, so the general public knew the threat was real. Still, they thought the German U-boats would only sink British ships. So the Cunyard Line came up with a crafty solution: fly American flags on their ocean liners. Even though they were a British company with majority British passengers. The Lusitania's final voyage had 139 Americans out of 1959 total passengers, so it wasn't technically a lie, buuuuut, most people would agree the Lusitania

• 7:19Speaker 00

  was quite literally flying a false flag. Fun fact: this is an old seafaring tactic, and it's actually where the term "false flag" originated. Anyway, because the USA was neutral in May 1915, everyone believed that the German U-boats wouldn't attack a ship flying American flags. Especially after President Wilson had announced strict accountability for any German attacks on American people or property. Even then, Captain Will Turner exercised caution, and on May 7, 1915, he faced a hard decision.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  By this point, the ship had crossed the Atlantic and reached the Celtic Sea just south of Ireland, heading northwest to Liverpool. It needed to cross the Mersey Sandbar. A massive ship like the Lusitania could only sail over it at high tide. So normally, ships stopped and waited if they reached the sandbar at low tide. But during war, a stop risked a submarine attack.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  Captain Turner knew that if he slowed to just the right speed, he could reach the sandbar at high tide exactly and sail straight through, no stops. To calculate the perfect speed, he needed the ship's exact navigation coordinates, which he and his crew could only pinpoint with land in sight. So they steered the Lusitania closer to the coastal Irish cliffs, a region where submarines tended to hide. But typically, ships like the Lusitania could outrun U-boats. Their top underwater speed was about nine knots compared to the Lusitania's 21 knots.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  So passing slowly through an area that might have a U-boat was deemed safer than completely stopping. And it might have been, had the weather been on their side. In a worst-case scenario, the sun came out. Ireland is infamously foggy and rainy, but on this day, the sky cleared. If you've ever been to Ireland on a sunny day, it's transcendental. The hills turn a vibrant green like nowhere else, and the sun sparkles over the turquoise water. On the Lusitania, passengers gathered on the outdoor decks to play shuffleboard and jump rope.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  On the Irish coast, people picnicked, watching the ship pass by. Even though the Lusitania was about 11 miles away, the visibility was so good, Irish locals could easily see it without binoculars. And so could the submarine periscope. Underwater in U-boat 20, Captain Walter Schwieger couldn't believe his luck. He'd already sunk three ships in the past two weeks, and here was a fourth. Plus, he still had torpedoes left. And the Lusitania was the only boat in the area. Captain Schwieger had no qualms about the American flags or possibly harming civilians onboard.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  He was dedicated to clearing international waters for German shipping, so much-needed food and supplies could reach his homeland. By shooting the Lusitania, he could save his friends and family from starving. It eventually made him a decorated military hero.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Notably, Schwieger didn't have direct orders to attack the Lusitania. U-boat 20 was operating outside of German radio and telegraph range. So while he had general orders to sink the Allied ships, he made the call on all specifics. Schwieger commanded his crew to sail toward the Lusitania and prepare to fire. Then, another terrible coincidence. The Lusitania turned to stay parallel to the coastline so Captain Turner could avoid the risks of stopping at the Mersey Sandbar. Ironically, this brought them closer to U-boat 20, making it even easier for the U-boat to aim. Around 2:10 PM,

• 11:46Speaker 00

  the submarine shot a G6 torpedo at the Lusitania. It traveled for about 35 seconds, catching the attention of passengers on the outside decks as it ripped through the water. Several recognized the torpedo for what it was. Some passengers were former military. Still, everyone maintained their belief the Lusitania was too fast to be hit by a torpedo and too big to sink. In their defense, about 60% of German torpedoes failed. Officers aimed by sight alone and were prone to error. Schwieger actually miscalculated his target,

• 12:30Speaker 00

  assuming the Lusitania was traveling at its advertised high cruising speed, so the torpedo didn't hit where he intended it to. It hit somewhere worse. 350 pounds of force pummeled the Lusitania's starboard side under the bridge where the crew navigated. According to author Eric Larson, "The impact tore a hole, quote, 'the size of a small house.'"

• 12:59Speaker 00

  Water flooded into the ship near a boiler room, and because the attack hit the front of the ship, its forward motion pushed even more water inside. Had it hit the back, like Schwieger intended, the blow wouldn't have been so devastating. Still, Captain Turner and his crew didn't panic. The Lusitania's design broke it into individualized watertight compartments. If one flooded, electric doors could seal that section of the boat off, keeping the rest afloat. It seemed like they'd still make it to Liverpool. Until, according to the official report, the second torpedo hit.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  Survivors all reported a second explosion a few minutes after the first. This explosion took out the ship's steam engine, cutting the power to the lights, the propellers, and the watertight doors. Even more water flooded in, not just through the torpedo holes, but through portholes passengers had opened to enjoy the warm weather. By 2:15, the crew sent out distress signals. Captain Turner ordered the crew to stop the ship so they could safely lower the lifeboats, but that was impossible with the power out. Inertia thrust the ship forward. On the decks, absolute chaos ensued. Most of the crew trained to lower the lifeboats

• 14:30Speaker 00

  had died in the initial explosion. Panicking passengers forcibly lowered the lifeboats anyway, but the ship's forward inertia rocked the lifeboats around, slamming them into passengers on deck. Several were crushed to death by wooden lifeboats. In the end, only six out of the 48 lifeboats made it off the ship. The Lusitania sank in 18 minutes. Captain Turner went down with his ship, but survived, thanks to his life vest and a deck chair. Not everyone who escaped the ship was so lucky. 55-degree water quickly induced hypothermia.

• 15:15Speaker 00

  Wet, heavy clothes dragged victims down. Many passengers put on their life jackets wrong, flipped over, and were trapped upside down, drowning on the surface. Just awful. Rescue boats picked up as many floating survivors as they could, and then the bodies. The fatality count was unclear at first. The ship's records were imperfect, with incorrect names. The Lusitania carried an unusually high amount of children, and babies weren't listed at all, since they sailed for free. The bodies washed up on the shore had been damaged in the explosion or decayed in the ocean.

• 15:59Speaker 00

  In the end, out of the 1,959 people onboard, 1,198 died, including 123 Americans and 27 infants. The 764 survivors got a 25% lifetime discount on future Cunard Line cruises. Slap in the face, if you ask me. At the end of the day, it wasn't one error that jeopardized Lusitania, but a series of small decisions that put the ship in the wrong place at the wrong time. The slow speed, the nice weather, the change in route, the presence of one ship and one U-boat with nothing else at sea,

• 16:43Speaker 00

  all contributing coincidences. And all, officially, led to the German U-boat firing two torpedoes at an innocent passenger liner, sinking it shockingly fast. But so many things went exactly right for the Germans, people started to wonder. Was it all coincidence? Maybe not. About a decade later, classified files revealed that a secret military group spied on every boat, ship, and submarine in the Celtic Sea during the war. And they might have planned the entire incident.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  When the Lusitania sank in 1915, the UK government said it was a commercial passenger ship torpedoed twice by a German U-boat. It was hard to challenge that story, since the Lusitania can't be fully investigated. Even though it sank in only about 300 feet of water, just 11 miles off the Irish coast, it landed on the side that was hit and collapsed on top of itself. Evidence of the torpedo hits, what exactly exploded and where, is buried on the ocean floor. Inaccessible. But the eyewitness accounts earned international headlines.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  Reading about the sinking, Americans clamored "for war." Public opinion changed instantly, and when the US finally joined the war, President Woodrow Wilson cited the Lusitania as one of the reasons. But after World War I ended in 1918, the discovery of a secret organization cast questions on the whole story. It started in the 1920s, when American lawyer Amos Peaslee accepted a seemingly impossible case: sue the unknown persons who bombed a New Jersey railroad during World War I.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  And Peaslee took to the case like a dog with a bone, talking his way into a British admiral's personal office and gaining full access to his file cabinets full of war documents. The files revealed the existence of a secret British naval operation called Room 40, which cracked Germany's secret military code and read all of their encrypted telegraph and radio communications. Through the course of Peaslee's lawsuit, the existence of Room 40 leaked to the public, and so did their classified operations, like tracking German U-boats in 1915.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  According to investigative journalist Colin Simpson, Room 40 kept a giant map of European waterways on a wall. Every day, they moved around pins to update the locations of all known ships and U-boats. Now, they couldn't pinpoint a ship's exact location at any given time, but they had a general idea of where each submarine was patrolling and could plan accordingly to avoid or attack them. If all messages were decoded correctly and all went to plan, no British ship would be caught by surprise. Now, you might be thinking, "Well, wait a minute, Carter.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  Why didn't they just tell the Lusitania that U-boat 20 was near the south coast of Ireland?" That's the conspiracy theory. That they chose not to. Since World War I, people have said that the Lusitania sinking was a false-flag operation, an inside job. Now, some false-flag theories allege that a government attacked themselves, but more commonly, they suggest a government knew an attack was coming and let it happen because it furthered their political goals. Usually, the goal is to go to war. But in the case of the Lusitania attack, it didn't just tip the US into war.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  It completely overturned the naval status quo. "The global outrage at the Lusitania sinking forced Kaiser Wilhelm to pause Germany's U-boat operations. This secured the safety of Britain's international shipping lanes. Almost overnight, they regained the supply chain the Germans had been cutting off." Yes, they lost the Lusitania, but they gained much more. And if that doesn't feel planned, well, just wait until I tell you who is in charge of Room 40. Winston Churchill.

• 21:51Speaker 00

  Before he was Prime Minister, Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty, the top naval official in the UK. And unlike other top brass, he deeply involved himself in the nitty gritty, especially with Room 40. Churchill personally monitored U-boat locations. His staff sent him daily reports. And Churchill was on record saying he wanted to make the US join the war. The week before the Lusitania sank, he literally put it in writing, quote, "It is most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores

• 22:33Speaker 00

  in the hopes especially of embroiling the United States with Germany." By "neutral shipping," he meant boats from countries that weren't yet embroiled in the war. Churchill knew the Germans were trigger-happy, and actually hoped they'd accidentally hit an American ship after mistaking it for a French or British vessel. This would force America to retaliate and declare war. I mean, so basically, he admitted to setting the stage for the Lusitania disaster, if nothing else. Churchill and Room 40's main challenge was to do this without the Germans catching on. If they realized the British had cracked their code,

• 23:18Speaker 00

  they'd stop using it, and the British would lose this major advantage. Even years later, the British Navy never admitted exactly what they knew regarding U-boat 20's location. But we can confirm two things they did know. One, President Wilson would hold Germany accountable for American casualties in Europe. And, two, the Germans considered the Lusitania fair game.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  Why? Oh, because it wasn't just a passenger liner. It was a military ship in disguise. Yes, this is confirmed fact. The ship had a secret identity. Okay, wow, wow, wow, wow, what, what, wild, right? Yeah, okay, let's take a second here because it turns out the story of the Lusitania is lies on top of lies. For years, the Americans and British said the Lusitania was an innocent passenger ship. Nothing to see here, folks. When the ship actually had military capabilities and was sent into a war zone where they knew German U-boats could attack it.

• 24:37Speaker 00

  And that's not even the only secret aboard the Lusitania. But, well, let's get back to the secret identity part. Flashback to the early 1900s. Steamships were the private jets of the era. And like airlines today, boatlines were always one-upping each other, which got expensive. So the Cunard Line struck a deal with the British Navy. The Navy would finance two top-of-the-line ships and the Cunard Line would secretly outfit them for war. Yep, fact. In 1904, the Lusitania and its sister ship, the Mauritania, were built with gun mounts,

• 25:21Speaker 00

  reinforced defenses, and high-speed engines, all hidden underneath the luxury accommodations. The deal remained a military secret. No one outside the British Navy and the Cunard Line knew that their luxury cruisers were secretly warships.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  In 1915, the British Navy cashed in their chips, requisitioning the Mauritania to transport troops. Now publicly, the Lusitania wasn't performing military operations, but the Germans believed that it secretly was. So, from the very beginning, the British Navy had put a target on the Lusitania. Meanwhile, passengers had no idea about the Lusitania's secret identity. Though they may have had an inkling they were in danger. A few weeks before the Lusitania attack,

• 26:22Speaker 00

  an ad in the New York Times warned that any American sailing on a British ship did so at their own risk. It was signed "Imperial German Embassy", but actually placed by Germans living in New York City. They'd heard rumblings about possible attacks on ships carrying Americans. The German immigrants feared being ostracized if their new home went to war with their old one, and hoped that if they could dissuade Americans from traveling to Europe, the country would remain neutral. Only one couple took the warning seriously enough to cancel their tickets.

• 27:05Speaker 00

  And other passengers got personal warnings. Broadway producer Charles Froman and railroad heir Alfred Vanderbilt both received mysterious telegrams telling them not to board the Lusitania. Froman ignored the message, and Vanderbilt wrote his off as a joke. Both died at sea. Across the pond, both the King of England and the American ambassador to the UK discussed the hypothetical scenario of a German U-boat attacking a ship carrying Americans. The ambassador wrote to his son, "I almost expect such a thing."

• 27:50Speaker 00

  It's suspicious. Were these conversations all really hypothetical? Or was it because the ship's attack was being planned?

• 28:02Speaker 00

  As the conspiracy theory goes, it was all about plausible deniability. And allegedly, here's how Room 40 made that happen. First, they cleared all other ships from the area. The week of the Lusitania's crossing, several commercial ships sailing to England received a memo telling them to go north around Ireland, not south. The Lusitania, mysteriously, never got that memo. They also never got the naval escort they'd been promised. Since the outbreak of the war, standard protocol for the Cunard Line ships was to

• 28:46Speaker 00

  meet up with a navy ship as they approached the war zone. This way, if there was an attack, the military ship could fire back. The Juno was scheduled for the job, but never showed. When he realized this, the chairman of the Cunard Line contacted the British Navy, pleading for help. None was sent. Still, all of this could be blamed on accident and oversight, not willful endangerment. But there's another layer to this theory, a choice that can't be called an accident.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Let's step away from Room 40 for just a sec. In the summer of 1917, as the US was fighting in World War I, US Senator Robert La Follette claimed the Lusitania sinking wasn't what it looked like. He said the ship's "secret second manifest" would prove it. And, as a sitting senator, he demanded that Congress have the chance to review the documents. In response, the Senate scheduled a vote to expel him from Congress.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  Hmm, I wonder why. La Follette threatened to bring in a customs officer who'd seen the manifest and would back him up. And suddenly, well, wouldn't you know it, the expulsion vote was, uh, dropped. La Follette kept his seats, though the alleged second manifest never became Senate business. La Follette was denied a chance to prove his suspicion, but claimed he'd be vindicated by history.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  So, what did he think the manifest would reveal? Contraband weapons and ammunition. And he wasn't the only person who believed that. In the weeks following the sinking, a survivor named Joseph Mary Shaw threatened to sue the Cunard Line for damages. In his claims, Mary Shaw said he heard ammunition exploding onboard, just like La Follette believed. As a former soldier, Mary Shaw knew the sound of exploding rifle cartridges well. Now, Mary Shaw didn't ask for much money, just enough to pay medical bills and help his family reunite.

• 31:17Speaker 00

  But when the UK government got wind of Mary Shaw's story about hearing rifle ammunition going off onboard, they slandered him in the English papers, calling him a liar. He never received the compensation he requested. For decades, both the US and the UK denied the existence of ammo onboard or a secret manifest. But decades later, a secret manifest was declassified. And, get this, the original copy was locked in the US Treasury the entire time.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  So not only did it exist, it was in the government's hands, locked in the Treasury by President Woodrow Wilson himself. He labeled it "for the President's eyes only." Top secret.

• 32:15Speaker 00

  Why would he do that? Unless there was something to hide. There's a cover up here. And it might all tie together. Maybe Wilson hid the manifest because he was involved in Room 40's plan to sink the Lusitania.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. Maybe this was an international conspiracy and the president deceived Americans because he wanted to go to war.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  For years, the US and UK insisted that the Lusitania was an innocent passenger ship unjustly attacked by two German torpedoes. But it later came out that they covered up the truth of the ship's military capabilities and what it was carrying. As the conspiracy theory goes, a top secret British naval group, Room 40, might have intentionally set the ship up to sink to pull the US into the war. And rather than being the victim of Room 40's manipulation, President Woodrow Wilson may have been their collaborator.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  During World War I, Wilson had a copy of the Lusitania's second secret manifest in his desk. This manifest wasn't even filed until after the Lusitania set sail. Its 24 pages listed cargo, including explosives, artillery shells, fuses, and 170 tons of Remington rifle ammo. Some of those rifle cartridges were recovered by a diver in 2008, so we know it's accurate. Beneath civilian beds, the Lusitania was hiding ammunition for war.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  And President Wilson kept it all top secret. Because he'd been asked explicitly not to allow this. You see, the Lusitania wasn't the first ship to leave America with secret ammunition on board. The practice of hiding weapons on passenger ships carrying families was commonly called "bullets and babies," and it was unpopular. Politicians called for the practice to end. Worse, German spies in New York Harbor found out. Germany sent President Wilson a warning.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  "If you guys keep doing this, we'll have to shoot those ships." With a Lusitania, Wilson essentially called the Germans bluff, maybe because he wanted America to declare war on Germany. Or maybe he thought everything would be fine, because the Lusitania would have all the protection everyone expected it to have. A UK naval escort, timely danger warnings, the safest known route, everything that didn't happen. After all, Wilson's historical reputation is as an isolationist.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  Either way, US government officials neglected to warn the Lusitania's passengers that they might be sailing straight to their deaths. Now, you're probably wondering, why would the British Navy sacrifice a ship filled with ammunition they needed? Why blow up your own weapons? Because the loss of one ship's cargo outweighed the potential benefit of getting the US military on their side. And here's the thing, even if none of this was planned, there was some kind of cover-up around the Lusitania. Maybe before it even sank.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  First, the passengers weren't made aware they'd be at sea a day longer than usual, and by the time that became obvious, day six and they're still on the boat, they were no longer allowed to send telegrams. Allegedly, this was to avoid detection by German U-boat receivers, but it prevented passengers from sharing happenings aboard the Lusitania with the outside world. Happenings like the complete lack of lifeboat drills. Now, this could have resulted from the staff shortage, but several passengers lodged complaints during the voyage, and nothing was done.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  People didn't know what to do if disaster struck. They didn't even know how to put on their life vests. And remember, this is not long after the Titanic. This would be an issue on people's minds. Then, as the Lusitania's distress signals went out, one nearby British naval cruiser, the Juno, sailed out to rescue passengers, only to be suddenly recalled. Smaller, slower ships came to the rescue instead, inevitably leading to more deaths. Oddly, the Juno was the same ship originally assigned to be the Lusitania's military escort, the one that never came.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  Apparently, it was deemed more important to keep the Juno safe from U-boat 20 than to save drowning civilians. Or perhaps, the turnaround was to ensure that Americans died and limit witnesses. And it gets sketchier. Most of the recovered bodies were buried in mass graves, many before their loved ones could see or identify them. Identifying Lusitania victims came down more to who couldn't be found alive than who was found dead. Maybe the mass graves were an easier way to deal with such a disaster. Remember, over a thousand people died.

• 38:28Speaker 00

  But then, there's the wreckage. In the 1970s, investigative journalist Colin Simpson wrote that divers who'd seen the wreckage were sworn not to discuss it, to protect state secrets. Then, in 1982, millionaire Greg Bemis purchased sole ownership of the Lusitania. Bemis spent years self-funding dives and investigations, and concluded there was a cover-up. In the 1990s, Bemis authorized a dive led by Robert Ballard, who famously located the Titanic wreckage.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Ballard's team found unexploded hedgehog mines from the 1940s and 50s, evidence that someone had tried to blow up the wreckage of the Lusitania, long after it sank. And the hedgehog mines, they matched those used by the British Navy. Yeah, that's right. The expert underwater archaeologist who found the Titanic also found evidence the British Navy tried to destroy the Lusitania rec... Wild. If there was nothing suspicious on the Lusitania, then why were they blowing up the crime scene?

• 39:56Speaker 00

  Well, these hedgehog mines came with two new stories. First, the British government claimed that Nazi submarines hit around the wreckage during World War II and had to be attacked. Then, they said the wreckage was used in the 1950s for target practice. "Oh, yeah, we need to test some bombs? Let's blow up the shipwreck people have questions about. Oh, that won't be suspicious at all." Well, that brings us to one more theorized cover-up attempt. Almost immediately after the disaster, the British government and the Cunard Line pointed fingers at Captain Will Turner. They blamed him for the fiasco.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  He was shamed for failing to protect his ship, for ignoring orders to take a zigzag route, orders no one could prove he'd received. Within an hour of completing the inquest, the lawyers received their own orders. "Don't let Captain Turner testify." This came down from the British Navy. Someone there didn't want Turner to share what he'd witnessed on the Lusitania. Fortunately for Turner, he'd already given his account to the lawyers and was found not guilty of endangering the ship.

• 41:21Speaker 00

  The inquiry found Germany solely at fault, and 10 years later, in 1925, Germany paid over $1 million in damages for sinking the Lusitania, and that's in 1920s money. This lined up with the official story from day one, that Germany was entirely to blame. So why would they try to scapegoat Captain Turner?

• 41:49Speaker 00

  Because the German torpedoes weren't fully at fault. Like I said, lies on top of lies. The official British story was that the Lusitania was torpedoed twice, but the Germans said they only fired once, and Captain Turner agreed. So of course, they wanted to keep him quiet and discredit him. He challenged their official narrative.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  Captain Turner believed the second explosion happened after cold seawater flowing in through the single torpedo hole hit the pressurized central steam line. The thermal shock blew it up. But the British stuck to the second torpedo story, even though they knew Captain Turner and the Germans were right. Yeah, from the day the Lusitania sank, Room 40 knew it was only hit with one torpedo. They found out when they decoded Germany's communications about the attack. But Britain's top brass couldn't say that they knew without revealing how they knew. So they invented a second torpedo,

• 43:05Speaker 00

  called the Germans liars, and tried to discredit Captain Turner. That's how far they'd go to keep a secret that would win the war. Because that was the endgame. Win the war against Germany. For Room 40, and perhaps for President Wilson. If this secret scheme happened, it worked. And if it worked, they might have repeated it. Because in 1940, as the US contemplated once again joining the British to fight Germany in a world war, President Franklin Roosevelt made a request. According to journalist Colin Simpson,

• 43:50Speaker 00

  Roosevelt pulled the notes from President Wilson that were locked in the US Treasury, the ones labeled "for the President's eyes only", including the Lusitania's secret manifest. It's possible the classified document influenced his actions leading up to Pearl Harbor, another attack the government allegedly knew about but allowed to happen. Maybe he took the manifest as Wilson's suggestion that false flags are needed. Maybe other presidents did too. JFK with Operation Northwoods, Johnson with the Gulf of Tonkin,

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Bush with 9/11. Perhaps the Lusitania wasn't a one-off operation, but a hundred-year pattern of conspiracies to push the US into war.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  Or maybe, maybe, Wilson saved it as proof of the hard decisions governments have to make. When questions flew about the second torpedo's existence, all the British government could do was shrug their shoulders. If they revealed the truth to the public, they'd lose their wartime advantage. Their hands were tied. And maybe their hands were tied the entire time. Yes, they knew the Lusitania was in danger, but acting on that information could reveal just how much they knew.

• 45:30Speaker 00

  Saving the Lusitania would destroy their biggest tactical advantage. It came down to an impossible question. Save the Lusitania, but prolong the war, or sink the Lusitania and save more lives by ending it sooner? So maybe it wasn't a nefarious act to manipulate a nation, but an impossible choice in an unprecedented war. It's terrifying. We want to think our government and military can protect us, but sometimes, they can't.

• 46:14Speaker 00

  And that's why false flag theories come up so frequently around acts of terrorism. It's easier to accept that a few bad people abuse their power in government than that the governments can't always look out for everyone. Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories. We are here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram @TheConspiracyPod. And if you're watching on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. For more information on the Lusitania, amongst the many sources we used, we found The Lusitania

• 46:57Speaker 00

  by Colin Simpson, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Eric Larson, and Room 40: British Naval Intelligence 1914-18 by Patrick Beazley, extremely helpful to our research. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story isn't always the truth.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  This episode was written and researched by Maggie Admire, fact-checked by Sophie Kemp, and engineered, video-edited, and sound-designed by Alex Button. I'm your host, Carter Roy.