13. The British took immediate steps to control investigations into the disaster
At a coroner’s inquest on May 8, the bodies of five dead victims were brought into the Irish town of Kinsale. Captain Turner testified Lusitania had been hit by a single torpedo, followed by a large secondary explosion, or explosions. He also stated that he had received instructions from the Admiralty prior to the sinking which he could not discuss without permission. A Board of Trade investigation was held in June at Westminster Central Hall. Members of the crew who claimed only one torpedo had struck the ship were interviewed, but were not allowed to testify. Captain Turner reversed his statement at the coroner’s inquest and testified that two torpedoes had struck his ship.
A quartermaster who had been on Lusitania’s bridge at the time of the attack and spotted the torpedo’s wake as it approached was pressured to change his story and report two torpedoes hit the ship. First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, was one of a cabal in the Admiralty who wanted to place the blame for the ship’s loss on Captain Turner, for failing to heed Admiralty’s warnings of submarine activity in the area. The Defence of the Realm Act was changed just before the hearings began, making it illegal to discuss whatever cargo Lusitania had been carrying at the time of the attack. The head of the investigation, Lord Mersey, resigned when the case was closed and refused to be paid for his work, calling the investigation, “a damned dirty business”.