The Collegian

Issue date: 3/13/08 Section: News

A businessman connected with Hillsdale College plans to dive into the RMS Lusitania and investigate a sinking which helped propel the United States into World War I.

In 1987, after international law moved territorial water boundaries from three to 12 miles off a country's coast, the sunken ocean liner Gregg Bemis bought in 1968 moved into Irish jurisdiction. When he prepared to investigate his purchase in 1993, the Irish government refused the Hillsdale donor an exploration license.

Irish courts embroiled Bemis for ten years. In March 2007, he won his case in Ireland's highest court, the Dublin Supreme Court. The minister then granted Bemis a five-year license to dive.

"I think time has shown that there is more to be gained by making this investigation than by putting a hold on it," Bemis said last Thursday.

The Lusitania sank in May 1915 after a German U-boat torpedoed its starboard side. Though the liner was a British luxury passenger ship, 197 Americans rode aboard. The ship sank in 18 minutes, killing 1,198 of its 1,959 passengers, including 128 U.S. citizens. America had not yet entered World War I.

The German government, then at war against Great Britain, justified their attack by claiming the Lusitania was carrying "war materials." The British government said the only arms aboard were small munitions.

International law made the Lusitania a legitimate military target because all British merchant ships were under government instructions to report German submarine sightings and fight if the submarine surfaced for boarding. Even so, the sinking fired international outrage against Germany. Though technically allowed by international law if the ship contains war materials, Britain and the United States habitually refrain from attacking passenger ships carrying civilians.

For decades, people have wondered what could have downed the Lusitania so quickly. The ship rocketed from an unexplained second explosion shortly after the torpedo hit, causing some scholars to think the British government was lying about the materials aboard.

"There is a mystery about what caused the boat to sink," said Associate Professor of History Tom Connor. "We know there was a torpedo that triggered a secondary explosion, which may have been something the ship was carrying, which means it could have been contraband of war, which is what the Germans asserted at the time."

Bemis said he hopes his forthcoming expedition will help solve a 93-year-old mystery.

"There is no question the Lusitania had war materials on board - there have been admissions of that," he said. "But the question beyond that is whether there were high explosives on board. There should not be high explosives on a passenger liner. If there were, that would be the cause of the second explosion, and if there weren't that makes [the attack] more outrageous."

The Lusitania now lies 303 feet below Irish waters on its starboard side. Bemis is currently raising private funds and an exploratory team to dive and drill past the ship's port side, which faces the surface, so they can reach the explosion site for investigation. This, he said, takes hours of highly skilled, dangerous work. He estimates this will cost about $4 million using equipment also used for repairing expensive underwater oil field machinery.

The exploration will end Bemis' 40-year quest to investigate a wreck he bought for 1,000 pounds. Two business partners and he originally bought the ship as a business venture to test a saturation diving system they were inventing, but the process took too long and began losing money. He later bought his partners out and waited decades until diving again became feasible. His independent team will raise private contributions for the project rather than seek government funding.

"I just am totally in support of the concept of paying your own way and not leaning on the government," Bemis said. "[The government] has spent a lot more money than I need recovering famous wrecks."

The Lusitania can never be lifted above water, Bemis said, because it is too fragile, but his team will include film equipment for a documentary about the expedition so that others can see inside. He does plan to recover as many artifacts inside the wreck as possible for museum display.

Bemis, 79, said he has not yet decided if he will join the dive team into the Lusitania. An experienced and multiple-certified diver, he visited his underwater property in 2005, but has not yet decided if he will begin training to explore it again.

"The Lusitania was the second most famous wreck in the world," he said. "The Titanic gets most of the fame. But the Lusitania is more important because it got the U.S. into World War I. The Titanic was just man against nature. This was much more complex."

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