Chapter 1: What historical events led to the suspicion of false flag operations?
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 thirst for war. Take World War I. The US declared neutrality until a German U-boat torpedoed the Lusitania, killing over a thousand people and over a hundred 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. 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.
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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.
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Chapter 2: What was the significance of the Lusitania's sinking in World War I?
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 1st, 1915, 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, 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. These submarines were the newest warfare tech, able to sneakily attack the dominant British destroyer ships. 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 Cunard 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 1,959 total passengers, so it wasn't technically a lie.
But most people would agree the Lusitania 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 7th, 1915, he faced a hard decision.
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.
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Chapter 3: What were the conditions and decisions leading up to the Lusitania's last voyage?
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.
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 wreck. Wild.
If there was nothing suspicious on the Lusitania, then why were they blowing up the crime scene? Well, these hedgehog mines came with two new stories. First, the British government claimed that Nazi submarines hid 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. That brings us to one more theorized coverup 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.
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.
Unfortunately for Turner, he'd already given his account to the lawyers and was found not guilty of endangering the ship. The inquiry found Germany solely at fault, and 10 years later, in 1925, Germany paid over a million dollars 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? 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.
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, 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 end game. Win the war against Germany.
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