Carson also badgered Turner as to why the Lusitania was moving at only 18 knots when it was torpedoed and challenged the wisdom of the captain’s plan to reduce speed in order to arrive at the Mersey Bar off Liverpool at a time when he could sail into the harbor without stopping. Carson argued that if Turner had zigzagged at top speed he could have evaded the submarine and, owing to the time consumed by the frequent course changes, would still have made the bar on time. Carson let pass the fact that although Turner was not deliberately zigzagging, his several changes of course that morning to set up his four-point bearing did describe a zigzag pattern, with fatal result: the last starboard turn put him directly in U-20’s path.
Turner’s own lawyer, Butler Aspinall, Britain’s leading expert in maritime law, did his best to sculpt Turner’s story into a coherent account of the Lusitania’s last morning and to win for him Lord Mersey’s sympathy. “I mean to say, we have the very great advantage of knowing so much now which was unknown to him then,” Aspinall said; “we are sitting upon the matter in cool judgment, with an opportunity of looking at the charts, and the circumstances under which we are dealing with it were not the circumstances under which the Master would have an opportunity of dealing with it.”
In all, Lord Mersey heard testimony from thirty-six witnesses, including passengers, crew, and outside experts. At the conclusion of the inquiry, he defied the Admiralty and absolved Turner of any responsibility for the loss of the Lusitania. In his report, Mersey wrote that Turner “exercised his judgment for the best. It was the judgment of a skilled and experienced man, and although others might have acted differently and perhaps more successfully he ought not, in my opinion, to be blamed.” Mersey found Cunard’s closure of the ship’s fourth boiler room to be irrelevant. The resulting reduction in speed, he wrote, “still left the Lusitania a considerably faster ship than any other steamer plying across the Atlantic.” Mersey laid blame entirely on the U-boat commander.
Turner doubtless was relieved, but, according to his son Norman he also felt he had been unjustly treated. “He was very bitter about the way in which, at the enquiry … it was sought to fix the blame on him for the sinking, and particularly to try to condemn him for being on the course he was.” Lord Mersey seemed to share this sentiment. Soon afterward, he resigned his post as wreck commissioner, calling the inquiry “a damned dirty business.” Cunard retained Turner on its roster of captains.
At no time during the secret portions of the proceeding did the Admiralty ever reveal what it knew about the travels of U-20. Nor did it disclose the measures taken to protect the HMS Orion and other military vessels. Moreover, the Admiralty made no effort to correct Lord Mersey’s finding that the Lusitania had been struck by two torpedoes—this despite the fact that Room 40 knew full well that Schwieger had fired only one.
Nor did the inquiry ever delve into why the Lusitania wasn’t diverted to the safer North Channel route, and why no naval escort was provided. Indeed, these are the great lingering questions of the Lusitania affair: Why, given all the information possessed by the Admiralty about U-20; given the Admiralty’s past willingness to provide escorts to inbound ships or divert them away from trouble; given that the ship carried a vital cargo of rifle ammunition and artillery shells; given that Room 40’s intelligence prompted the obsessive tracking and protection of the HMS Orion; given that U-20 had sunk three vessels in the Lusitania’s path; given Cunard chairman Booth’s panicked Friday morning visit to the navy’s Queenstown office; given that the new and safer North Channel route was available; and given that passengers and crew alike had expected to be convoyed to Liverpool by the Royal Navy—the question remains, why was the ship left on its own, with a proven killer of men and ships dead ahead in its path?
There is silence on the subject in the records of Room 40 held by the National Archives of the United Kingdom and Churchill College, Cambridge. Nowhere is there even a hint of dismay at missing so clear an opportunity to use the fruits of Room 40’s intelligence to save a thousand lives.