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The Lusitania's Last Voyage

I mean those in the staterooms. I cannot speak with certainty in regard to the portholes on deck E. I believe that the first list the ship took brought her down to these open ports on the starboard side and that she sank much more quickly from filling through them.

On my return to the deck I felt that the steamer must make her final plunge any moment now, and as there was nothing more that could be done on the port side—for there was no discipline or order with which to do it—I passed through to the starboard side. Men were striving to lower the boats and were putting women and children into them, but it seemed to me that it only added horror to the whole situation to put people into a boat that you knew never would be cleared and which would go down with the steamer; better leave them on the deck to let them take their chance at a piece of wreckage.

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