Calm before storm of ship’s final voyage

It was wet and damp as crowds gathered at Pier 54 in the heart of New York City on May Day in 1915.

A cool breeze swept across the River Hudson as passengers waited to board the Cunard Line’s luxury ship Lusitania that would take them 3,310 miles across the Atlantic to Liverpool.

The splendour and scale of the world’s largest and fastest liner was obvious to all as the crew prepared for her 202th crossing of the vast ocean. Lusitania, named after the old Roman province in the Kingdom of Portugal, towered above everything else in the misty harbour.