Born in 1856, William Thomas Turner is best known as the captain who went down with, and survived, the wreck of the Lusitania. His turbulent relationship with the sea began as a young boy, sailing on a ship called the Grasmere. Strangely enough, during this first voyage he was also shipwrecked off the coast of Ireland, a haunting prelude to the disaster that would befall the Lusitania over 50 years later.
In the first of the Lusitania Letters, Captain Turner writes to his beloved companion Mabel. He is aware of the risks of sailing the Lusitania into waters patrolled by hungry German submarines, and remembers back to the first time he found himself pitched into a rolling ocean.
How simple it was to leave the shore as an eight year old thinking he owned the waves. What this cabin boy learned as the waves broke everything, crushed everything, took me from the wreck of the Grasmere...
Turner was a skilled navigator who made several Atlantic crossings at notable speeds - in 1910, he made Liverpool to New York in just 12 days. Unlike many captains who enjoyed the attention of wealthy passengers, Captain Turner did not enjoy the limelight. He was said to have referred to them as "a load of bloody monkeys who are constantly chattering."
Turner sailed on many famous ships including the Carpathia; well known for its rescue of survivors from the Titanic. While aboard the Cherborg, Turner rescued a man and a boy whose boat collided with his vessel. Later, he jumped into freezing waters to rescue a teenage boy who had tumbled off the Alexandra Dock. For this heroic deed he was awarded the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society's Silver Medal.
After the Lusitania was torpedoed, the Admiralty wanted to make Captain Turner a scapegoat, but he was exonerated by the official enquiry. Nearly a year later, in 1916, Cunard appointed Turner to the SS Ivernia, which was used as a troop carrier by the British. On New Year's Day 1917, with 2,400 troops aboard, this vessel was also torpedoed by a German U-boat. The Ivernia was sailing off the Greek coast and went down with the loss of 84 troops and 36 crew members.Once again, Turner survived. Just like the Lusitania, according toThe New York Times he remained on the bridge until everyone had departed, "before striking out to swim as the vessel went down under his feet."
Captain William Turner died on land at the age of 73. He had two sons - his first son, Merchant Navy Able Seaman Percy Wilfred Turner was lost in September 1941 on MV Jedmoor. The ship had been torpedoed by the German submarine U-98.
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