BORN NORTH FERRIBY, 1881. SON OF JOSEPH ASHTON & JANET B WILSON. MARRIED 1901. HIS WIFE, EDITH LAWS LIVED 7 MOUNTS AVE, BOOTLE, LANCS. HE WAS A WAITER 1ST CLASS, ON THE HMS LUSITANIA, TORPEDOED IN 1915 AND IS COMMEMORATED ON THE TOWER HILL MEMORIAL, LONDON.
LUSITANIA Rms; propulsion: quadruple screw, four direct-acting Parsons steam turbines; Service speed: 25kts (46km/h); Builder: John Brown & Co. Ltd, Glasgow; Launch date: June 7 , 1906 Passenger accommodation: 563 1st class, 464 2nd class, 1,138 3rd class; Sunk : 07/05/1915; Location : South of Kinsale, Ireland One of the more notorious disasters, this Cunard liner had set out from New York, Usa, on 1st May 1915 with 1,959 people on board, including 440 women and 129 children, bound for Liverpool, England. As she was approaching St. Georges Channel, England, on the 7th May, south of Kinsale, Ireland, she was torpedoed without warning by the German submarine U-20 (Kapitänleutnant Schwieger). She sank in around 15 minutes with the loss of 1,198 souls. Similar acts of aggression were to be repeated by Germany early in the Second World War. These days, however, hardened by the knowledge of far worse atrocities and fed theories of political correctness, we are more likely to accept excuses, and less likely to point the finger of blame. Read more at wrecksite: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?10126
U-20 ran aground in fog in Jutland in 1916. She was abandonned by her crew. Blown up by the Danish in 1925, there are still debris of her, including her motor near the coast. U-20, Lt. Commander Walter Schwieger, became very famous for sinking the Lusitania, off Kinshead, Ireland, in 1915. Read more at wrecksite: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?10126
