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“It’s the best joke I’ve heard in years this talk of torpedoing the Lusitania”. Who made this tragically ironic comment?

Answer: Commander William Thomas Turner, captain of the Cunard ocean liner Lusitania when it was sunk by a German torpedo in May 1915 in the North Atlantic ocean, near Old Head, off Kinsale, Ireland. Some 1,198 of the 1,959 people aboard were killed, leaving 761 survivors. This was Turner’s reported response when asked beforehand as to the risk to his ship from torpedoes. Commander Turner was one of the survivors. The sinking turned international opinion against Germany.

Source: The First World War by Professor Huw Strahan

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