Sinking of the Lusitania: Terror at Sea explained

Creator:	Coproduction of Smithson Productions and NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk), commissioned by BBC1, Discovery Channel, M6 and Channel International
Director:	Christopher Spencer
Starring:	John Hannah Kenneth Cranham Florian Panzner
Theme Music Composer:	Ben Bartlett
Country:	England/Germany
Language:	English/German
Producer:	Martin Davidson
Editor:	Colin Goudie
Runtime:	90 min
Network:	Various channels

Sinking of the Lusitania: Terror at Sea (also known as Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic, and, in German: Der Untergang der Lusitania: Tragödie eines Luxusliners) is an English-German docu-drama produced in 2007. This 90-minute film is a dramatisation of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915 by a German U-boat, .

The Lusitania scenes were filmed with full-scale sections of the ship off the coast of South Africa while the U-20 scenes were filmed at Bavaria Studios in Munich using the then-newly refurbished 25-year-old U-boat set, studio model and full-size prop originally built for Das Boot.

Full cast

RMS Lusitania

• John Hannah as Professor Ian Holbourn survived
• Kenneth Cranham as Captain William Turner survived
• Madeleine Garrood as Avis Dolphin survived
• Graham Hopkins as Staff captain James C. Anderson, First Officer
• Kevin Otto as Alfred Vanderbilt
• Karen Haacke as Dorothy Taylor
• Frances Marek as Alice Robinson
• Aiden Lithgow as Tom Robinson
• Robyn LeAnn Scott as Margaret "Peggy" Brownlie
• André Weideman as Quartermaster Hugh Johnston, Helmsman
• Rory Acton Burnell as Robert Leith, Senior Radio Officer
  • Andrew Whaley as Archibald Bryce, Chief Engineer Daniel Fox as Leslie N. Morton, Able-bodied Seaman

U-20

• Florian Panzner as Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger, Commanding Officer
• Peter Benedict as Steuermann der Reserve Rudolf Lanz, Maritime Pilot
• Adrian Topol as Bootsmann Charles Vögele, Quartermaster
• Maik van Epple as Oberleutnant zur See Raimund Weisbach, Torpedo Officer

British Admiralty

• Michael Feast as Captain Hobbs, Director of Naval Intelligence
• Dean McCoubrey as Lieutenant Windridge, Hobbs' aide
• Martin Le Maitre as Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty

Other

• Ronald France as Lord Mersey, Wreck Commissioner of the United Kingdom
• Stephen Jennings as Sir Edward Carson, Attorney-General representing Board of Trade
• Erich Krieg as Fregattenkapitän Hermann Bauer, Commander of the German U-boat forces
• Grant Ross as British reporter
• Rosemary Ryan as Nurse at Queenstown

Television premiere

It aired on the Discovery channel in the US on 13 May, on BBC 1 in the UK on 27 May 2007, in Germany on 28 December 2008 on ARD and on ABC1 in Australia on 11 January 2009 and the History Channel in New Zealand on 3 February 2009

External links

• The Sinking of the Lusitania: Terror at Sea, Discovery Channel
• Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic, Discovery Channel Canada