Mr.
JAMES JOSEPH LEARY, Saloon Class Passenger
image: New
York Herald, Monday,
10 May 1915. Courtesy Jim Kalafus.
James Leary, 36, was a woolen buyer for Brokaw Brothers, a Manhattan clothing
house. He was married and lived at 404 8th Avenue, Brooklyn, New York,
United States. He was traveling on the Lusitania on business
with Thomas King.
Early in voyage, Leary had deposited his valuables at the Purser's Office
with Purser James McCubbin.
On the day of the disaster he slept late and missed the first luncheon
sitting because his steward had blotted the skylight to his stateroom as
a wartime precaution. By the time he was ready for lunch it was after
12:30.
After the torpedo struck, Leary, who was caught in the terror-stricken
mob, found the elevators caught between floors and "filled with passengers
screaming[,]" unable to go up or down as the list was too great and the
electricity had stopped. The horrifying sight made Leary more determined
to save himself.
Reaching the boat deck, he still did not have a lifejacket. He saw
a man in a blue uniform, whom he presumed to be an officer, with a lifejacket
and asked him to hand over. In response, the other man said, "You
will have to get one for yourself; this is mine."
Taken aback by such a response, Leary said, "I thought, according to law,
passengers came first."
The other man answered, "Passengers be damned. Save yourself first."
Leary grabbed the lifejacket and shouted in hysterics, "If you want this
one you will have to kill me to get it."
Leary put the lifejacket on upside-down, but a more level-headed passenger
helped him fix it, saying "If you got in the water that way you would be
feet up[.]"
When word was passed from the captain that the ship would be all right,
Leary calmed down and made his way back to his stateroom. The list was
still so terrible that climbing down the stairs was "quite a struggle." He
passed McCubbin and asked, "How about my valuables?"
"Young man," the purser replied, "if we get to port you will get them.
If we sink you won't need them."
Leary continued on his way to retrieve his overcoat, hat, and a flask of
brandy.
Next, Leary heard how a seaman hacked off the fingers of a man desperate
to get into a lifeboat with an ax. Unnerved, Leary jumped into a lifeboat
still attached to the ship. When the Lusitania went under,
so did the boat, and so did Leary. A lifeboat oar caught his leg "and
it seemed to me I went as far as the ship did, because there was a terrible
drag from this thing holding me."
He managed to find his way to a collapsible boat, but he and others with
him were unable to raise the sides. Repeatedly, the waves would wash
those aboard off again and they would have to clamber on again. Not
everyone managed to last through every passing wave. "[B]odies would
float around, and we would push them away when they were dead."
With a badly gashed leg, for the next four-and-a-half hours Leary witnessed
fourteen people on his raft lose strength and slip away. Leary was
picked up by the torpedo boat 050 that was sent out by Admiral Coke.
Contributors:
Judith Tavares
References:
Hickey, Des and Gus Smith. Seven Days to Disaster. G.
P. Putnam's Sons, 1981.
Preston, Diana. Lusitania: An Epic
Tragedy. Berkeley Books, 2002.
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