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Updated: May 5, 2025
The close proximity of British convoy and patrol boats enabled most of those on board to be rescued, 1912 survivors being landed within a few hours at Buncrana and Larne in Ireland. The lives lost included 267 American soldiers besides a number of the crew. The attacking submarine is believed to have been destroyed by the British patrol before the "Tuscania" sank.
Here is a letter from a Yale man, a sailor, which contains rather a tragic story, the loss of the transport Tuscania under British convoy: "I could see a lighthouse here and there on the Irish and Scotch shores, and though I knew there were plenty of ships about not one was to be seen. All at once I saw a dull flare and a moment after a heavy boom.
January 5 President Wilson delivers speech to congress giving "fourteen points" necessary to peace. Jan. 20 British monitors win seafight with cruisers Goeben and Breslau, sinking latter. Jan. 28 Russia and Roumania sever diplomatic relations. February 2 United States troops take over their first sector, near Toul. Feb. 6 United States troopship Tuscania sunk by submarine, lost.
The first serious disaster to American troops on the voyage to France occurred on February 5, when the steamship "Tuscania," a British transport with 2,179 United States troops on board, was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off the north coast of Ireland.
The next instant lights and rockets began to go up, red and white, and from their position I knew they must be from the Tuscania and that she was falling out of the convoy. Then came a crash of guns and a heavier shock that told of depth-bombs and the blaze of a destroyer's search-lights gone again in an instant and then absolute silence."
Hail! The Gang's All Here" and "Where Do We Go From Here, Boys?" as a ship is sinking. I know American soldiers pretty well. I do not know what they sang when the Tuscania went down, but I am glad to add my picture to the other and to say that I for one heard a crowd of American gunners singing "Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me Over Life's Tempestuous Sea."
Then about half a mile away the Tuscania stood out in the glare of all the lights suddenly turned on. I could see her painted funnels and the sides clear and distinct against the dark. Another boom and the lights and the ship herself vanished.
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