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Lot 32

LUSITANIA
Autograph letter signed ("Walter R. Storch") to the sister of Mary Nichol ("Dear Madam"), giving a long and detailed account of her last moments on the Lusitania, torpedoed by a German u-boat on 7th May 1915, 21 Carpolme Road, Forest Hill, London, S.E., 21 June 1915

24 June 2015, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £4,750 inc. premium

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LUSITANIA

Autograph letter signed ("Walter R. Storch") to the sister of Mary Nichol ("Dear Madam"), giving a long and detailed account of her last moments on the Lusitania, torpedoed by a German u-boat on 7th May 1915, describing how he helped Miss Nichol into a lifeboat but that the boat soon filled with water - Miss Nichol admitted she couldn't swim and was very frightened ("...her last words to me were on my Promising to save her...[she] commenced to cluch [sic] my arms..."), but when the lifeboat capsized all was confusion ("...when I looked round for Miss Nicol I saw the Poor girls face down in the water, very still, with someone hanging on to her neck under the water. A second after I looked at her she slightly moved her arms as if in Farewell and I knew she was dead. I must confess that I cannot get this awful sight from my mind..."), regretting he had not let Miss Nichol grip him, and going on to describe how the boat capsized and righted itself four times, with only half of the sixty people in the boat eventually saved, reassuring her that her sister did not suffer "very much" before she died and remembering her sweet singing ("...the life and soul of the ship..."), explaining that he had been in hospital [being treated for cracked ribs], and offering his sincerest sympathy, asking for a photograph of Miss Nichol and mentioning that, despite extensive enquiries, he had been unable to identify any of the bodies as hers, 6 pages, on mourning paper, creased at folds, some loss at folds to page 6, 4to, 21 Carpolme Road, Forest Hill, London, S.E., 21 June 1915

Footnotes

'SHE SLIGHTLY MOVED HER ARMS AS IF IN FAREWELL & I THEN KNEW SHE WAS DEAD'. Walter Reinhold Storch spares no detail in recounting the death of a fellow passenger on the Lusitania to her grieving sister in Scotland. He is clearly upset and traumatised by what he has seen and vividly describes her last moments and the confusion and panic of the other passengers as the lifeboat taking them to safety sprung a leak and capsized.

Mary Nichol, a shop assistant from Dumfries, was returning home as a second class passenger on the Lusitania after visiting her two sisters in Chicago. A total of 1,196 passengers and crew were killed in the tragedy. Mary's body was never found.

Additional information

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