Rescue
Lifeboat #11 was spotted by the trawler Wanderer of Peel and the boat took on the survivors. After four hours of being cold and miserable, Oliver asked D. A., “Exciting day, Mr. Thomas?”
“Outrageous. Simply outrageous.” D. A. growled.
“They certainly made a job of it.”
“Didn’t you see what happened at the lifeboats? Deplorable. The standard of human efficiency is far below what we are entitled to expect — today it was ghastly.”
“Of course,” Bernard said, “it’s got to start at the top. You can’t expect efficiency from the crew if you don’t set an example on the bridge.”
“What do you imagine the percentage of average efficiency to be?” Thomas asked.
“Fifty per cent?”
“Nonsense, young man. Any employer who gets an average of ten per cent efficiency all around is doing extremely well.”
As the Wanderer was becoming overcrowded, the skipper, Ball, had to have many of the rescued transferred. Bernard and Thomas were taken aboard the trawler Flying Fish.
At Queenstown, he was looked after by a Catholic priest who treated D. A. to dinner and brandy, despite D. A.’s protests. By the time he returned to the Queenstown quay to await news of his daughter, he was a bit tipsy.
Margaret was aboard the Bluebell, the same boat that saved Captain Turner. Upon their reunion, the father and daughter checked into the Queen’s Hotel to put an end to their ordeal. Dorothy visited Lady Mackworth the next morning to check up on her and to say that Howard was safe. Lady Mackworth and D. A. Thomas went home to Wales; Dorothy and Howard continued on to work on the battlefields of France.
Despite his survival, the Lusitania left a lasting impression. D.A. Thomas would later remark, “The thought of crossing the Atlantic frightens me. I can’t get the Lusitania out of my mind. I dream of it.”*
Media coverage
The 8 May 1915 New York Times, page 4 ran this: “Mr. Thomas declined to relate his experience, saying that he had too easy a time to be interesting. Just as a boat was being lowered on the starboard side an officer ordered him to take a vacant seat. This boat got away without any trouble and was one of the first to be picked up.”
One of the more interesting headlines detailing D. A.’s survival read: “GREAT NATIONAL DISASTER. D. A. THOMAS SAVED.”
After Lusitania
D.A. Thomas was awarded the title of Baron Rhondda in 1916. From 1916 to 1917, he was President of the Local Government Board. When he was appointed Minister of Food in June of 1917, he introduced food rationing to Great Britain. Another title, Viscount, came to D. A. in June of 1918. He was only able to enjoy his title for one month, as he died on 3 July 1918 in Llanwern, Monmouthshire. His title and peerage, by special remainder, were inherited by her daughter Margaret. Margaret wrote about him in her 1933 autobiography, This Was My World.
This article is reproduced with the kind permission of the webmasters of https://www.rmslusitania.info/. If you have an interest in the Lusitania – I would recommend visiting this remarkable and fantastically researched site.