The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 9 letter word LUSITANIA
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More clues leading to the result LUSITANIA
- Old province of Asia, until broken up
- Italian bombing has caught American ship — it sank
- Ill-fated liner left United States and hitan island key
- Large country keeping middle part of Titanic, doomed ship
- Liner in Italian suit repaired after hems are dropped
- City outside Tunisia turned into part of the Roman Empire
- US-Italian arrangement that went down controversially
- Not one initial interaction with USA, which went down controversially
- Sailor accompanies Kitty all around ship
- Wrecked U.S.-Italian ship
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "(ship) that went down controversially" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case (ship) that went down controversially = lusitania.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.