dead wake the last crossing of the lusitania summary

Larson suggests that perhaps Churchill wanted the liner attacked, hoping the outrage would bring neutral America into the war. Nor was he encouraged to take the northern route to Liverpool, which was safe at the time.Ĭhurchill also failed to provide an escort for the Lusitania, on the grounds it was not the job of the Royal Navy to escort merchant shipping. Larson proves the Admiralty knew how close the U-boat was to the great liner, even though Captain Turner was never warned. The most exciting chapters are those based on the log of the U-boat, U-20, under the charismatic Captain Schwieger, an urbane, well-educated Berliner, known for his wit and warmth, who kept a black dachshund, saved from a shipwreck, on board.Įqually compelling are the accounts of the intelligence work carried out at the Admiralty’s Room 40, intercepting and decoding submarine commands, under Winston Churchill. U-boats and torpedoes were new, untested war weapons, and many assumed the Lusitania was too big and too fast for their firepower. In spite of a warning published in the New York press by the German embassy, both passengers and crew had a firm belief the Germans would not sink a passenger ship. The war was in its tenth month, but America remained neutral. The ship is booked to capacity, mainly by British and European citizens, with only 189 Americans on board. Larson’s perspective on the Lusitania tragedy is very much the view from New York, and his story proper starts at Pier 54 on the Hudson River, where the liner, which had already completed 201 Atlantic crossings, is being prepared for its next voyage to Liverpool under the tried and trusted Captain Turner.

Within only a few pages, it becomes apparent why this warning was necessary: The factual detail is incorporated into a story so compelling it reads like a novel. Sources are given in the notes at the end of the book. The author stresses from the start, in a ‘Note to Readers’, that this is fact, and that anything between quotation marks can be traced to a memoir, letter, telegram or other historical document.

The 44,000-tonne liner sank in only 18 minutes, following a hit by one torpedo, and a second explosion, whose origin is still being debated.

Dead wake the last crossing of the lusitania summary