I listened to this via audiobook. I am a fan of Erik Larson. He does thorough research on his topic (a lot of his books are set in times of war) and presents the facts in an engaging and informative way. He includes what's going on with other key people at the time of the event(s), including personal information on their relationships at the time and/or their emotional frame of mind. I think this always adds to the story and helps to create a "bigger picture" of the era.
Dead Wake is about the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915 during WWI. It was sunk by one torpedo that was fired by a German U-boat, whose captain, Walther Schwieger, was one of the deadliest captains the Germans had at the time. Schwieger only cared about the tonnage that he could sink. The greater the tonnage of the boat, the higher the honor. Since the Lusitania was a passenger cruise liner, with 2,000 passengers and crew on board, this was definitely a new "low" by the hands of the Germans.
The Lusitania was the fastest liner in service at the time. It could travel up to 26 knots, which is much faster than a U-boat could ever move. U-boats moved around 9 knots. So even though the Lusitania was traveling through an area where U-boats were known to be present, most people, including Captain William Thomas Turner, believed that it could flee the danger of an U-boat. Yep. And..... the Titanic was considered "unsinkable".
So, the Titanic sunk in 1912 and the industry made significant changes so that this type of event would not ever happen again. The Lusitania had plenty of lifeboats and lifejackets on board - enough for every person on board. They also trained the crew to handle the two different types of lifeboats on board, including regular drills. BUT, they didn't instruct the passengers on emergency procedures; didn't assign boats/locations for the passengers to go to in an emergency; didn't even instruct the passengers how to correctly put on their lifejackets. These facts became issues that compounded the problem of course. It also hurt deeply that the crew members that were trained in how to manage the lifeboats were mostly killed by the torpedo blast, since the torpedo landed in their section of the boat.
This was a chain reaction of unfortunate timing, from beginning to end. The Lusitania left England late; the Lusitania couldn't travel as fast as it normally could because management of the Cunard Line told Captain Turner to only use three of the four funnels; since there was no sonar at the time, a deep fog had the Lusitania traveling slower during parts of the journey and it ended up over 12 miles from the coast as they approached Liverpool instead of the normal 1 mile or so; the evaporation of the fog was advantageous to the U-boats in the area since now they could see other boats in the area; Schwieger miscalculated the speed of the Lusitania and aimed the torpedo according to his calculations of the ship going faster than it actually was, so the torpedo hit a spot that actually sunk the entire ship in a matter of minutes. If he had known the ship was going only 18 knots, the torpedo would have hit a part of the ship that allowed people to use the lifeboats, etc.
The reader also learns about President Wilson's emotional state at this time (the death of his wife); how deeply Wilson felt about the USA staying out of WWI; "Room 40" which was a top secret British intelligence site that intercepted German radio transmissions; all the known movements of the German U-boats in the area and other sinkings of boats at the time that no one shared with Captain Turner. So much information.
The conspiracy theorists believe that Britain allowed the Lusitania to be torpedoed simply to get the USA involved in the war. Britain was losing the war at this point and they needed the USA to step up. I would certainly hope that is a false theory. Such a tragedy.
Wendy's Rating: *****
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