Erik Larson on the sinking of the Lusitania
Erik Larson's books breathe life into long-ago moments to thrilling effect.
"The Devil in the White City" revived Chicago's 1893 World's Fair, complete with an infamous serial killer roaming the grounds. "Isaac's Storm" brought the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 whipping back in full force.
Larson's latest, "Dead Wake," centers on the Lusitania, the doomed ocean liner that now lies 300 feet under water, 11 miles off the coast of Ireland. Larson brings readers back to ship's final voyage, as it sailed from New York to Liverpool in May 1915.
With less than day to its destination, the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine.
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Larson's book has already shot to the top of the New York Times bestsellers list.
Larson joined MPR's Kerri Miller at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul on March 27 to discuss the Lusitania's last moments, and the rampant fascination with doomed ships.
The Lusitania was not a re-run of the Titanic
The Titanic took just over three hours to sink; the Lusitania sank in 18 minutes.
The tragedy of the Titanic was the ship's devastating lack of lifeboats. The Lusitania, on the other hand, had more than enough lifeboats, but the German torpedo hit it in such a way that it rendered most of them useless.
The Lusitania took on water and tilted sharply to one side, rendering some lifeboats useless and putting others far out of reach. Some survivors recalled having to jump to reach the lifeboats.
The Lusitania sunk long before help could arrive, even though it was just hours from Ireland.
The British knew more than they acknowledged about the threat to the Lusitania
Did the British allow the Lusitania to be torpedoed in order to bring the United States into World War I? Larson's research didn't uncover any solid proof of the conspiracy, but it didn't rule it out, either.
Early in the war, the British came into possession of three German codebooks. This allowed them to decipher and translate countless intercepted German messages, both naval and diplomatic. The Germans had no idea anyone was listening.
"The thing about German submarine commanders," said Larson, "[is that] they were said to be 'garrulous'; they liked using their wireless, they liked chatting over the wireless." The British deciphering operation, called Room 40, thus knew the exact location of the U-20 submarine and how close it was to the Lusitania. Despite this, they never issued an explicit warning to the ship.
The sinking did ultimately sway Americans' feelings towards the war, which the U.S. entered two years later.
The story of the Lusitania offers an unlikely villain
The U-boat commander responsible for firing on the Lusitania was Walther Schwieger. "I wanted him to be this classic villain," said Larson. "I'd love a monocle, I'd love a scar, but what I got was a nice 30-year-old guy — handsome, charismatic, beloved by his crew, well-liked throughout the submarine service. One of his friends, a fellow submarine commander, said of him: 'He couldn't have hurt a fly.'"
Schwieger even stopped his submarine once, after sinking a freighter, to save a dachshund struggling in the wreckage.