Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania By Erik Larson

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
By Erik Larson
Copyright 2015

Erik Larson once again visits the darker side of history in Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. As he did with serial killer H.H. Holmes in Devil in the White City, Larson examines this watershed moment in world history from many points of view.

There was President Woodrow Wilson who was trying hard to keep America out of the Great War in Europe. Lusitania Captain William Thomas Turner was confident that his vessel could outrun any U-boat on the seas. U-boat Captain Walther Schwieger enjoyed hunting enemy vessels and raising litters of dogs below decks of his craft. Winston Churchill, who oversaw the operations of the British Admiralty’s Room 40 where German radio transmissions were decoded. And there were the various passengers from different walks of life – some of whom survived and some who did not.

Larson introduces to the Lusitania as she sits in berth 54 at the Cunard docks on the Hudson River in New York. There, she took on her passengers and cargo. She was delayed for almost two hours while Captain Turner provided a tour to VIPs.

Larson provides a brief history of the Lusitania and details of her construction – including the coal bins built into the hull of the ship. She was the fastest ship in the Cunard fleet but, due to war rationing, was not allowed to run with all her boilers lit in order to save coal.

The R.M.S. Lusitania set sail from New York on May 4, 1915, en route to her date with history three days later. She made 23 knots across the Atlantic. Captain Turner was aware German U-boats patrolled the coast of Great Britain, but was confident in his vessel’s ability to outrun them. One thousand two hundred and twenty-two passengers were aboard and 696 crewmen. In the cargo holds, along with tons of coal to feed the ship’s boilers, were small caliber rounds destined for the British war machine.

Larson then gives us backstories on the many passengers aboard the Lusitania. The rich and middle class and just a few poor were aboard. Each of those men, women and children would become a story of bravery, heroism, or tragedy in just a few days.

Meanwhile, Walther Schwieger’s U-Boat 20 was patrolling off the coast of Ireland. He’d sunk some smaller ships and was on his way home, low on fuel. The British Admiralty in Room 40, using the German code they had broken, was aware of Shwieger’s presence off the coast. They were also aware that the Lusitania would soon be sailing through those waters. Room 40’s commanding officer, Winston Churchill, decided to keep the information to himself.

On May 7, the Lusitania met her destiny. Schwieger could scarcely believe his luck when the large ship appeared in his periscope. Schwieger launched his torpedo which struck the Lusitania on her starboard bow. Shortly thereafter, a second explosion rocked the ship. She started going down by the head.

The crew immediately set about launching lifeboats. But the ship’s list made it all but impossible to get them launched. Making the situation worse, many of the men who would have helped with the launching of the boats were below deck at the time of the explosion and were killed instantly.

The Lusitania sunk in just 18 minutes, 11 miles off the coast of Ireland. A distress call brought local boats to the scene to pluck survivors out of the cold water. Many lives were saved because of those efforts. Meanwhile, Schwieger and his crew steamed for home.

1191 people died when the Lusitania went down. 128 of those lost were Americans. Woodrow Wilson, who had tried so hard to maintain America’s neutrality in the great war in Europe, had to take notice. While the sinking of the Lusitania did not bring America into the war, it made it much easier later, when the XYZ Telegram was discovered, for Wilson to request and receive, a declaration of war against Germany.

Erik Larson has a penchant for telling dark tales out of history and without embellishment of the facts, make them read like horror novels. Dead Wake is just a bit different. It’s a bit more history and a little less drama. Fans of his work are probably not going to like it as much as his earlier works which were much darker. However, fans of great sea disasters and naval warfare are going to rejoice in the first mainstream telling of this important tragedy in the history of naval warfare.

Larson’s books tell stories from many independent points of view that are seemingly unrelated to the central plot. He employs that device in Dead Wake as well, but to less effectiveness. Particularly the chapters dealing with Woodrow Wilson and his grief following the death of his wife and his courtship of Edith Galt were not effective in building the drama or telling the story. The book would have been better if that had been left out.

What did work well was the character sketches of the passengers who lived and died aboard the Lusitania and the biographical sketch of Captain Walker. While the lore of the legendary Titanic has made many of those lost in her sinking common names in history, very few know of those lost on the Lusitania. Granted, the Lusitania did not carry the social glitterati that was aboard the Titanic, but those lives and their stories need to be told for a full appreciation of the tragedy.

Larson’s narrative as he describes the sinking of the Lusitania is as fast paced as the events that unfolded. Titanic biographers have two hours of material with which to develop their narratives. Tales of heroism, nobility, and cowardice have time to develop. With just 18 minutes to work with, Larson grabs the reader and has him turning pages at a fever pitch.

The reader can’t read the book and not see how the British admirality was complicit in the sinking of the Lusitania. Larson does not reach that conclusion himself, but lets the reader get there on his own. Churchill knew the chances were good that U-boat 20 would encounter the Lusitania. Knowing that U-boat captains prized tonnage over all other measures of success, he knew no U-boat captain could resist sinking the Lusitania. He also knew many American and British civilians were aboard. The British admiralty issued no warnings. Churchill made sure he was out of the country when the event took place. They let events unfold hoping the outrage would bring America into the war.

Much speculation has surrounded what was in the Lusitania cargo holds and what caused that second explosion. It is common knowledge that the Lusitania was indeed ferrying war materiel to the British despite American protests that we were entirely neutral. But there was nothing in those munitions that would have triggered an explosion of the magnitude described. Many have speculated it was coal dust detonated by the torpedo. Coal was stored in a space between the ships outer and inner hull. Larson seems to poo poo that theory. His belief was that the explosion was a hot boiler hit by cold water.

Erik Larson’s Dead Wake is not the most authoritative or insightful book written on the subject of the Lusitania. However, it is the most accessible and its sales will introduce mainstream readers to the story of that ill fated Cunard liner, its passengers, and its brave captain. Books, plays and movies in great number have been dedicated to the telling of the story of the Titanic and her fate. Finally, the Lusitania will sail from the pages of history texts to the mainstream where the general public can learn of her and the tragedy of her final voyage.

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Devil in the White City
by Erik Larson

About fifteen years ago, I went through a phase when I immersed myself in true crime and serial killer books. My favorite was The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule where she recounted the many nights she sat with the notorious Ted Bundy working a suicide hotline in Seattle. I read as much Joseph Wambaugh as I could find as well as more obscure authors who wrote about more obscure crimes.

This book would rank third on my list of true crime novels just below the aforementioned Rule book and Vincent Bugliosi's riveting account of the Tate-LaBianca murders and the prosecution of Charles Manson in Helter Skelter.

The book recounts the carnage unleashed by America's first documented serial killer, Dr. H.H. Holmes of Chicago. Dr. Holmes killed dozens of young women, a couple of men, and at least three children during his rampage that seemingly started with commencement of the 1893 Worlds Fair in Chicago.

The book tells two parallel stories. The first is about the trials and tribulations of the architect responsible for constructing the Worlds Fair grounds in Jackson Park on the shores of Lake Michigan. The other story is about the evolution of Dr. Holmes from a pathological defrauder of insurance companies into a full-fledged serial killer. Also thrown in for fun is the delusional thoughts and falsified grandeur of the young man who would go on to assassinate the mayor of Chicago because he had not received a patronage job he felt he deserved. This story line, sprinkled in every so often through the pages of this story reminds one very much of the deranged Charles Giteau who would slay President Garfield.

Holmes constructed a hotel at Wallace and 63rd streets near the site of the soon to be opened Worlds Fair to serve tourists. In that hotel, he constructed a chamber of horrors so efficient that it would be admirable in its design if its intent were not so ghastly. After Holmes' deeds were revealed, it was dubbed, "The Murder Castle." Holmes constructed a gas chamber (gassing his victims in a sealed vault was Holmes favorite method of execution) in his office. From his office, he would send the corpses of his victims careening down a methodically devised shoot to the basement where he would skin and disembowel the corpses. Sometimes he took the time to completely clean his victims’ skeleton and sell the them to medical schools. Sometimes he sold the cadavers to the same customers. Often, he cremated his victims in a specially designed oven in the basement.

He was able to create this Murder Castle by employing independent contractors to install separate portions of his murder/corpse disposal system. None of the contractors were aware of the other facilities that Holmes had installed. Had anyone taken the time to examine Holmes macabre architecture, his hobby would have been easily revealed.

Holmes' evil deeds went undetected in 19th century Chicago. He killed with impunity young women he employed in his drug store and hotel. Most of the women were from small Illinois and Wisconsin towns who answered advertisements Holmes placed in local newspapers. When worried family members would come looking for their lost daughters, Holmes, who was incredibly charming and disarming always had a ready story to explain their absence. The Chicago police remained unaware of Holmes deeds. Most families with lost loved ones employed private investigators who did not communicate with each other. No one realized the prolific nature of the monster within their midst.

Holmes killed at least three wives and collected on their life insurance. This was a favorite scam of Holmes to enrich himself. He and his business partner would steal fresh corpses from cemeteries and burn beyond recognition, then cash in on a life insurance policy of a person who never existed.

Like most serial killers, Holmes was not caught through his evil deeds. Remember that Ted Bundy was captured because he was a lousy driver. Charles Manson was originally arrested for vandalizing state-owned excavation equipment. Holmes was arrested more than two years after he left Chicago in Philadelphia for insurance fraud. A curious Philadelphia detective began looking into the death of Holmes’ business partner who was insured for $10,000. Through his investigation, he found that Holmes had murdered three of his partner's children while traveling through the Midwest and was in the late stages of plotting the murder of his partner's wife and her two remaining children.

Holmes eventually confessed to and was found guilty of 27 murders. Some investigators and historians have placed the death toll at more than 200 although most historians seem to doubt that Holmes was quite that prolific. When police searched his hotel, they found the remains of several victims in the crematorium as well as buried in the basement. Holmes claimed that murder came as naturally to him as poetry did to poets. He proclaimed himself the devil incarnate and as such, murder was his natural disposition.

Interestingly, many of the people associated with Holmes' arrest, incarceration, conviction, and eventual execution by hanging would fall victim to mishap, illness, or suicide. It would seem that Holmes did indeed command the powers of Hell. He asked that his body be interred in concrete so his corpse would not be stolen and defiled as he had defiled so many corpses as well as ambient beings.

This book is slow to get going. I was ready to put down this book after the first 100 pages. Much of the text in the early chapters recounts the bureaucratic trials and tribulations of attracting, designing, and constructing the 1893 Worlds Fair. Bureaucratic obstacles encountered by architects and lawyers make for dull reading. After Holmes constructs his chamber of horrors and gets into full swing, the book takes off and the last 100 pages make for intense reading.

Larson’s writing is fast paced and compelling once the reader moves beyond the first 100 pages. An author writing a non-fictional account of a bygone era must dedicate more words to developing the setting that serves as the backdrop than authors recounting contemporary events. However, 100 pages of backdrop is overkill. However, Larson’s disturbing tale of Gilded Age mass murder reminded me of why I once loved the true crime genre.