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

Author:Erik Larson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War I, Modern, 20th century, Naval
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2015-03-10T03:59:32+00:00

IN LONDON, a mosaic of information had by now accumulated in Blinker Hall’s intelligence division and in Room 40 that showed that only one submarine was in the waters off County Cork, and that it had to be U-20, commanded by Capt. Walther Schwieger, a talented and aggressive commander.

As the morning progressed, more information arrived, in the form of two messages that provided additional details about the demise of the Centurion. The ship had been attacked at 1:00 P.M. Thursday; all forty-four of its crew were rescued after spending ten hours at sea in lifeboats. One message stated, “Number and directions of submarine unknown.”

But by then, news about the attacks on the Centurion, the Candidate, and the schooner Earl of Lathom was already in Liverpool newspapers. Alfred Allen Booth, chairman of Cunard, learned of the attacks while reading his morning paper, over breakfast at his home. The meaning was clear, at least to him. He knew his company’s flagship was due to travel the same waters that very day.

Booth quit breakfast and rushed to see the senior naval officer at Liverpool, Capt. Harry Stileman, and pleaded with him to take measures to protect the Lusitania. Booth urged that a message be sent to Turner, notifying him that the two Harrison Line ships had been torpedoed and sunk. Under war rules, Booth was not himself empowered to send a warning, or any other command, directly to Turner. At the start of the war, all ships of British registry came under the dominion of the Admiralty’s trade division, to give the Admiralty maximum flexibility in commandeering ships for military use, as well as to prevent confusion that might arise if conflicting orders were sent to a ship from both its owners and the Admiralty, a circumstance that Cunard chairman Alfred Booth conceded could be “very dangerous.”

Exactly what else occurred during Booth’s meeting with Admiral Stileman is unclear, but Booth came away believing that a detailed message would be sent and that the Admiralty would order the Lusitania to divert to Queenstown, well short of Liverpool, until the immediate U-boat threat was past.

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