Transcripts For CSPAN2 Erik Larson On Dead Wake 20150528

It has jaspers picture. I sent the senate demanded that i ask you, jasper asks do you miss me . Jasper is the result of Greta Van Susteren insisting that we get another dog after henry passed. One night in Redfield Greg gutfeld said there was this actress in hollywood and she was mad because the paparazzi to pictures of her dog. He said dana you are known to fly into a rage when someone takes a picture of your dog. I said oh no i want everyone to share my dog. He can be americas dog. And that he is. Thank you. [applause] thank you. Thank you rick and dana perino. The book is and the good news is and all of you who have the book go out to the lobby and we will sign and those of you who dont bear for sale in the museum store. Thank you for coming to the Richard Nixon president ial library. Got less you and god loves america. Eric larson is the author of several bestselling nonfiction books. His latest bestseller is dead wake the Last Crossing of the lusitania. This is an hour and 20 minutes. [applause] [applause] you cant believe how excited people are to see you. Im not kidding. They came for you when i dont think any other author could have done this. Just tell that to my daughters. They are not impressed with you . Is that how that goes . So i want to talk a little bit about this idea of why we are so intrigued by the idea of the doomed ship and heres here is my theory and you tell me whether this fits. Is that something about the venture and the optimism of the voyage colliding with this tragedy that passengers dont know they are sailing into . Is it like the collision of those ideas . No arias. [laughter] you know i often wonder about that myself because i have this maritime thing it seems like we all do. When i was a kid the flying dutchman enrich my imagination. I think what happens is i think there is something about the idea of being way out in the middle of the ocean and having something bad happen to you with no help available. Thats at least what taps into my brain. The isolation of that . The isolation and also the romance and the idea of the glamour of a crossing and interrupted by some catastrophe. For me i think part of it is because of my scandinavian words and i should point out my roots extend to south dakota and minnesota. You have won them over. You have them at scandinavian. There are probably 300 erik margins is what im thinking. Being scandinavian i dont know how our forebears and up landlocked. We are a seafaring people. Before coming to suit walls we were pillaging from the cm that kind of thing. You are that guy. Okay. Im sure you know something about the wreck of the edmund fitzgerald. I think this kind of device your theory because there was nothing all that glamorous. Its in or ship. Its on Lake Superior and yet its something that anniversary of the sinking of something that we observed and we talk about every year. I dont find that particularly romantic. I find that sinking an amazing event. On the great lakes and from what i understand the great lakes meteorologically are terrible places to be an incredible windstorm because the waves to come something you dont even experience on the ocean so to me that the fascinating part of the edmund fitzgerald. My dark fantasies tend toward the deep sea. Speaking of the deep sea im sure that when you were researching this you were studying the underwater photos and video of the lusitania wreck. Not really. Really . Why . Thank you air. Thats how its going to go tonight. [laughter] really, so let me elaborate on this because i did take a look at some of the photography that Robert Ballard had done but heres the thing. I didnt want that to color my impression during the course of my research of what this voyage was like. I didnt want it to be this rusting hulk on the floor of the ocean. Thats what it is now. I wanted in my mind this great glamorous ship with all these great glamorous spaces and the people walking aboard and so forth. So thats why i feel that way. That make sense. Its lying in more than 300 feet of water. Its on the starboard side and i dont want to jump too far ahead here but it sank very quickly. Do you know why its lying in the position that it is . I cant tell you for sure whether its lying on the starboard or the port side and im not sure in the end that had much to do with exactly how it sank. What i do know when it sank for much of that time it was only 18 minutes. For much of that time it was on a 25degree list so it may well be that its on the starboard side but just before it went under it righted itself because it was so full of water and there was no imbalance and then plunged underneath. Whether on up on the port of the starboard side i cant tell you because i dont remember. How to set 18 minutes thinking compare . How unusual is that . Its incredibly unusual. Think about the titanic. The thing about the titanic was that it was a rather leisurely sinking that the. [laughter] its a nod way. Im not making light of the sinking of the titanic. I am saying that was relatively speaking it was a leisurely sinking. Anyhow as you know the big issue of at the titanic was there were not enough lifeboats. Now the issue with the lusitania was that there were more than enough lifeboats, more than enough life was. There were 22 class a life votes which are the boats you traditionally think of when you think of life votes but they had a lot of collapsible boat stored underneath and that is how they made up the difference. The problem with the lusitania was the net result was almost the same as the titanic because half the boats were unusable because of this 25degree list if you can picture this. A close on the port side when she tried to let this go they swung into the super stretch. Those on the starboard side then lowered to the rails as they use the term were suddenly out eight frame 8 feet from the hole from the whole silky matching getting into one of these boats you are 60 feet above the sea and now you have to cross this eightfoot span and we are using deck chairs as letters. A boy takes a running leap and jumps into the lifeboat. So that was the problem with the lusitania and just the fact that it sank so fast because of how was struck. Since you mentioned the titanic just to know that there is a connection with the captain of the lusitania and the titanic. Do i remember that right . No. Wasnt he being called to court . The connection is there is a third interesting connection and that is on the day before literally the day before departure which the departure was on may 11915 captain turner was called to give testimony and the big titanic legal proceeding limitation of liability in new york. The White Star Line was trying to limit its exposure to the various lawsuits after the sinking. And turner was called as an Expert Witness to testify as to the behavior of the titanic and the titanics captain and why he was going so fast through eyes and turner did not approve. Captain turner knew that there were risks to this crossing that he was about to undertake and a lot of the passengers knew that too. Captain turner im not quite sure i agree with that. [laughter] surprise. I think what we are talking about here is that on may 1 and interesting thing happened in new york. In the new york newspapers that morning in the shipping news pages which were widely read the German Embassy had placed an advertisement or a notice lets say warning anybody who is traveling on a passenger liner or any kind of a merchant ship that when they entered the waters are browned the United Kingdom the socalled war zone that germany had declared back in february this notice was essentially reiterating that this works that this works is to be sailed into those waters he sailed at your own risk. This did not name the lusitania but it was widely interpreted to be aimed at the lusitania in part because like the new york world one of these notices appeared right next to the ad for lusitania. It was probably some cunning advertising person saying lets do this. So there was that warning in the paper and many people read it. Obviously. Some found out about the warning after the ship was a few hours out which was a wonderful time to find out that captain turner we know that he knew about the warning but i dont think captain turner was at all fazed by it. I dont think he was at all the captain turner was a sailor of the old school who came up through the great sailing ships. He was a staunch guy. He was the kind of guy, when you get on an airliner. I mechanically panicky flier so i looked for all kinds of cues as to whats going to happen so i listen to the pilots voice. So i listen for the cool and calm like but if i heard woodywoody allen come on and say that. What would you do about it . Id be off the plane in a heartbeat im telling you. But he was the guy if he can picture him he was the kind of guy do if you ran into him on the deck he would say this is my guy. He was not at all based by the potential of submarine attack created i think he firmly believed that his ship was faster and bigger than anything that any german submarine could tackle. Thats something thats interesting. You describe how few people really understood how dangerous the german submarine was at that point. I have a note here but you know that the author of Sherlock Holmes actually got it. This is one of the fascinating elements. I agreed with you. [laughter] its going to be good from here on in. The thing is whenever you write when i write history the way i like to write it, one very important thing is to try to put yourself in the point of view of the era. One thing that was very important to grasp for me was how new the submarine was in that time. We are all very familiar with run silent, run deep. There was by the way no sonar and pull for one and there were no depth chargers until after the lusitania. So the submarine was brandnew and was not understood by anybody as to whether it would ever be a viable weapon and a couple of guys though got it. One was sir arthur doyle who before the war wrote this really prescient short story about an imaginary european country called norland which is clearly meant to be germany. An imaginary country that had a handful of submarines and nonetheless managed to bring the British Empire to its knees and that was his story which ran some he wrote it actually long before the war and it was published the month before the war. The other guy was Jackie Fisher. The admiralty hierarch he and britain there was the first lord of the admiralty winston churchill. He was the top dog in the admiralty and then there was his number two essentially chief operating officer of the admiralty Jackie Fisher who is the first sea lord. And he got it too. He understood that there were certain characteristics of the design of the submarine that virtually required that it be used to certain way. Churchill completely dismissed it. He didnt accept the idea that a submarine would ever be used against a civilian ship. It was to outrageous to contemplate. One of the things you note is the autonomy that the submarines had once they were at sea and you say once at sea a uboat captain was free to conduct his patrol in whatever manner suited him without supervision from above. What did that really translate to . What to . What did that mean . What that translated to frankly was an extremely highrisk for germany that a mistake would be made and the elephant in the room america would climb into the war with guns blazing. What it meant was when you are the captain of the submarine to the league you were young men late 20s, early 30s that crew of about 36. Once you got out of range of german transmitters you were literally on your own. You could make any decision she wanted. If you saw were the target even have to call back to headquarters. He just went for it and so the autonomy was both thrilling for these guys but also a huge responsibility. And i wonder how important is to understand how captain schweigert how it is to understand how he interpreted that autonomy. Should be eager to get and ran with it. He was one of the main, one of the big submarine aces even early in the war. He was a very talented hunter of ships using a submarine. He was however and when into this site was thinking okay i kind of knew that there was going to be this collision course between the submarine and lusitania because the captain of the ship, the captain of the submarine had kept a meticulous war log detailing of thing that happened from the moment he left germany so i knew all of that. It made in obvious narrative thing to have the lusitania and the submarine converging but in the course of researching this i came across all this interesting information about schwager. Going into it i would love a monocle, you know. [laughter] i would love a monocle and like a scar and that kind of thing. What i got was this nice guy a 30yearold guy handsome charismatic loved by his crew wellliked throughout the submarine surfaced in one of his friends and fellow submarine commander said of him went point he couldnt hurt a fly. This was after the war. I have opened the book to this room 40 cadence. This is the reporter on the positioning. One of the remarkable things about the story as i started getting into reading about it and i have got to say i came to the lusitania reluctantly. I had nothing else on my plate that i have this maritime tick and i interested in the lusitania. I started reading about it and ive i was thinking of my first exploratory archival trip and that is what sort of cemented it but one of the things that surprised me was the role of the supersecret operation within the admiralty called room 40. Room 40 was established very early in the war to take advantage of three miraculous events that occurred. Which was on three different occasions again very early in the war the british came into the possession of germanys three main codebooks governing almost all of their wireless transmissions both naval and so churchville and a handful of us got together and formed room which was to take advantage of these captured codebooks and use them to read words and messages intercepted from the german navy and they became very very adept at this. One of the mysteries, one of the most interesting things is the u. 20 submarine sent a wireless message and receive wireless messages so from the beginning this room 40 new exactly what the submarine sorters were. Note that laid where we are supposed to end up on patrol and during its first, this is what you are looking at during its first 24 hours at sea its wireless operator sent 14 position reports which the british in room 40 intercepted and decoded so they knew exactly where the submarine was for the first 24 hours. E in the book is it 2 00 a. M. 2 00 a. M. , the exact location 4 00 a. M. 6 00 a. M. 8 00 a. M. Where was all the information for you to find a . Its all in the intercept, in the archives, the National Archives of the United Kingdom i was delighted to find these caches of information. They have all the decoded intercepts so they are all there in their files just really tremendous stuff. They were said to be garrulous, that is to say they liked using their wireless. They like chatting over the wireless. I have to think part of it might be because they knew ultimately they were going to be dealing with this amazing loneliness so was comforting to be able to what they had no clue that somebody was listening. They had no idea and not only did they have no idea than they had no idea for most of the war. The german navy was arrogant as to believe their codes would never be broken. How hard was that code to break . Wants to have the codebook [laughter] no but there are two elements. Theres there is a codebook that consists of three letter groups including of all things nantucket which the just a certain aspiration as on the part of the german navy. When the germans put their messages in code they use the code work are merely as a first step and then it would further scramble using cipher. There was a lot of code raking in did have to go on not code breaking but deciphering is the difference in cryptographic circles. But it was relatively easy to break that cipher because of how regimented the german navy was in communications with its ships. I dont want to bore anybody with details of this but essentially if you signal the same light ship every night at 6 00 p. M. You will eventually catch on but this is the light ship and at 6 00 p. M. And this message, you know what its saying so through that process they became very adept not only at deciphering but using the codebook to break the codes. I had someone in the audience earlier before we started asked me about how you discover the level of detail even about what the passengers of lusitania were wearing, the flower that somebody war in their pocket or Something Like that. Where is all that information to be found . I hate to say it but all that detailed is in the very detailed cataloging personal effects found on the data afterwards. And who did all that cataloging . It was mostly the british navy people in queenstown ireland, some cunard people. The cunard put out a confidential book after the sinking which contained just every name every body, every list of personal effects and the reason i did this is because they hoped for all these unidentified oddities something might trigger somebodys recollection and say maybe thats an maude, that kind of thing but that is where those came from. You are listening to author erik larson at the fitzgerald theater. His new book is called deadweight and you can follow that the thread npr on twitter. So lets place these two adversaries the lusitania and the uboat on a collision course. The lusitania has been at sea for six days. The lusitania set out on may may 1 and the torpedoing occurred on may 7. The submarine set out on april 30. So what has happened on the voyage of the lusitania leading up to that . A lot of flirting. A lot of shuffleboard. They actually lived by shuffleboard. The voyage until her say may 6, was pretty much uneventful and actually was probably getting fairly tedious. I dont know how many people have been on transatlantic voyages. Actually for research my wife and i did a voyage on the queen mary two and we set out in november after thanksgiving. This was midway through the research and of course no sooner did we leave that we were in a force 10 gale. Actually in fact the queen mary two is a very stable ship even in foul weather. One of the things that really came home to me about this voyage was after you leave the harbor he gets boring really fast and when it comes down to is you live from male to male. The same thing was happening on the ship. Meals were everything. It would sit at tables and these fancy diners and worse class and even the third class was quite lush. They wanted to attract the trade so you had all this cool shipboard stuff and people were writing about it, the survivors. But youre crossing to give give you that sense of what its like to be a out of sight of land and that isolation. Its so did and by the way the captain was very very particular. This was not a cruise. This was a voyage. Whats the difference . Very proud of the fact that the queen mary two is a pointtopoint vessel. It does not stop in the Caribbean Place to place but its really this amazing ship that does this transatlantic thing. It was built to do everything that the atlantic has to offer. But the thing is that when youre out in the middle of the ocean there really is that feeling. Even today when you are way out there and you can see where you are on the course, something catastrophic were to happen, something catastrophic that happen. You could strike another ship in the fog, who knows what but you are alone and nobody can get to you. Not for hours and hours and thats really sobering but the most sobering thing is that now and this was not the case with the lusitania but today when youre on a ship like that before the ship even leads toward you are required to put on your lifejacket strap it on and said it and then you take it off. I am here to tell you that it gets your attention. When you put that lifejacket on you realized wow this is real. Unfortunately it was not the case with the lusitania. They did not make them tried on. Did you have that moment where you thought what i have the presence of mind to know what to do if something happened to the ship . Yeah, what would i do . And of course in the context of the research i did on the lusitania do i jump in . No. Do i try to get into a lifeboat . Has and do i hope that they launch them better on the lusitania . Yes. So i really did, thought about it. I found myself periodically, after the gale but walking along the deck and trying to imagine this torpedo coming right toward the ship. What would that have been like . I cant remember what it does was its not super fast. I think you said 42. 42 Something Like that. Thank you. [laughter] anytime. Here it is right here. [laughter] my point being that when you are standing there you can see this thing coming because of the compressed air exhaust and it forms a very clear track on the cerp us of the sea and you would see this thing coming towards you. Its like really revelatory to me. You are helpless. Theres nothing you can do. Is like a steve martin skit where he is marketing the product that is an airline collision detector and it gives you a 22nd warning. [laughter] so you know 20 seconds before everybody else, so what. The lusitania has been at sea for six days. Whats happening underwater on the uboat as its getting ever closer . First of all one very important point to make captain schwager was not stalking the lusitania. He was not hunting for the lusitania. His orders were to look for a large troop transports leaving from an unusual part of britain. The german intelligence had picked up word that there would be these troop transports leaving rome unaccustomed ports among them liverpool and the western courts have britain and ireland and they were going to be doing that because the german intelligence had come to believe that britain might be caught planning an amphibious invasion of germany from the north sea coast. So he would look for large troop transports. His patrol was just a mystery of foul weather of zero targets, of one stretch being hunted by a patrol line of three destroyers that very nearly would have had serious consequences if the destroyers had kept up their pursuit just a little bit longer. He was having a horrible horrible time. I heard some readers to found themselves rooting for captain schwager. Plus the conditions. 36 men in a metal tube with one lavatory and the smell of stale bunions and Everything Else and 36 guys who wear their leather cced stay in and day out because whats the point of changing you know . Schwager at one point carried aboard his submarine he had six dachshunds. That really humanize him for me. The dogs did it. So is the former dog owner how do you scoop and then how do you deal with this . Living with 36 guys in leather is probably not relevant but the way he came about with the dachshunds was he had one dachshund aboard and a torpedo ship sank and the crew spotted this other dachshund that was in a box floating in the water. The talks and was named maria because the ship had the name maria in the name. A little hankypanky and suddenly for puppies on the submarine. At one point he had six dachshunds aboard the ship. We have to talk about the cargo. I wanted to make sure i asked you about this. You say that the lusitania is problematic but entirely legal under u. S. Neutrality laws. The lusitania was carrying 50 barrels 94 cases of aluminum powder 50 cases of bronze powder powder, what for . Who knows what that was for. And those dont qualified as munitions. They qualify more as ingredients potentially for munitions but those arent even the juiciest. And in the artillery. The quasishrapnel shells, in other words they did not than in fact in this sounds scary but they did not pose much danger of explosion. And the cartridges. They carried smallarms munitions. Smallarms munitions are not known to explode and mosque en masse. There was no mystery. They were in fact munitions aboard the lusitania. They were listed quite openly on this manifest, this cargo manifests. Has there have been controversy though about the fact that the ship was carrying what could potentially be seen as arms . Yes, that has been one of the lingering issues about the lusitania. But its typically been in the context of like was it then munitions the sank the lusitania and the answer to that is no, it was not. That is pretty clear now to the annie serious student of the lusitania but one lingering Conspiracy Theory is that there was, there were patches may be of explosives that had been smuggled aboard disguised as furs or oysters or something. And you know what there may have been. I cant say for sure that there werent but what i can say with 95 certainty is that is not what sank the ship. So we have got the uboat and they are not hunting specifically . Not hunting. The lusitania comes into view essentially. How does that happen . This is one of the many just really strange things that have to come together for this incident to happen. There were so many bizarre moments. The range of forces that all had to come together at exactly the right time and place to cause this thinking is a marketable one of which is as the lusitania is in the irish sea it is completely which is good for the lusitania because the fog was a protection against subgrantor is not so good for schwieger who is sick to death the of fog at this point. He has had fog the entire voyage. He comes up to the periscope deck and takes a look and theres nothing totally sunk. He goes back down and goes back down deep because he doesnt want to get run over by a ship and what are referred to as the western approaches where the main sea routes into the irish sea towards liverpool and support. So you have this fog. The lusitania schwieger doesnt see the lusitania. He has had such a miserable voyage miserable patrol that he at this point has made a decision to turn around and go home. He has decided to go home so we turned around and decides to go home. Goes up to check the weather. Miraculously the fog is gone. Not only is the fog gone the day that is left behind is one of the most Beautiful Days anybody could possibly remember. The sea was like last. It was warm, sunny. There was no wind. Its one of the most gorgeous days you could possibly imagine and through the spurs go pcs this forest of what he describes in his war log a forest of smokestacks and at first he thinks of several ships. And as he watches the ship makes a turn that really puts it out of his reach. He is really mad. He starts cursing and unleashes a torrent of profanity. But he decides he is going to follow just in case, just in case and miraculously a dark miracle captain turner on the lusitania orders another turn which puts it right in perfect sweet spot for the submarine. Isnt the lusitania alerted that theres a submarine active off the south coast of ireland . The message is that the lusitania, this is it point of really interesting controversy. The message is that captain returner received by way of warning were very generic messages like submarine sacked about the south coast of ireland. Thats a pretty big swath of water. It also said plural, submarines but in fact there was so much more Information Available for the warnings that could have been sent to turner. This is a very important point because schwieger now that the weather has improved starts getting really lucky and sinks three ships in short order. Turner is never told about those ships. Nobody knows. Moreover he is also never told that the u20 is for certain in the vicinity and u20 has patrol that has been assigned to a patrol zone right in the path of the cunard vessels. And none of the documentation reveals why there was a specific decision or not at all. What there is is a really startling absence of information in the archives about what specifically happened in terms of messages that should or should not have been set great all we know is what ive been sent and we also know the chairman of cunard allen booth on the morning when the newspapers, newspapers have the news of the sinking of the ships by you too on me and allen booth was in the liverpool having breakfast and reading the paper. He sees these in the paper and suddenly he stops eating breakfast, gets up and goes right to the chief naval officer in liverpool and says look we need to send a really direct message to turner because look at this. Once again this vague message was sent to turner. And so at this point for turner, he is hearing that there are submarines again very general warnings, submarines ahead of him submarines behind him plural and its like this is a situation he was never trained for. He was never in a situation to anticipate or plan or plot a course for this kind of a circumstance. Have you thought about what he could done even if he had been alerted to the presence of the submarines . What could have been frank we should have happened and again we are not talking, i dont say this in the book that this should have happened but you know what could have been done his first he could have been given much more specific information which might have really gotten his attention. It certainly would have gotten mine and he could have been diverted into queenstown. He could have been diverted into queenstown which is where the lusitania and the past in fact stopped for mail runs until they realize they were too many incidents of scraping the body in a shallow bash the bottom of the shallow harbor. There was a new and safer route that had just been opened on the northern route which he could have been diverted to take anticould have been escorted because several destroyers were available and in fact the lusitania and other cunard ships ships, not the lusitania but other ships have been escorted in the past. Thats one of the really important questions is why was it left alone . And . And you have not been able to join a specific conclusion on that . There is no smoking memo from churchill or anybody in the admiralty saying lets leave the ship in harms way. Theres nothing like that but there is though is the body of evidence that its in pieces of things and if you look at it and lets say you are in a court of law and you tried to use the evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the admiralty wanted those in harms way to get america into the war come he you couldnt prove it. At the same time you take the same body of evidence and turn it around and use what scientists refer to as the new hypothesis approach coming few use the same evidence that there was a conspiracy can do that either. Theres just too much stuff and what i do taking the cowardly approach i hang on a particular naval historian and a former intelligence guy. Initially when he wrote a book about rome 40 and was talking about the lusitania he said in his view it was a monumental up as he put it, it was a mistake. Later in life as more evidence came to the floor and this is something he said in an interview in the files at the Imperial War Museum in london which is a great place. It is. Yeah really terrific. In this interview he expresses a change of heart and he says you know i am a lover of the royal navy and but he says theres just so much evidence that he has changed his mind and has come to believe at this point that there was a plot of some kind. He doesnt know where the plot originated or were kind of detail the plot had that he felt there was a plot. He said if anyone else can explain it in a different way please step or wouldnt do so. And the motivation of the plot if there was one would have been . Is clear the motivation would have been that possibly america might enter the war than the one thing thats clear by the way is that churchill wanted america to enter the war and in an earlier letter he says as much. He is talking to the head of the board of trade. He is talking to him in a letter and he says you know we need the traffic from america as much of it as we can and then he has this very interesting line. He says and if some of it gets in trouble all the better. The plot thickens, right . [laughter] theres no real conclusion. You mentioned earlier that you stood at the rails on the deck of the qe. The queen mary two. You imagine what it might be like to see that torpedoed come towards you. Tornadoes. That is what what happened on is it . Werent there passengers who actually saw the torpedo approach . Is one of the most ` doing things in many statements by survivors by the way in terms of depositions testimony and personal accounts. What comes through most clearly about that particular moment first of all recall is a Beautiful Day, Beautiful Day and everybody is thinking okay we are home safe. There are 14 hours from liverpool. Everybody is thinking and one woman expresses, so where is this danger that we were all warned about . Everybody some of the first classes just finished lunch and the secondclass lunches just began. Kids are jumping rope upstairs. Everything is cool. People hanging out on the rails looking at the beautiful sea. Suddenly there is this bubble of air which is the first as the torpedo was leaving the submarines torpedo and then you see the track moving across this absolutely glassy sea and people standing at the rail saw this and one guy standing there in a woman came up to him and said is that a torpedo . He cant answer her because has he said he is just sick at heart. This is what i love from 1890 to 1920, this irrepressible thing about people. One guy runs to the rail to watch to watch this torpedo that had hit further down the hall the gutfeld and he said it was the most beautiful sight this torpedo moving and he could see the torpedo 10 feet below the surface. The sea was so still unclear he could see the torpedo and then of course because of the way the compressed air the track is black back up your so its like a fish searching through the sea. Eisai is the torpedo advance the water washing past its nose turned a small propeller which unscrewed a safety device that prevented the nation during storage. Then what happens once the torpedo is approaching . I have got tornadoes on my mind. Sharknado. [laughter] what happened is it is armed when it makes contact with the hull and essentially a charges fire. The larger charge explodes against the hull in a very characteristic signature by the way a tall geyser of debris just because of the physics of how these things explode in the hull. So that was how the explosion occurred. I think this is what is incredible what schwieger writes about the torpedo striking hull. Do you want to read it . Point it to me. Its on that page on the righthand side. Okay so should i just read this whole thing . I will just read this here. Schwiegers log entry began with the word trust for impact. He wrote quote torpedo hits the starboard side and im usually great detonation follows with a strong exclusive cloud. The explosion must have been accompanied by a second one will or cool or powder. And that is very terse. But very descriptive and thank god he wrote it. This stuff is gold as a writer. Honestly if you have this war log, its like oh my guys i can work with this. Tell me about opening. Log and reading through and flipping through to find out moment creates. I read the entire log from day one until the end and it was all fascinating and in some ways the launch and the impact were almost anticlimatic. You get that sense. There are all these other things happening on the way but what was so useful about that was that it allowed me the whole reason i did this book was because i saw an opportunity that had not existed for me in the past to put, it offered hitchcock had an make this exercise in nonfiction suspense in the log was really pivotal for that, crucial for that. That is the essence of suspense knowing where this guy is exactly what hes doing and what is happening to him and then knowing where the lusitania is and what they are doing what is happening with them and knowing as we know that they are on a convergence course but yet they dont know it. Its very powerful. Im surprised to hear you say that about the suspense because i thought there was a lot of suspense in devil in the white city. Well thank you. Didnt you . E but a different kind of suspense and a different magnitude, different intensity of suspense. I think so. The s. O. S. Telegram from the lusitania reads we think we are off can sail. Is that right . Late position 10 miles off can sail come at once. Please come with all haste. What are they saying . That is big list later. That she has what is referred to as the readers copy which has been heavily corrected. [laughter] but big list later so i was your question . What are they saying . What they are communicating is they had been hit by the torpedo and what time do i have on that telegram . I will find it. What is happening at this point is the ship has taken on this amazing list in a very short time. Its pretty clear at this point that the ship is floundering and everybody frankly is stunned that this is even happening at this gigantic ship one torpedo and this is just really minutes after the impact. So that was the next step. This big list. And then what happens as they are trying to send help . Well what happens the way the ship sank is because the torpedo had just exact with the seeds of sweet spot in the hull and frankly was not even the spot the schwieger was aiming for. This was one of those other things, was an accident. He had miscalculated the lusitania speed. The place had hit happened to be the perfect spot for various reasons, one that killed virtually half the crew because they are all in the luggage hold getting the luggage together and there was a shift change and exactly that moment this torpedo destroys that partnership. They also had have a place where flooding of these longitudinal coal bunkers which are now mostly empty because the ship is mostly done with the voyage flooded the forward bunker. The water was surging into the boiler rooms. The second explosion which essentially knocked out the Steam Distribution system lost all control of the engine so a that couldnt stop the ship. They are still progressing at 18 knots so not only did you have flooding that you had forced flooding which was water coming at an incredible rate and that is why the ship was suddenly listing. And so here you have this situation where you know all this is happening really fast. As i said, 18 minutes before it disappears. Theres a wonderful detail here. You say come its not 2 20 p. M. , 10 minutes since the torpedo struck and you are talking about deckhands and passengers are waiting for the ship to slow to allow the launching of the boats. Which is a very important point. Again the ship is still moving right after the torpedo at 18 knots and gradually slowing. The reason its important to note that the engines were no longer working is because you cant stop the ship. If the ship doesnt stop you cant launch the lifeboats. Its lethal to launch the life does one is going at a low rate but at 18 knots to launch a boat. Then you have the junior third officer who says a strange silence prevailed and small insignificant sounds such as the whimper of a child, the cry of the siegel or the bang of a door assumed alarming proportions. You read his diary. This is a statement that he left. Thats extraordinarily described it. As recently as 2012 a British Commission issued a report tuesday that the british were to blame for the fast sinking of the ship and the loss. This is really haunted the u. K. Those that live and failed. That would be captive in turner concluded moments you write about those photographs where are they . Right after the sinking but they were housed in three makeshift morgues in queenstown. And in order to assure a record of the bodies they were all photographed in a mass grave. I knew these existed in london and i was in liverpool i asked about them. They said we have them that we will not let you see them because we dont let anybody see them. I did some more work than i asked again kgs somebody to see . The next day they said we will let you look at the photographs. I said what caused you to change your mind . They loved double in the white city. [laughter] so i have to say they would not let me bring in the digital camera you dont photograph photocopied them anymore but it was very powerful and moving because it told me this is what the story is about not conspiracy theories or geopolitics but the fact this was a human tragedy of great dimension. Of men and women and children dressed perfectly with what they were wearing at lunch and looking frankly like they could walk out of the photograph. And walked onto the stage is very powerful. 84 the interesting conversation. [applause] questions . Once again to accompany the book with photographs . He says once again. [laughter] but it is the thing with me and i will explain it. But my goal is to create as rich a historical experience as i possibly can. I like them to sink into the past then he merge with a sense of having lived in the past time. Photographs and nonfiction books, i totally embrace the philosophy he writes novels by have adopted this to nonfiction with the book called i am becoming a novelist. He says his job is to have a fictional dream mine is to create the nonfiction dream but anything that takes away from that is to be avoided rather fancy language are bad punctuation and the thing that takes you away you dont like that either . So my feeling is it is terrible but they tend to be in the form of of glossy signature. Maybe there are even to. Is like a lighthouse beacon you sit here to read the book you have the temptation to look for photographs is great every time you leave the story this opportunity i want to avoid that. She felt the same way the rise and fall of the third reich hiroshima had no photographs. I dont have the photographs [laughter] i noticed that your stories have a lot of death. Are you drawn into that aspect . Death . It is what makes things compelling. Tragedy if what i was to write about it is where the stories are. Its not like i am hunting. It is just what happens. Plus worlds fair was not that dark. [laughter] en no you didnt have anything else to do but with thunderstruck and this one. With the early 1800s. But then to be outside thats martha. Heartthrob. [laughter] ive left that period we feel the audience is american when america is a different place. With over confidence. Annually and have good stories. I do love that period. It is in small but very important. It is also the heyday in very important to see the correspondence is is just like double in the white city but he had abysmal handwriting. When i was living full time in seattle i had my head down on my desk she said what is wrong . [laughter] could you talk about the details . Could you include that dimension . But i am a prim and proper staff. As you go through wilsons papers with the lusitania i came across his love letters to his girlfriend he lost his wife of many years and was crushed by grief and loneliness in debt was affected and in 1915 to fall head over heels in love with this widow who is 40 something from washington d. C. So she is holding back the little bit with these passionate love letters from the library of congress i reading dozens. Was the most passionate outpouring then i wanted to light a cigarette. [laughter] at that point i just said these are going and. I dont care. And to give in to where he was with the Last Crossing and coincidentally these important letters were written during that week and i love that stuff. Early on you spoke to the warnings that there could be an issue with the willingness of the passengers based on their ignorance or just i guess how many voyages were happening daily or weekly . Again put yourself with the point of view in the era will Capital Holding from those who were getting on a ship that day. I dont know how many saw the warning but in the context of the great ship known to be so fast and if it were it would be far faster than the submarine especially submerge. So there was the belief to fast and they said as much in the official announcement that was also the case and it is clear that the passengers believed the royal navy were the lookout for them once they got out to sea. So there was that. The rules of Naval Warfare in civilian vessels for the prior century against passenger liners. And and then to bring them aboard and then to release that and so forth. With the warfare against civilians and even from the glovers and lusitania show that beyond a shadow of the dow. Then you have debitor peter end of at the end of the talk. There was many questions ahead of the show. To source documents but today it seems like they just missed the past and you bring history alive put the question is how you choose your topics. The thread. I am interested in the process to pinpoint a topic to pursue. Anybody who asks the question gets us a drink. [laughter] how do i come up with these ideas . First of all, as people interpret my work to make sure i have of a dual narrative it is not the intention of mine is very organic that is what it is. But it the idea of a process is a horrible face. It really is. It is very difficult and not productive i am called the dark country of new ideas innocents so true. And that is as good a label as anything the underlying idea has to have certain qualities you cannot fecit so it has to be interesting to meet and has a very rich archival base to find all the bits and pieces of the readers imagination to have a builtin organic in gin that something inherently powers along with the lusitania that under threat of the climaxes in a seventh is a natural a narrative see you can tell the story as a nonfiction work with the beginning and middle and the and not the case of the lusitania but looking at barriers to entry. I dont look for them but i like them because i am pretty confident nobody else will do that book. I hate competition. That came up as the organic process and to meet it is very much like looking for a spouse. Whitman know this you have to kiss a lot of frogs before one case is you back in the not treat the way. You know, what i mean. Un said dart country right now. Thank you. Yes. [laughter] i cannot help as the german flight that went down it is so sad yet with the critical i with these practices just from your perspective how does that impact the newspaper this week . That is an interesting question. Is how you come to the shocking story. But i am hard to quantify exactly. But i can tell you thats imf deeply paranoid flier. I hate to fly. Even on the regional jet. The story of that flight has haunted me this week having to fly from place to pit place to place provide a lot to talk about it. [laughter] it is such a horrible story. It got worse today with said news that his shrink sent him a letter saying he was not fit to work. Then he gets on the plane. Host day using pure paranoia about flying is about control . [laughter] guest is this a shrink session . [laughter] is this dr. Phil . Host is. Guest somebody come down. I am 6foot 2 inches and have claustrophobia if you put me in the seat meant for my dog it is hard. [laughter] host last question you have a distinctive writing style your books are very fast to read i cannot end of paragraph without starting the next one. Pulling on that red thread. [laughter] [applause] how did you learn to write where did you get your style . I dont know. Date you so much for saying that that they read it quickly with foreshadowing because that is what i work very hard at to structure my book while i dont fictionalizes i use those techniques of foreshadowing foreshadowing, withholding to keep the reader interested and the story moving along