Finished (E-Reader): "Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania" by Erik Larson

Erik Larson's "Dead Wake"

David Butler's "Lusitania- a Novel"

I had heard the tale of the Titanic since before I can remember, but I discovered the Lusitania story about the time I started at the University of Windsor.  At that time, I was really looking around for procrastination items, and found the Fantastic Four comics from Marvel and found a large novel, "Lusitania - A Novel" by David Butler, which served my need for something time consuming and "needed to be read".

I can't remember too many details, but the basic storyline that a passenger carrying ocean liner was struck by torpedo(s) from a German U-boat in WWI.

I found "Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania" by Erik Larson much more recently, and gave it a read.

Even though I knew the basic outline (which I don't think are "spoilers" in a 100 year old tragedy), I found the book a really compelling read.  Larson wove material he gained from letters, postcards, survivor interviews and war records into a narrative outlining the voyage from both the Lusitania and the U-20 perspectives.  Larson also does a good job of setting the world political scene - Wilson (the U.S. president mourning his lost wife and becoming interested in a new love, wanting to keep the U.S. out of the European conflict), the goals of the Germans, to end the war quickly by stopping all supplies to England (similar rationale to the U.S. decision to use the atom bomb in WWII - a faster end to the war saves lives on both sides - at least, that's how the rationalization goes), and the English realism that a sea disaster involving U.S. passengers may be what would be required to get America into the war.

There appears to have been some real dissension in the German government re. the sinking of passenger liners, with different rules of engagement playing at different periods of the war.  U-boat commanders did retain a very high degree of autonomy, and their key performance measure was not necessarily kills, but tonnage - Lusitania was a single kill, but a very large tonnage win for the U-20 commander.  The "stop all incoming traffic" strategy adopted by the Germans was a promise to end the war in 6 months - it was very nearly successful, as the U.S. entered the war likely months before it would have ended with a German victory.

The angst felt by mariners on both sides, with respect to sinking non-military targets, and whether or not to assist with the rescue of survivors was well expressed.  The U-boat commanders took various forms, some assisting and some leaving the scent - their main concern was maintaining concealment - the U-boats were pretty fragile and any collision typically favoured the surface ship - on the English side, there was concern that attempting rescue with valuable ships (e.g. military vessels) would allow easy traps to be set by U-boats (sink a ship, hide, shoot the rescuers when they are sitting, or slow to assist).

All in all, a very good read which does a good job of personalizing the disaster.