i knew all of that and it made an obvious narrative thing to have the lusitania converging. i came across all this interesting information. i wanted him to be a classic villain. i would love a monocle. [laughter] like a scar. i got this guy become a, charis, loved by his crew come and one of his friend friends from a few commanders to defend he couldn't hurt a fly. this was after the war. so, just -- >> i opened the book to this room for the cadence. is this the positioning, this is the report on the positioning.

>> one of the remarkable things about the story when i started getting into reading about it, like i say, i came to the lusitania kind of reluctantly. i had nothing else on my plate. i had this maritime take and i started reading about it and getting more in my first exploratory archival trip and thatruck andthat is what cement. .. >> so churchill and a handful of

others got together and formed room 40 which was to take advantage of these captured codebooks. they would use them to read wireless messages interception from the german navy. they became very adept at this. one of the most interesting things about the saga is that the submarine sent and received wireless messages. from the very beginning this room 40 new exactly what the submarine's orders were. they knew exactly where it was supposed to end up on patrol, and what you're looking at during the first 24 hours that sees the wireless operator sent 14 position reports which the

british in room 40 duly intercepted and decoded. they knew exactly where the submarine was for the first 24 hours. that's the chapter you're looking at. >> in the book it is two a.m., the exact lake casing, four a.m., six a.m., and then you say the report sees. where was sees. where was this information for you to find it? >> it is in the intercept, in the national archives of the united kingdom they have information and they have all the decoded intercepts, they're all there in their files. >> it's really tremendous stuff. the thing also about the german submarine is that they were said to be -- they liked using their wireless and like chatting over the wireless. apparently, i have to think that part of it might be because they knew that ultimately they're going to be dealing with this amazing loneliness so it was comforting. but they had no clue that

somebody was listening, they had no idea. not only did they have no idea then, they had no idea through most of the war. the germans were so arrogant to believe that the codes were not going to be broken. >> how hard was that code to break? >> well once you have the codebook. >> but there are two elements to this is the codebook which is key in that consisted of three letter groups including a three letter group of nantucket which is suggested certain aspirations but when the germans put them in code they use the codebook primarily as the first step and then there further scramble it. so there was a lot of code breaking i did have to go on even though, not co-breaking but breaking but deciphering, there

is a difference, so it was relatively easy to break that cipher because of how regimented the german navy was in communications with its ships. i don't want to bore anybody with details of this, but essentially if you signal the same lightship every night at 6:00 p.m., you're going to eventually catch on that this is the lightship and it 6:00 p.m. and message and you know what it is saying. so through that process there able to become very adept not only at deciphering but back to >> i had somebody in the audience asked me how you discover the lever of detail of what the lusitania was wearing, flower that somebody wore their pocket or something like that, where is where is all that information to be found? >> i hate to say but all that

detail is in the very detail cataloguing personal effects found on the dead afterwards. >> who did all of that cataloguing? >> guest: it was mostly the british navy, people in queenstown, maryland, some other people. actually put out a confidential book after the sinking which contained every name, everybody, every listed person it affected and the reason he did it and it was because i hope that through all of these unidentified bodies something might trigger someone's recollection and say maybe that is and mod. that kind of thing. that is where the all those things came from. >> host: you are listening to eric larson at the fitzgerald theater, his new book is called "dead wake" you can follow the

thread at the thread and pr on. so let's place these two adversaries, the lusitania on the collision course. the the lusitania has been at sea for six days. >> the lusitania set out on may may 1. the torpedoing occurred on may 7. and the submarine set out on april 30. >> so what is happened on the voyage of the lusitania leading up to that? >> a lot of flirting, a lot of shuffleboard, they actually did play shuffleboard. the voyage, until thursday may 6 was uneventful. was probably getting fairly

tedious. i don't how many people have been on transatlantic voyages, before the research my wife and i did a voyage on the queen mary two. the maiden ship. we set out in november, after thanksgiving. it thanksgiving. it was midway through the research. we did the crossing and no soon sooner did we leave new york harbor -- but it spoke to me in my scandinavian heart. and actually affect the queen mary two is a very stable ship. even in bad weather. one of the things that came home to me on this voyages after you leave the harbor it gets boring really fast. what it comes down to is you sort of live for meal to meal. same thing was was happening on the ship. meals were everything. is it at your table and these fancy dining rooms and even third class supposed to be quite good and quite posh and very good.

they wanted to attract the tray. so you had all of this cool shipboard stuff and people were writing about it, survivors had left stories about what was happening. >> host: but you're crossing to give you that sense of what it's like to be with outside of lands and that isolation. >> it so did. by the way, the captain was a very very particular that this was not a cruise. this was a voyage, voyage. he was very proud. >> what's the difference. >> is very proud of the fact that it is a point-to-point vessel. it does does not stop in the caribbean place to place, but it is really this amazing ship that transatlantic thing, is built to deal with everything that the atlantic has two offer. but the thing is, when you're in

the middle of the ocean, there really is that feeling, even feeling, even today when your way out there and you look at your day and plot where you are on the course is if catastrophic were to happen, it could happen you could strike another ship in the fall, some i don't know but you are alone. and nobody can get to. now for hours and hours. so that's really sobering. the most sobering thing is that now and this is not unfortunately the case with the lusitania but today when you are on a ship like that, before it leaves you are required to put on your lifejacket, strap it on and fitted in the new take it off. and i'm here to tell you that it gets your attention. when when you put that lifejacket a you realize that this is real. now

unfortunately those not the case with the lusitania they did not make me trying on. >> did you have that moment we thought, what i have the presence of mind to know what to do if something happened to the ship? >> well yes what what i do and of course in the context of all the research that he did in the lusitania it would be do i jump in? no do i try to get into a lifeboat? yes i do i hope that they watch them better than the lusitania? yes. so yes. so i really thought about it. i really also find myself periodically -- this is after leaving the gail and looking off the deck and trying to imagine this torpedo coming right toward the ship. while what with that of been like? it comes, if it's a torpedo it's like 35 or five or 45 miles per hour which is not superfast.

>> i thank you said 42. >> thank you and here it is right here. [laughter] >> my point being that when you're standing there, you can see this thing coming because of the compressed air exhaust. forms a very clear track on the surface of the sea and you would see this thing coming towards you. it's just revelatory to me. my gosh, your helpless. >> there's nothing you can do. >> it's like the steve martin routine where he's marketing the product, it's like the airline collision detector and gives you 22nd warning. >> so you know 20 seconds before everybody else, so what.

so the lusitania has been at sea for six days, what is happening underwater on the u-boats as it is given ever closer? >> to one important point to make, the captain was not stocking the lusitania. he was not hunting for the lusitania. his orders were to look for large transports that were leaving from an unusual part of britain, ordinarily the troops just left one side of the channel to the other. but the german intelligence had picked up for that third be these leaving from ports. on that there were going to be doing that because the german intelligence i come to believe that britain may be planning and amphibious invasion of germany to the north sea coast.

so his orders were to look for these large transports. his patrol was just a misery of foul weather. of zero targets, of one stretch being hunted by a patrol line of three destroyers that very nearly would've had very serious consequences if the patrol and destroyers had kept up their pursuit longer. he was having a horrible time. i've heard some some readers who find themselves rooting for the captain. i don't know that's appropriate, but. >> know what you think the conditions. >> 36 men in a metal tube, one laboratory. and guys who wear their leather

suit see suit stay and adapt because what's the point of changing. >> he also had dioxins. >> did that really humanize him, the dog did it. >> as a form dog on the rise just thinking like okay pooper scoop how do you deal with that on the other hand when you're living with 36 guys and leather is probably not relevant. but, we came about with the dioxins is that he had one docs of the board and then the torpedo ship sank and then the crew spotted this other docs and those in a box floating so they rescued the dioxin. there is a little hanky-panky and then suddenly for puppies. on the submarine. so one point he had six docs.

>> we have to talk about the cargo. i wanted to make sure asked you about this. you say that the lusitania is problematic but legal under u.s. neutrality laws, the lusitania was carrying 50 barrels, 94 cases of aluminum powder, 50 powder, 50 cases of bronze powder, what for? >> who knows what that was for. those don't really qualify as munitions, they qualify zinc ingredients for munitions but also many other things. those aren't even the juiciest. >> host: and then the artillery. >> guest: will their shrapnel shells. in other words they did not pose much danger of explosion. >> host: and the cartridges that held.

>> and then they carry tons of small arms ammunition which is also not any sort of threat because whether it took fire. none nonetheless there's no mystery, they were in fact munitions aboard the lusitania. they were listed quite openly on this cargo manifest. >> has ever been controversy about the fact that the ship was carrying, what could potentially be seen as arms and? >> it has been one of the lingering issues about the lusitania. it's been in the context of was at the munitions that sank the

lusitania? the answer to that is no. it was not. that is really pretty clear now to any serious student of the lusitania, but one conspiracy theory is that there were catches, maybe of explosives that have been smuggled aboard and disguised as for years or oysters. there may have been. i cannot say for sure that there weren't. what i can say with 95% certainty certainty is that is not what sank the ship. >> host: so we have the u-boat and they are not hunting specifically. >> not hunting. >> host: but the lusitania comes into view, how does that happen? >> guest: it's one of the many really strange things that had 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

that cause the sinking is remarkable, one of which is at the as the lusitania's in the irish sea it's sunken -- with fog because fog was a. he comes up takes a look, said there's nothing, total totally fog written. he goes back down deep because he doesn't want to get run over by a ship in these was referred to as the western approaches, these were the main sea routes into the irish sea toward liverpool and so forth. so you have this fog. schrager doesn't say it and sure you're doesn't see the and he has had such a miserable voyage,

miserable patrol that he come at this point has made the decision to turn around to go home. his decided decided to go home. so he turns around and decides to go home. he goes up to check the weather, miraculously the fog is gone. not only is it gone but what it has left behind is a beautiful day that anyone can possibly remember. the sea is like glass. it is warm, sunny, there is no wins, it's just one of the most gorgeous states you could possibly imagine. through the periscope he sees the forest of what he described in his log as a forest of mass and smokestacks. he first thinks it's several ships. as he watches this ship makes a turn that immediately puts it out of his reach.

he's really pissed off and starts cursing. he told a friend that he unleashes a torrent of profanity. but he decides that he is going to follow just in case. and miraculously the captain turner on the lusitania orders another turn which puts it right in the perfect sweet spot for the summary. spee1 is of the lusitania alerted that there is a submarine active office south coast of ireland? >> guest: the message it receives and this is a point of real interesting controversy, the message captain turner received by way of warning were very generic messages like submarines active off south coast of ireland. well that's 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 was very important point because they finally started to get lucky and he should sinks three ships but he was never told about those, moreover he is also never told that you 20 is for certain in the vicinity and that it has a patrol and has been assigned to a patrol zone right off of liverpool. >> and none of the documentation reveals why, why there is a specific junction or none at all? >> what what there is is a really startling absence of information in the archives about what specifically happened in terms of messages that should have been or should not have been sent. all we know is what was sent and we know that the chairman of q

and r booth on the morning of when we had the newspapers the newspapers had the news of the sinking of the ships by you 20, and alan booth was in liverpool having breakfast and reading the paper. and you see it 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. look at this, once again a vague message was sent to turner. so at this turner is hearing that there are some marines, again very general warnings, submarines ahead of him submarines behind him, plural and so like 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. >> host: have you thought about what he could have done, even if he had been alerted to the presence of the summaries? >> guest: what could have and frankly should have happened, again were now talking to my don't say this in the book but what could have been done as first while he could of been given much more specific information which may have really gotten his attention. it's really would've gotten mine, and he could have been diverted into queenstown. he could've been diverted there which is where lusitania in the past had stopped for male runs until they realize they were just too many incidents of scraping the bottom and shall

harbor there he could've been diverted there, there was a new and safer route that had just been open, the northern route which he could've been diverted. and he could've been escorted because several of them were available. in in fact lusitania and other ships had, will not the lusitania but other ships have been escorted in the past. so that's one of the really important lingering questions is why was it left so long? >> and you have not been able to join us specific conclusions on that? >> there's no smoking memo from churchill or anybody saying let's leave this ship in harm's way, there's nothing like that. but what there is is a body of evidence, bits and pieces of

things that if you look at it and let's say you are in accord a lawn you tried to use use that evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the admiral one of the lusitania in harm's way to get america into the were, you cannot prove it. at the same time, if you take the same body of evidence and you turn it around and use what scientists refer to as the new hypothesis approach and try to use the same evidence to disprove that there is a conspiracy, you can't do that either. it's too much stuff. so what i do, take in the cowardly approach, i look at a particular naval historian and former intelligence guy. initially when he wrote a book again rule 40 and was talking about the lusitania he said that in his view it was in monumental mistake. but later in life is more evidence came this is something he says in an interview that is in the files at the war museum

in london. which which is a great place. >> it is a great place. >> in this interview he expresses a change of heart. he says i'm a lover of the royal navy, and but he says there's so much evidence that he has changed his mind and it's come to believe at this point that there was a plot of some kind but he doesn't know what or where it originated, what kinda details that involved, he just felt like there was a plot. he says will have anybody can explain it in a different way please step forward and do so because it's very hard to successfully do that. >> and the motivation of the plot if there was one letter been? >> is clear that the motivation would've been that possibly american might've entered the war there. one thing thing is very clear is that churchill

wanted america to enter the war and actually in an earlier letter says as much. he says he's talking to the head of the border trade is talking to him a letter and he says we need the traffic from america, as much as of it as we can enhance an interesting line, he says if some of it gets in trouble, all of the better. >> so the plot thickens. >> with no real conclusion. >> you mentioned earlier that you stood on at the wilson on the deck of a q. week. >> the queen mary two and you imagine what it might've been like to see that torpedo come towards you. that is what happened isn't it? weren't weren't there passengers who actually saw the torpedo approach. >> host: that's what. >> guest: that's one of the most spectacular things i came across.

many things exist in terms of testimony and personal accounts. what comes through most clearly about that particular moment. first of all we recall it's a beautiful day. everybody's thinking we're home safe, there like 14 hours from liverpool, one woman actually says so where is this danger that we are all warned about? and everybody first classes finish line, the second-class lunch sitting has just begun, kids are jumping rope, cruiser getting luggage on deck, people are hanging on hanging on the rails looking at the beautiful sea. suddenly there is a bubble of air which is the first, as the torpedo was leaving the submarine and then you see the track, this compressed air track

moving across this classy. people send standing at the rail saw this. and one guy standing there and woman came up and said is that a torpedo? and he can answer because as he says he's just sick at heart, one guy, this is what i love about from like 1890 to 1920, this eerie principle thing of people, one guy won't runs to the rail to watch this torpedo hit further down the hall and he says later, he says in his account, he says it was beautiful, the the most beautiful sight. this torpedo and he could actually see the torpedo 10 feet below the surface. the sea was so still and clear. and then because of the compressed air the track is back up here so like a fish surging through the sea.

>> host: used as the torpedo advance, the the water rushing past its nose turned a small propeller which unscrewed a safety device that prevented detonation during storage. then what happened? that tornado is on my life. >> shark nato. [laughter] well then it is armed to when it makes contact with the whole it essentially a charges fired, the larger charge explodes. in a very characteristic signature by the way so a tall geyser of debris because of the physics and how these things explode against all. and so that was how the explosion occurred.

>> i think this is what is incredible. what he writes about the torpedo striking home. do you want to read it? >> guest: do you? okay so sure i'll just read this whole thing. so i'll just read this to you. so it began with word trust for impact. he wrote quote torpedo hits close behind the bridge and i'm usually great technician follows with an explosive cloud. the explosion of the torpedo must of been accompanied by a second one, oil, coal, or powder. >> host: and that is very terse.

>> guest: very descriptive. i'm in this stuff is gold as a writer. honestly if you have this war log was like oh my gosh i can work with this. >> host: tell me about opening that log and reading through flipping through to find that moment. >> guest: i read the entire log from day one to the end. it was all fascinating. in in some ways the launch and the impact were almost anti- climatic. >> host: you get that sense. >> guest: all of these other things were happening on the way. but what was so useful about that is it allowed me to, the reason i did this book was because i saw an opportunity that had not existed for me passbooks to put on my alfred hitchcock hat make this an exercise in nonfiction suspense.

the log was really pivotal for that. crucial for that because that's the essence of suspense. knowing where this guy is exactly what he is doing and what he's thinking and happening to him. and then knowing where the lusitania is in what's happening with them. knowing as we know that they are on a convergence course although they don't know it. it's very powerful. >> host: i'm surprised to hear you say that about the suspense. i thought there is a lot of suspense and devil in the white city. >> guest: well thank you. but it's a different kind of suspense. >> well yes. >> a different intensity. i get you. i think so. >> host: the sos telegram from the lusitania reads, we think we are off kinsale, is that right? late position 10 miles off

kinsale, one, please come with all haste. were they sang? >> guest: big list later, i only say that because she has what's referred to as the advance readers copy. which by the way is heavily corrected. >> host: what are they communicating? spee2 what what they're saying is they been hit by the torpedo. what time do i have on that telegram? >> host: i don't know i will find it. >> guest: what's happening is the ship has taken on this amazing list in a very short time. sprinkler at this point that the ship is floundering and everybody is stunned that this is even happening. that this gigantic ship, one torpedo and this is just really

minutes after the impacts. so that was the message that one out. this big list. >> host: what happens as they are trying to send help? >> guest: the way the ship sank is so much, because the the torpedo hit just exactly the sweet spot in the whole and frankly it was not a vivid spot they're aiming for, he was an accident. he had miscalculated the lusitania speed, the place it hit happened to be the perfect spot for various reasons. one, killed virtually half of the crew because they were all on the linkage hold getting the luggage together there was a shift change. and at that moment the torpedo

destroys a part of the ship. also the flooding of these longitudinal coal bunkers which are now mostly empty because the ship was dumped a voyage. it flooded the forward bunker, water was surging into the boiler rooms, the second so-called explosion knocked out the steam system and lost all control of the engine. so they cannot stop the ship, the engines were the brakes. their progress in at 18 knots. so you have forced flooding which is water coming in at an incredible rate. so here you have a situation where all of this happened really fast, like i said 18 minutes before it disappeared. >> host: there's wonderful detail here is in this paragraph it is now 220 p.m., ten, ten

minutes since the torpedo struck. you're talking about deckhands and passengers are waiting for the ship to slow to allow the launching of the boat. >> guest: which is a very important point. the ship is still moving right after at 18 knots and gradually slowing. the reason it's important to know that the engines were no longer working is because you cannot stop the ship. if the ship doesn't stop you can't launch the lifeboats. it's lethal what is going at a very low rate their trained at a certain procedure. but but at 18 knots at suicide. >> host: then you have the junior third officer who says a strange silence prevailed and small, insignificant sound such as the whimper of a child, the cry of a single or the bang of the door assumed alarming

proportion. you read his diary? >> this is a statement that he left. >> host: that's extraordinarily descriptive. as recently as 2012, a british commission issued a report to say that the british were not to blame for the fast thinking of the ship and the loss of life. this is really onto the u.k. >> guest: yes it has. what's funny, i came across an interesting document that was done after some revelations in the 60s or the admiralty even then had done a detailed, asked for the historical section to do a detailed look at the book and various charges. it dispelled most of what i came up with it but in the end the guy writes that in conclusion, i say let

sleeping dogs lie. but yes, it is still to this day something that's funny. but it is because people get an idea in their heads about conspiracy and so forth and really attends to be overlooked is like in the last decade or so, to really excellent forensic engineering studies were done on the lusitania. both came to the same conclusion independently that it was a disruption of the distribution and probably the main steam distribution line that failed because of contact most likely with water. which interestingly is what captain turner concluded moments before the second -- >> host: one last question

before i go to the audience. you write about finding those photographs of the recovered bodies. where are they? >> guest: right after the sinking, first bodies were recovered they were stored in in three makeshift marks in queenstown. in order to assure our record of the bodies when i was in liverpool at the university of liverpool which holds the archives i asked about the but were not gonna let you see them because we don't let anybody see them anymore.

so what could you ask someone higher up to see if i could? so then i come in and say will let you look at those photographs. then he said will was the change of heart? and they said the senior archivist -- [applause]. so i have to say that there would not let me bring my digital camera in which is how you do research these days, you don't photocopy them. so sitting there looking at these photographs really very powerful and moving and very important because it told me that this is what the story is about. it's not about the conspiracy theories are all that. it's not about the geopolitics

involved, it's about the fact that this was first and foremost a tragedy, human tragedy of great dimension. there were these people, men, women and children in these photographs dressed perfectly, wearing wearing exactly what they were wearing at lunch that day. and they were looking like they could walk out of those photographs in a silver black-and-white photographs looking like they could walk out of these photographs and walk onto the stage. it's very powerful. >> host: thank you for an interesting conversation. >> guest: thank you for an interesting interview. thank you. [applause]. >> questions from the audience. >> once again you have not accompanied the book with

photographs and will you speak to that again? >> so yes he says once again. [laughter] i have not accompanied the book with photographs, my other books to just not a lot. it is the thing with me. i'll explain it. my feeling about what i do a book is that a book like this, my goal is to create as rich of historical experience for the reader as i possibly can. i want the reader to think into the past and then emerge at the end of having read even one sitting, emerge with a sense of having lived in that past time. photographs in a nonfiction book, ca totally embrace it put forward by he writes novels but john gardner in a book called

i'm becoming a novelist. he says that his job, it's to create the fictional dream. now my my job is to create a nonfiction dream. but the novelist job is to do the fictional dream and anything that takes you away from that is to be avoided whether it's fancy language, bad punctuation, lousy grammar, italics, anything that takes away from the dream is a bad thing. some of you don't like italics either? i don't. so my feeling about photographs his first role the reproduction is terrible in a trade nonfiction book. second, they tend to be in the form of a signature and that gets stuck into the book sometimes maybe even two of the signatures is like a lighthouse

in beacon. you're reading this book and the ten tatian to go to this glossy thing and look for photographs is too great. every time you read the story is an opportunity for you to leave the book altogether. i want to avoid it so this time i got my way. mainly because because my new editor is brilliant. she felt the same way. if you think about a night to remember had no photographs. the bible had no photographs. anyway,. >> hello, i know set your book has a lot of death in them. are you drawn to that aspect or is it just a byproduct of the amazing thing that happened. >> guest: it's what makes things compelling. tragedy, disaster and so forth. enough i was to write about

churchill's walk through through hyde park on a sunday morning coming is lovely but nobody's going to read it. it's just where the stories are. not drawn to to it, not looking to tell dark stories, it's not like i'm hunting, this is too cheery i'm good to go do this, it is just what happens. >> the world's fair wasn't that dark. [laughter] >> a question over here. >> i know you talked about doing the lusitania because he didn't have anything else to do. but would the devil in the white city and thunderstruck and then this one, to have a particular affinity to the late 1800s come early 1900s that trust you? >> that is for sure. i love the. from 1890 until about 1920.

i loved that. because there is something in first role, i do tend to read about american subjects because i feel my audience is american and that's my territory. the the thing about that 1890-1920. that's when america was just a different place was this optimism and overconfident. and whenever you have that you have great stories. dark stories as well. so i do love that. another small thing about that although it's very important is that it was also the heyday of the typewriter. very important because you can go nuts reading correspondence. when it is all typed reports and typed reports it's like having

devil in the white city my favorite character was olmsted, but the man had dismal handwriting and i mean one days in my office and my wife came into the office and have my head down on the desk in my magnifying glass next mitch said what's wrong and i said olmsted. >> just wanted you can talk little bit about the details included with president wilson in this book and why he decided to include that? >> guest: i really came to have a new appreciation for president wilson from this book because i thought he was a prim and proper stiff before hand, had no interest in him. but as i was in my research and going through wilson's papers in particular for the period around

lusitania, i came across his love letters to his girlfriend. now wilson, in august 1914 lost his wife of many years. about the same time the war blew up in europe. was crushed to grief and loneliness and he really was affected by it. then in 1915, he meets and falls head over heels in love with this woman this fortysomething widow in washington d.c. who most often see tooling around town and her electric car. so he falls in love with her and is holding back a little bit. his writing these really passionate love letters which i came across in the library of congress. some reading some of the most passionate in outpouring, after as i wanted to light a cigarette, it's like my god. and so at that point i just

said, i don't care, these are going in. this is going to be part of the story. in context is crucial, wilson was an important player in the saga. trying to get into his, where he was in his mind during that period when the ship was making its crossing and coincidentally some of these letters were written during that week leading up to the sinking. so that's really perfect in terms of chronological cohesion in the narrative. i love that stuff. >> a question over here. >> early on you spoke to the warning to the public about that there could be an issue with the u-boat. where the willingness of the passengers to go, was it based on the ignorance of the danger

ahead or was it just so much, i guess the question is how many voyages were there happening daily, weekly that's it thought this can't happen to me. >> again put yourself back in the point of view of the era. very important. look at the whole thing through the eyes of those who are going get on the ship that day. i don't know exactly how many people actually saw the warning, i think it's obviously quite a few. but they still live in the context of here is this great ship said to be so vast, faster than any submarine and in fact if it were to do its top speed it would be far faster than any submarine, especially antisubmarine that has submerged.

so there is that, this belief that it was too fast, too big to ever get a submarine and in fact they said as much in the official announcement after the departure responding to the german notice. it was also the case that from what i was able to tell that it's pretty clear that cunard believed and the passengers believed that the royal navy would be looking out for them once they got to the iris c. so there is that. another component which is the rules a maritime work fair against civilian vessels. for the prior century essentially they had forbidden attacks against passenger liners. they had forbidden belligerent ships from sinking merchant ships without warning. if they did think a merchant ship they had to make sure the crew was safe. they had to bring them aboard or even bring the merchant ship

into report and then release all of its current so forth. and their price court would determine the fate of the ship. those were the rules. warfare against civilian vessels were carefully orchestrated. things things were changing but nobody realized how much at this point. only glimmers that germany had changed the rules. we see. >> a couple more questions? i many have to have to repeat it with me on the lobby. i think that's why cap saying tornado. that's another story. >> maybe it was the crafter i drank, but what i love about your work is that number one you use source documents a number two, you bring the past to life. today today it seems like we just missed the past. you bring history alive. you

make it alive for all of us. i love that about you. so the question i have is about how you choose your topics. you seem to be on this thread right now and you seem to converge these disparate topics whether it's marconi, murder in london, our devil in a white city. just interested in the process they go through to really pinpoint a topic to pursue, the research, and how you begin to bring that into a narrative form? >> host: anybody who works thread into their next question gets a drink. way to go. spirit trends. >> guest: so how do i come up with these ideas, first of all the dual narrative thing. people have interpreted my works to suggest that i have this

thing about making sure that i have a dual narrative and all my books and i show you that is not the intention of mine to do so. i don't have a thing. the whole thing was very organic, he had nazis and the americans, they have to be there it's not like a dual thing. same thing with lusitania comedy of a submarine and that's what it is. the idea process for me is a horrible phase. it really is. it's it's very difficult, i feel very unproductive. a friend of mine has said it's when i'm in the dark country of no idea. and it's so true. the thing is, to write the kind of history that i like to write which people have label nonfiction which is a good enough of a label as anything. it has to have certain qualities or you just cannot do it. you can't fake it, you can't whatever.

the idea has to be interesting to me. it has have a very rich archival base so that i can find all of the bits and pieces that will like the readers imagination. it has to have a built-in organic arch that something powers it along. so lusitania begins may 1 under threat and then the climaxes snatched may seventh. so you can retell the story is a nonfiction work but tell it at the beginning, middle and end. and end. i also look for an idea ideally, not in this case but typically i look for barriers to entry which comes to the dual narrative thing. again i don't look for dual narratives but i like it if i find something like it because

i'm pick confident nobody else is going to do it. i hate competition. the devil and the white city was a very much organic process. to me it's very much looking for a spouse. you women know this better than the man, you have to kiss a lot of frogs. before one kisses pack in a not creepy way. you know what i mean. i have three daughters, you know what i mean. >> host: are you right now in the dark country of no idea? >> guest: thank you, yes. >> host: how's that working for you? one last question over there and then here. >> i can't help but connect to