Book Review: Attack the Lusitania! by Raymond Hitchcock (1979)

Attack the Lusitania! is a historical novel written by Raymond Hitchcock. The British passenger liner RMS Lusitania was one of the fastest and most luxurious ships of its day. The Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine on May 7, 1915. The ship sank in just 18 minutes, and nearly 1,200 people lost their lives. Hitchcock’s novel, published in 1979, explores the possibility that the British government plotted to attack the Lusitania in an attempt to draw the United States into World War I. This is not as far-fetched an idea as you might think. The Admiralty took a lot of heat in 1915 for not adequately protecting the Lusitania, as the Germans were scaling up their submarine warfare. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was reeling from both the failure of the Gallipoli invasion, and the sinking of the Lusitania, and he was forced to resign his post less than three weeks after the Lusitania was sunk. Ever since 1915, there have been conspiracy theories that the British did not do enough to protect the Lusitania.  

For his novel, Hitchcock invented the character of Captain Gavin Tweedman, Director of Naval Intelligence. Tweedman is a colorful character, a racing devotee who lost his left leg in a car crash. Tweedman also hatches the plot for a British submarine, disguised as a German U-boat, to make the attack on the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland, as it heads for Liverpool. Tweedman does not want to sink the ocean liner, just merely damage it so it can limp back into port, and then blame the attack on the Germans, ensuring that the United States will enter the war.  

The plot obviously requires secrecy and subterfuge, and there’s a cast of colorful characters that Tweedman must manipulate for his plan to succeed. I won’t spoil any more of the plot but Attack the Lusitania! is a fun and engaging historical thriller. I’ve been intrigued by the Lusitania since I read Erik Larson’s 2015 book Dead Wake, a fascinating account of the liner’s final voyage.  

Apart from being fascinated by ships and shipwrecks, there’s another reason why I read Attack the Lusitania! Raymond Hitchcock’s son is the very talented singer and songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, who’s one of my favorite musicians. I’ve known for a while that Robyn’s father was a painter and a novelist, so when I found Attack the Lusitania! at an antique store, I had to get it. While reading Raymond’s novel, I’ve been listening to Robyn’s remixed version of his 1988 album Globe of Frogs. There’s a wonderful connection between the novel, about a terrible naval tragedy, and Robyn’s song “Luminous Rose,” with its visions of “drowned sailors and dead airmen.” Robyn sings “The sea is so much deeper than the grave,” a fitting epitaph for his father’s novel as well.