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" Hall loved the surprise of intelligence work and loved knowing the real stories behind events reported in the news, which often were censored. For example, Room 40 learned the real fate of a German submarine, U-28, that attacked a ship carrying trucks on its main deck. One shell fired by the U-boat's gun crew blew up a load of high explosives stored in the ship, and suddenly "the air was full of motor-lorries describing unusual parabolas," Hall wrote. Officially, the U-boat was lost because of explosion. But Hall and Room 40 knew the truth: one of the flying trucks had landed on the submarine's foredeck, penetrating its hull and sinking it instantly. "In point of actual fact," wrote Hall, "U-28 was sunk by a motor-lorry! "
― Erik Larson , Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
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" In losing her he lost not merely his main source of companionship but also his primary adviser, whose observations he had found so useful in helping shape his own thinking. The White House became for him a lonely place, haunted not by the ghost of Lincoln, as some White House servants believed, but by memories of Ellen. For a time his grief seemed incapacitating. His physician and frequent golf companion, Dr. Cary Grayson, grew concerned. “For several days he has not been well,” Grayson wrote, on August 25, 1914, in a letter to a friend, Edith Bolling Galt. “I persuaded him yesterday to remain in bed during the forenoon. When I went to see him, tears were streaming down his face. It was a heart-breaking scene, a sadder picture no one could imagine. A great man with his heart torn out. "
― Erik Larson , Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania