Riassunto
<p><b>A collection of the 40 worst mercantile disasters in history—revealing that, despite popular belief, the <i>Titanic</i> tragedy was far from being the worst disaster at sea</b></p><p>While the victims of the <i>Titanic</i> disaster at 1,507 persons accounted for a huge loss of life, each of the ships described in this book had a greater number of casualties, in some cases more than five times as many. In total, these 27 merchant ship sinkings resulted in a staggering loss of life at sea—more than 96,000 lives in total (3,840 per ship). While the circumstances of their losses were different than those of the <i>Titanic</i>, the outcome in each was no less tragic. While it is not the intention to diminish the gravity of the <i>Titanic</i> case, these lesser-known tragedies do give "the worst disaster at sea" a sobering perspective. Despite the fact that the <i>Titanic</i> disaster ranks behind so many other losses, so powerful has her name become as a representation of extreme misfortune, that it was the inevitable choice to describe some of these other events. Hence, they have come to be known as "Germany's <i>Titanic</i>" and "The <i>Titanic</i> of Japan" as just two examples. Ships include the <i>Lancastria</i>, sunk by German bombers with a loss of 3,000 British lives (Britain's worst maritime disaster); the <i>Ryusei Maru</i>, a Japanese "Hellship" loaded with 6,000 Allied POWs that was torpedoed by a US submarine; and the <i>Wilhelm Gustloff</i>, a German liner packed with 7,800 civilians in operation "Hannibal" evacuation, sunk by a Russian submarine. There were no survivors and this tragedy was the worst maritime disaster of all time.</p>
Informazioni sull?autore
<b>David L. Williams</b> has a background in professional photography and technical publications. He has written more than 30 books on shipping and related subjects.
Le informazioni nella sezione "Su questo libro" possono far riferimento a edizioni diverse di questo titolo.