Disasters at Sea: A Visual History

 

 

 

 

Disasters at Sea: A Visual History of Infamous Shipwrecks by Liz Mechem was published in 2009 (hardcover). A paperback version appeared in 2014.

 

The main text is divided into eight parts, which cover different topics. Here is a brief overview:

 

PART 1 – NATURE’S FURY

PART 2 – THE FATAL FLAW

PART 3 – COLLISION COURSE

PART 4 – PIRACY, MUTINY, AND SKULLDUGGERY

PART 5 – CASUALTIES OF WAR

PART 6 – MYSTERY!

PART 7 – BLAZE OF GLORY

PART 8 – LEGENDS OF THE DEEP

 

In each part several disasters are covered. The total number of disasters covered in this book is more than 60. In most cases, each ship will get two pages. Each ship is covered with a general text, a separate sidebar with additional details, a map which shows the location of the wreck, and a picture of the ship.

 

There are a few exceptions to the rule. The following six cases of ships (or fleets) get double space, i.e. four pages each:

 

** The Santa Maria, 1492

** The Spanish Armada, 1588

** The Treasure Fleet, 1715

** The USS Monitor, 1862

** The Titanic, 1912

** The Andrea Doria, 1956

 

At the end of the book there is a bibliography with several books and websites about naval history. There is also an index.

 

Disasters at Sea is a good book about naval history. This is, according to the subtitle, A Visual History of Infamous Shipwrecks, and this claim is true. The visual aspect is one of the strong points of this book.

 

Another strong point is the number of disasters. As stated above, there are more than sixty cases and they are well-chosen. They represent different types of ships and disasters caused by different reasons, such as bad weather, an accident, or a deliberate attack.

 

THE FLAWS
Having said this, I have to add that not everything about the book is perfect. There are flaws here and there, and some of them are quite serious. In the following I will explain the flaws I noticed while reading the paperback version published by Skyhorse Publishing in 2014.

 

# 1. The space allotted to each ship is rather limited. Two pages for one ship is not much, given that there are at least two illustrations and a separate sidebar for each ship. This means the main text with general information often feels too short.

 

I have the feeling that there is much more to say about each case, but the limited space does not allow the author to tell us the whole story. This gives me a feeling of frustration. The story ends before it really begins. Four pages for each case would be better, but this is only allowed to happen for six of the more than sixty cases covered in the book.

 

# 2. The last sentence on page 24 is incomplete. The author writes:

 

“But the Monitor never fought again; eight months later, less than a year after her launch, she…”

 

The end of this sentence is nowhere to be found. I assume the missing words are something like: “was lost at sea.”

 

It is sad to see something like this. The author as well as the book-editor failed to notice that this sentence has no ending. It is a case of sloppy editing. It is even sadder to see this flaw appear in the paperback version. It should have been discovered and corrected before the paperback version was printed.

 

# 3. The caption to the picture on page 53 reads:

 

“The Princess May, grounded on Sentinenal Island (near Vanderbilt Reef) in 1910, had safely evacuated all of her passengers. One year later, the Princess May participated in the ill-fated rescue attempt of the Princess Sophia.”

 

The name of the island is Sentinel Island (not Sentinenal, as the author says). More importantly, the chronology is wrong. The rescue operation took place in 1918. This means the caption should say: “Eight years later…”

 

# 4. 100 yards = 90 meters, not 900 meters, as the author claims on page 103. There is one zero too many here!

 

# 5. There are two problems on page 107.

 

(a) The Mary Rose was raised in 1982, not 1983, as the author claims.

 

(b) The red square which marks the location of the wreck on the map is in the wrong place. According to the map, the wreck was located in the middle of the English Channel. This is not true. The ship went down near the English side of the channel.

 

The author states:

 

“King Henry himself witnessed the sinking of his beloved ship and her complement of 400 men, as he stood watch from nearby Southsea Castle.”

 

And this statement is true.

 

Southsea Castle is shown on the map, next to the Isle of Wight. This means the red square marking the location of the wreck should have been placed closer to land and closer to the place from where the king was watching the battle.

 

# 6. The picture on the top of page 123 does not show the German battleship the Bismarck, as the caption claims. This is evident from two details.

 

(a) The ship in the picture has the anchor on the side, but the Bismarck had the anchor on the bow.

 

(b) The ship in the picture has three rows of round windows (portholes), but the Bismarck had only two rows of round windows (portholes).

 

I do not know the name of the ship in the picture, but it is not the Bismarck.

 

# 7. On page 170 the author mentions the apostle Paul, who was arrested around AD 58:

 

“After being held without trial for two years, Paul pleaded to be heard by Julius Caesar himself.”

 

Gajus Julius Caesar was killed in 44 BC, which is ca. 100 years before Paul was arrested. In other words: Paul could not be heard by Caesar. He could, however, be heard by the Roman Emperor. In AD 60 his name was Nero.

 

The author tells us about Paul’s journey from the Holy Land to Malta, but she does not tell us what happened to Paul later on. Did he ever get to Rome? Was he allowed to plead his case in front of the Roman Emperor? If he was, what was the verdict? The author tells us the beginning of a story, but we never get to hear the ending, because there is not enough space to tell us the whole story in just two pages!

 

# 8. The fate of the Medusa is covered on pp. 46-47. Regarding the lifeboats and the raft, the author writes:

 

“Setting off for shore, the lifeboats towed the raft, whose desperate passengers clung on for their lives. Within hours, towing became untenable, and those aboard the lifeboats simply cut the raft loose, to cries of ‘Nous les abandonnes!’ (‘We are abandoning them!’).”

 

Neither the French quotation nor the English translation makes any sense. Who cries out when the line is cut? The people in the lifeboats? No! They are safe. The answer is: the people on the raft. If they spoke English, they would call out: “They are abandoning us!” Since they spoke French, they probably called out: “Ils nous abandonnent!”

 

# 9. The famous movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (which is mentioned on page 179) premiered in 2007, not in 2006, as the author claims.

 

# 10. While the cases covered are well-chosen, some important cases are not covered, even though they are highly relevant for the topic. Here is a list of some cases which could and should have been included in this book: 

 

(1) In 1707 five English war ships hit the rocks off the Isles of Scilly, near the English Channel. When four of them sank, about 1,600 sailors lost their lives, including the admiral of the fleet Sir Cloudesley Shovell (1650-1707). The four ships are the Association, the Eagle, the Romney, and the Firebrand. 

 

(2) When the slave ship Leusden went down off the coast of Suriname in 1738, more than 600 lives were lost. For details about this case, see Slave ship Leusden by Leo Balai (2014) (sadly, this account is only available on Kindle).

(3) In 1854 the Arctic collided with the Vesta off the coast of Newfoundland. When she sank, four hours later, more than 300 lives were lost. 

 

For details, see Women and children last: The loss of the steamship Arctic by Alexander Crosby Brown (1961, 1962) and The sea shall embrace them: The tragic story of the steamship Arctic by David Shaw (2003, 2008).

(4) When the HMS Victoria collided with the Camperdown during a foolish naval exercise in the Mediterranean Sea in 1893, more than 300 lives were lost.

 

The case is covered by Richard Hough in his book Admirals in Collision (1959, reprinted 2003).

(5) When the HMS Royal Oak was sunk by a German U-Boat in 1939, more than 800 lives were lost. 

 

H. J. Weaver’s book about the German torpedo attack on the Royal Oak was published in 1980 and reprinted in 2015: Nightmare at Scapa Flow.

(6) When RMS Lancastria went down in 1940, about 4,000 lives were lost. Brian Crabb’s book about the case was published in 2002. Jonathan Fenby’s book about the case was published in 2006.

 

For details, see the following item: Graham Fraser, “Lancastria: the forgotten tragedy of World War Two,” BBC News, 13 June 2015.

(7) When MV Goya went down in 1945, more than 6,000 lives were lost.

(8) When the Herald of Free Enterprise capsized in 1987, 193 lives were lost.

(9) When a fire broke out on the Scandinavian Star in 1990, 159 lives were lost.

(10) The author does not mention a single disaster involving a submarine. One example would be the US boat USS Thresher, that was lost in 1963. Another example would be the Russian boat Kursk (K-141), that was lost in the year 2000.

A COMPARISON
Disasters at Sea is a good book which covers more than sixty cases, but as you can see, there are flaws here and there, and some of them are quite serious. It is obvious to compare this book with another recent book about the same topic: Shipwreck by Sam Willis (hardcover 2008, paperback 2015).

Mechem’s book has some of the things which are missing in Shipwreck. First of all, maps show the location of the wrecks. Secondly, pictures show what the ships looked like before they were hit by disaster. In addition, there is a bibliography with several books and websites about naval history.

While Willis covers only 21 cases, Mechem covers more than sixty. Willis offers a good deal of information (ca. 10 pages) about each case, but he offers only words. He has no illustrations (neither maps nor pictures). Mechem offers not so many words about each case, but to compensate for this she takes care of the visual aspect with maps and pictures.

If you are going to buy only one of these books, your choice will depend on which type of book you prefer. Willis has the story, but he has no illustrations. Mechem has a shorter version of the story, but she has a lot of illustrations.

CONCLUSION
If you are interested in the history of the world, in particular the history of ships and sailors, Disasters at Sea is definitely something for you. Since it is a book about disasters, I cannot say you will enjoy it, but I do think you will be able to appreciate it.

Liz Mechem has written a good book about naval history, but I cannot forget the flaws I have mentioned in this review. I have to remove one star because of them. Therefore I think it deserves a rating of four stars.

 

PS. The ill-fated Franklin expedition is covered on pp. 34-35. The expedition left England in 1845 on two ships, the Erebus and the Terror. The mission was to discover and navigate the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.

 

The mission was never accomplished. John Franklin, commander of the expedition, died in 1847, when the ships were locked in the ice, and the men were starting to die. In the following year some surviving crewmen decided to leave the ships and began to walk south, hoping to find help. Sadly, they did not make it.

On page 34, Mechem writes: “The two ships were lost to the ice and never found.” This was true when the hardcover version of her book was published in 2009. But it is not true anymore.

 

In 2014, the wreck of the Erebus was discovered (almost intact) on the bottom of the sea by a Canadian expedition. 

 

This discovery is the subject of a documentary film Arctic Ghost Ship which premiered on US television (PBS) in 2015. It is an episode in the long-running program NOVA, which focuses on science and technology (season 43 episode 2). 

 

The wreck of the second ship (the Terror) was discovered two years later, in 2016.

 

For details about the Franklin expedition, see my review of Arctic Ghost Ship posted on this blog in September 2022.

 

*****