On the night of 14–15 April 1912 RMS Titanic sank with the loss of around 1,500 people after hitting an iceberg. The ship was on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic to New York and it was the world’s worst shipping disaster at that time. The dramatic events surrounding the tragedy have captured the world’s imagination ever since and yet the story covers many more ships than just Titanic itself – from sister ships and tenders bringing out the passengers and mail, to passing ships that warned of ice, the rescue ships that raced to the scene when disaster struck and those who arrived later and collected the bodies of those who lost their lives. Controversy surrounded some ships such as Californian immediately after the disaster and ships such as the Carpathia and Mesaba which ended up becoming shipwrecks themselves many years later. All the ships involved had their own fascinating careers, some serving their country as well as their owners, transporting or evacuating troops in wartime, experiencing collisions and being torpedoed by U-boats and all sailed in an era when today’s safety rules and sophisticated chart data fed by a global positioning system did not exist.

Richard M. Jones reveals the stories behind the ships involved in the Titanic disaster in this lavishly illustrated book which will appeal to those with an interest in the Titanic as well maritime history.