Heroism, tragedy, devotion to duty, and scandal are just a few of
the ingredients that make up this dramatic first-time account of
troopship losses in wartime. International in scope, it offers a
compilation of stories about historic troopship disasters caused by
torpedoes, aerial attacks, mines, surface fire, foul weather,
friendly fire, and poor planning by military decision makers. Some
are well known, like the explosion of the steamship Sultana on the
Mississippi while transporting 2,000 Union soldiers home from
Confederate prisons. Others, like the June 1945 sinking of the
Japanese cruiser Ashigara by a British submarine that resulted in
the loss of 800 Japanese soldiers, are little known. An
extraordinary few far surpass the authors' criteria for selection
of disasters with high troop loss and the involvement of heroic
acts. Among the most memorable is the 1851 sinking of the British
frigate Birkenhead with some 600 soldiers and their wives and
children aboard. Lacking sufficient lifeboats, the men stood steady
in their ranks on deck as the ship went down. Board of Inquiry
hearings, action reports, survivor debriefings, and personal
correspondence collected from archives in Germany, Italy, Russia,
Australia, Britain, and the United States tell the story of some
fifty vessels that went down. Many of these disasters, the authors
explain, were kept secret for decades. An introductory chapter
provides an overview of troop losses at sea beginning with the age
of galley warfare, but the majority of the book focuses on losses
of World War II Allied and Axis ships followed by incidents from
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. James E. Wise Jr., a
former naval aviator and intelligence specialist, is the coauthor
of many books published by the Naval Institute Press, including
Shooting the War and International Stars at War (see pages 12 and
24), which was also written with Scott Baron. Baron is the author
of a collection of biographies of uncommon Americans.
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