SURVIVORS' TALES

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 92, 15 October 1932, Page 22

SURVIVORS' TALES

The author of "Survivors' Tales of Famous Shipwrecks," Walter Wood, has adapted an original method of presenting these remarkable tales of shipwreck and escape at sea. Every one of the seventeen stories, from the burning of the Bombay in the River Plato to the torpedoing of the Formidable in the Great War, has been taken by him from the lips of a survivor. Some of the stories are grim, as the sinking of the Princess Alice in the Thames or the wreck of the Stella on the Casquets, some are heroic, as the escape of the lioddam from the inferno of Mont Pelee, but all are vivid personal experiences of desperate adventure and endurance.

Probably of all calamities shipwrecks make tho most profound and lasting impression, and certainly there are none which appeal more strongly to the imagination of a sea-faring nation like ourselves. The collection includes stories of wrecks, all of which have occurred within comparatively recent years, and most well within living memory. The narrators range in rank from, admiral to able seaman and passenger. No fewer than seventeen wrecks are described, illustrations accompanying many of the narratives.

Published by Geoffrey Bles, this book is of interest to all. One bright gleam illumines the survey—there cau never be a recurrence of some of the wrecks, for wireless and the passing of sail have taken from the sea many of its terrors and dangers. A big ship's company of to-day is vastly better able to cope with an emergency than was possible even at the time of the sinking of the Titanic-. But notwithstanding all that science and invention have done, the sea. has still its unsolved mysteries. The most remarkable of these in recent years is the case of the Danish five-masted barque, Kobenhavn, the strange disappearance of which is still fresh in the public's memory, but as yet no survivors have been found to tell their tale.