Customer Reviews

Few Survived: A Comprehensive Survey of Submarine Accidents & Disasters

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If you have any interest in submarine accidents and rescues, this is the book for you. We learn of accidents from the earliest experiments centuries ago to the 1990's, and from little known mishaps to famous disasters like the Thresher and Thetis. Gray explains how these accidents happened and how technologies, like the Momsen lung and diving bells, have saved lives in seemingly hopeless situations.

Gray says in his introduction that he wrote the book in part to come to terms with his fears of such horrid situations and indeed the terror of being trapped 150 feet under water in a dark sub is easy to understand. Sometimes it is much less simple to see just how a few managed to escape after all! One may feel the need to study hydro-dynamics and physics to truly comprehend how rescue is possible.

I think Gray spends too much time trying to describe every accident on record. This approach adds little to the book and gives it a choppy quality. He should have concentrated on the major disasters and rescues and left the others to a listing in the Appendix at the end. But the book suffers little for this. Also, readers should be aware that an updated version is out that covers the Kursk disaster of 2000.