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Soldiers Lost at Sea: A Chronicle of Troopship Disasters in Wartime

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Since the time of the Pharaohs, troopships have ferried soldiers to war zones. Not all the ships made it safely...as recounted in SOLDIERS LOST AT SEA, James Wise and Scott Baron's compelling, horrifying and ultimately distressful summary of troopship disasters.

After surveying the historic evolution of the troopship, Wise and Baron describe 50 of the famous troopship disasters of the last 150 years. The names of many of these ships will resonate with anyone familiar with naval lore: Birkenhead, Sultana, Lancastria, Leopoldville and Wilhelm Gustloff.

Most were lost to torpedoes; a few to mines, faulty engines, bombs, glider bombs, etc. Casualties were often appalling: 2,300 on Sultana; 9,000 on Wilhelm Gustloff, many of whom were civilians; 1,700+ on Arisan Maru, most of which were American POWs being shipped to Japan; and 445 on Birkenhead.

While many of the sinkings yielded some survivors, others left no one to tell the tale. The Liberty ship Paul Hamilton, for example, was carrying 658 Army and Air Force personnel on 20 April 1944 when a German glider bomb hit the ship, which was also carrying ammunition. All died instantly along with the crew of 76. One man survived the sinking of the liner Ceramic in November 1942 but 655 crewmen, military personnel and civilians did not. In some cases, details of the sinkings were totally censored with details only being released 40 years later.

SOLDIERS LOST AT SEA certainly presents a side of warfare seldom described before. If anyone believes war is glorious, they should read this book. Interestingly enough, Wise and Baron only covered about 50 troopship sinkings; another 50 are listed in an appendix! SOLDIERS LOST AT SEA is one engrossing read. Recommended.

Starting with the Birkenhead sinking of the 1850's, publication goes on to include the Sultana explosion from the Civil War and then describes World War I losses, where the submarine first played a role. A small chapter at the end covers Korea, Vietnam and the Falklands conflict, a period with no sinkings save the Argentine Belgrano.

The bulk of the book focuses on the Second World War and puts that conflict in perspective. Soldiers by the thousands perished from all over the globe, particularly in the North Atlantic. The authors do a wonderful job of describing this salt water slaughter house, telling us the fate not only of the troop ships themselves but of the U-boats that sank them. It seems amazing anyone got across the ocean in those days.

The only problem here is that the exlusive inclusion of troop ships sinkings leaves so many other wartime sinkings out. Adding a few other categories would have given the reader an even greater picture of war at sea and its horrors.