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Steven Schwankert
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Poseidon: China's Secret Salvage of Britain's Lost Submarine Kindle Edition

by Steven R. Schwankert (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 20 ratings
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Royal Navy submarine HMS Poseidon sank in collision with a freighter during routine exercises in 1931 off the Chinese coast. Thirty of its fifty-six-man crew scrambled out of the hatches as it went down. Of the twenty-six who remained inside, eight attempted to surface using an early form of diving equipment: five of them made it safely to the surface in the first escape of this kind in submarine history and became heroes. The incident was then forgotten, eclipsed by the greater drama that followed in World War II, until news emerged that, for obscure reasons, the Chinese government had salvaged the wrecked submarine in 1972. This lively account of the Poseidon incident tells the story of the accident and its aftermath, and of the author’s own quest to discover the shipwreck and its hidden history.

Steven R. Schwankert is an editor and award-winning reporter with seventeen years of experience in Greater China. He is the Asia chapter chair of The Explorers Club, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and founder of SinoScuba, Beijing's first professional scuba-diving operator. In 2007, he led the first ever scientific expedition to dive Mongolia's Lake Khovsgol. He regularly guides divers to the Underwater Great Wall and a Ming-dynasty city that lies beneath a lake in China's Zhejiang Province.

"Schwankert's tale of a lost submarine, its discovery and secret salvage by the Chinese is a compelling, real-life exposé. Exciting, suspenseful, filled with intrigue, Poseidon is a must-read to set lost history on the track to truth." — Clive Cussler, author of Raise the Titanic and Poseidon's Arrow

"Poseidon is an excellent account of a fascinating episode in naval history. I highly recommend this superb book." — Alex Kershaw, author of Escape from the Deep and The Liberator

"Poseidon is the gripping story of the dramatic final moments of a British submarine—the survivors' compelling story and the awful fate of those trapped inside. But Poseidon is also the story of Schwankert's dogged quest and maritime detective work to uncover the truth on that dreadful day in Royal Navy history." — Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking
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  1. Print length
    303 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    December 8, 2013
  4. File size
    10670 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Poseidon is an excellent account of a fascinating episode in naval history. I highly recommend this superb book.” ―Alex Kershaw, author of Escape from the Deep and The Liberator

“Poseidon is the gripping story of the dramatic final moments of a British submarine―the survivors’ compelling story and the awful fate of those trapped inside. But Poseidon is also the story of Schwankert’s dogged quest and maritime detective work to unc

“Schwankert’s tale of a lost submarine, its discovery and secret salvage by the Chinese is a compelling, real-life exposé. Exciting, suspenseful, filled with intrigue, Poseidon is a must-read to set lost history on the track to truth.” ―Clive Cussler, aut

About the Author

Steven R. Schwankert is an editor and award-winning reporter with seventeen years of experience in Greater China. He is the Asia chapter chair of The Explorers Club, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and founder of SinoScuba, Beijing’s first professional scuba-diving operator. In 2007, he led the first ever scientific expedition to dive Mongolia’s Lake Khovsgol. He regularly guides divers to the Underwater Great Wall and a Ming-dynasty city that lies beneath a lake in China’s Zhejiang Province.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00FLX3WM4
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hong Kong University Press; 1st edition (December 8, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 8, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 10670 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 303 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 20 ratings

About the author

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Steven Schwankert

Steven Schwankert

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Steven Schwankert is an award-winning writer and editor with 25 years of experience in Greater China, focusing on exploration, technology, and culture. He is the co-creator of "The Six," a book and documentary project about the Chinese passengers aboard RMS Titanic. His book, "Poseidon: China's Secret Salvage of Britain's Lost Submarine" was published in 2013 by Hong Kong University Press. "Beijing & Shanghai," a guidebook he co-wrote for Hong Kong's Odyssey Publications, is now in its third edition.

Steven is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a fellow and East and South Asia Chapter Chair of The Explorers Club, and founded SinoScuba, Beijing's first professional scuba diving operator. In 2007, he led the first-ever scientific expedition to dive Mongolia's Lake Khovsgol, where he and his team found two wooden shipwrecks from the early 20th century.

Steven's work has been published in world-renowned and regionally-recognized publications including The Asian Wall Street Journal, The South China Morning Post, Billboard, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter. It has also appeared on the Web sites of The New York Times, The Washington Post, PC World, CIO, and MacWorld. He is a former deputy Asia editor for The Hollywood Reporter, former editor of Computerworld Hong Kong, and a former managing editor of asia.internet.com.

He is an alumnus of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Asian Languages department, and received his Masters in journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1995. Steven splits his time between his native New Jersey and the People's Republic of China.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
20 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Shannon Roy
5.0 out of 5 stars A striking and unusual tale, well told.
Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2013
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Continuing the grand tradition of "citizen historians" uncovering startling new angles on forgotten slices of the past, Schwankert uses all the skills at his disposal, including training in journalism, Mandarin language skills, and scuba expertise, to shine a light on secrets that the Chinese government would perhaps have preferred to keep, and help several naval families to find closure after all hope was lost.

It's hard to escape the impression that the writer was made to tell this story, so well do his particular talents lend themselves to the unwinding of this epic search with its stunning conclusion.

This is a war story, a quest, a mystery -- real people in real situations that grips and intrigues from the first page.
2 people found this helpful
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Mr J D Johnstone
4.0 out of 5 stars HISTORY OF THE SEA AND THE ROYAL NAVY
Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2014
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A well presented book, which gave the story its interest and facts. Its supporting detail nicely rounded out a long forgotten tale of the sea. The author knows his subject very well.
One person found this helpful
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Ed
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2021
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Incredible. The diaries and letters make this book true historical gold artifact.
One person found this helpful
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JelloMold
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read that illustrates the perils of submariners and the search for the truth
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2013
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This is a book that both covers a fascinating maritime disaster and the search for how and why that disaster off the coast of China occurred. The writing is good, and it is suffocating in its claustrophobic interior descriptions of the sinking submarine coffin. The book balances those parts with the author's adventure to peel the onion of lore and secrecy to illuminate a tragic tale of the sea.
4 people found this helpful
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Lance C.
4.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2015
Great book, but BUYER BEWARE: the illustrations listed on pages ix-xii are nowhere to be found in the book anywhere.
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David Wolf
5.0 out of 5 stars Superior, Page-Turning History
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2014
Steven Schwankert has uncovered the incredible, forgotten story of a British submarine, a Chinese freighter, and a group of remarkable men who changed the history of submarine warfare. In 1931, in the twilight days just before Japan began its 14-year rape of China, the world's most advanced submarine is struck broadside and sinks off the coast of Manchuria.

Schwankert tells the story of the sinking and the incredible rescue that followed with engrossing detail, but he doesn't stop there. He traces what became of the sub, its officers and crew in the years that followed, how they changed the world and how their experiences made life beneath the waves safer for everyone who followed.

The author's long quest for the truth took him to the archives of the Royal Navy, the depths of an ocean half a world away, and the libraries and government offices of the People's Republic of China. In the process he answers the questions of the crew's families, offers them closure, and, incredibly, compelled the Chinese government to account for the final disposition of the boat and its remains.

Schwankert - a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, Asia chapter chair of the Explorer's Club, a PADI Master Instructor and Chinese-speaking journalist who has been based in China since 1995 - is singularly qualified to tell the story. This is naval history at its finest, as appealing to the casual reader as it is to old salts, and it belongs on the shelf of anyone with an interest in China, submarines, or ordinary men who do extraordinary things.
2 people found this helpful
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Richard Robinson
5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific read - highly recommended!
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2013
Steven is a true adventurer, world-class writer, scuba diving expert and an old China hand and this excellent book nicely combines all four of his super powers together to pack a wallop. A fascinating and fun read - highly recommended!
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Mr. D. Morris
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing story of navy intrigue
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 31, 2013
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I suppose I should preface this review by saying that my grandfather was on this submarine when it was hit, so I bought it for more personal reasons than literary reasons. This being said, I honestly enjoyed the book.

This book tells the story of a cutting edge UK Navy submarine that was hit and sunk by a Chinese boat in the 1930's and the first use of the submarine escape apparatus. The Poseidon has since disappeared from the seabed - wonder who did that..
Its well written, keeping me reading for long periods without me realising the time passing. The author is a diver who wanted to find the submarine, and when he dived on the site, found it wasnt there. He then started trying to find out what happened.

Anyone who likes a very gentle tale (there is no suspense, or murders in this one!) but one that is informative, and thought provoking I believe would like this book.
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D. Wilder
5.0 out of 5 stars Dig for coal, strike gold
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2013
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Poseidon tells of the tragedy and heroism which surrounded the accidental sinking of a Royal Navy submarine off the Chinese coast in the 1930s. Like all great books, however, it is about far more than that. In his recounting of the accident, and of the astonishingly brave escape by surviving crew members, the author captures the vanished world of the early submariners and of China between the wars. But this is also a tale of the author's dogged search for the truth of what happened to the Poseidon which takes the him -- and the reader -- on a hunt from the Chinese coast through archives in the UK and back again (via the wreck site of a submarine in Greece). It's a thrilling tale which gallops along before slowing to culminate in a moving remembrance service in Chinese waters. Highly recommended.
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Ray
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 16, 2017
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A few shocks on my gt uncle in it, very interesting book
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N E Mills
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 1, 2016
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Excellent research and very well written account of a terrible forgotten tragedy.
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