Inger & Mike,
Well, I confess that I bought his new book because it was said not to contain a reference to his previous theories - but then...the part dealing with Titanic's sinking referred the reader to startling 'new evidence' and he explained what really happened. Then to read his last book. LOL!!! The worrying thing is that his last book's being reprinted owing to excess demand - and from some posts on ET even more worryingly some people are beginning to believe it.
Otherwise, the book has good points. J. Bruce Ismay's compassionate side - donating £500 to an orphanage. It dealt quite well and in good detail about IMM's operation, and Lord Pirrie's financial trouble when he couldn't complete the Baltic of 1904.
Another interesting point was how involved Bruce Ismay was in the Line's operations - he inspected one of Republic's Boston departures and personally saw how every rule was disobeyed, the ship unclean, etc. and wrote to the vessel's Captain.
It deals in detail with the Line generally. The booming 1920s. However, there are some exagerations that I feel are made - one new reader might get the impression that the White Star Line was run by a bunch of Chigago gangsters.
There's the catalogue of deaths throughout Olympic's career and little mention of deaths on other vessels - giving the impression that Olympic was a floating tomb.
Referring to Majestic's (2) funnel uptakes and 1924 injury, he writes:
Quote:
'this arrangement...seriously weakened the strutcture of the ship, with the resulot that on one voyage the ship cracked all down one side. Only superb seamanship and excellent trimming of the ship's ballast prevented the vessel from breaking in two.'
There was a 100-foot crack, but that was mostly in the superstructure (C and
D-deck) running across the ship if I recall - would that really be enough to split the ship apart?
Referring to Olympic's new stern frame:
Quote:
'...was coated with metal in a last-ditch attempt to prolong Olympic's life.'
Surely exagerrated for repairs to a stern frame to prevent further pitting? If he had seen Berengaria's maintainence record - or Leviathan's! Now there were some vessels to critisize.
Gardiner deals in detail with Olympic's ageing (using details which seem to be from Simon Mills' great book) but leaves many good points out and lists all the bad points. He seems to have taken many Olympic accidents from Mills' book and many details of her career (but there are no bibliographical references in this book, unlike the last two). So in other words most of his Olympic details seem just taken from there. Other vessels have not nearly so much detail about them (other than Britannic and Titanic); but Simon Mills hasn't written biographies of other ships and so Gardiner has not as much detail.
Much research did go in, but to me it seems very reliant on books; some details if I recall are from Wilton J. Oldham's '
The Ismay Line' 1969. (I only read it briefly in an archive - copies are hard to come by and expensive.)
All in all - a useful compilation of details. However, many can be found elsewhere and personally I'd rather wait for Paul Louden-Brown's book, as I know a lot of work went into it.
I was in Liverpool earlier this year scanning some documents when a lady approached me, asking if I was writing the book about 'Olympic and Britannic.'
I replied loosely: 'Yes.' I wondered how she knew, but it turned out she had read my letter requesting a visit.
'It was an interesting story,' she said. 'In fact, two or three years ago Paul Louden-Brown was here taking down every single detail he could find of the White Star Line. Do you know him?'
'I've heard of him, yes, but never met.'
'He's got a good reputation. His work is worth reading judging by the research that went into it.'
What other recommendation could you want?
Best regards,
Mark.