On the 14th April 1912, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean.
She was meant to be unsinkable, yet on that night more than 1,500 people lost their lives.
Archibald Gracie was a passenger on the Titanic’s from Southampton to New York City during that fateful maiden voyage.
He records in impeccable detail his own experiences of that night; the moment when it was clear that this monumental ship was sinking, helping women and children into lifeboats, seeing swimmers succumb to the icy water and fighting for his own life before being rescued by RMS Carpathia.
At points Gracie’s account takes a strongly critical line against members of the Titanic’s crew, but other members such as Second Officer Lightoller, who organised the lifeboats on the portside of the ship, come across as true heroes, acting calmly and efficiently to save the lives of as many passengers as possible.
As well as his own personal experience of the event Gracie also draws upon other eyewitness accounts to build a thorough picture of how other passengers survived. Each lifeboat full of survivors is analysed in detail to fully uncover the truth about the Titanic.
The Truth About the Titanic is essential reading for anyone wishing to find out more about this famous disaster.
Archibald Gracie, an American author and historian, was one of the last survivors to leave the ship, having climbed onto an upturned lifeboat to get out of the freezing water. But although he lived through the ordeal he never overcame it. His diabetes was severely affected by hypothermia and he died in December 1912. This book was posthumously published in 1913.