The Titanic is one of the most famous maritime disasters of all time, but did the Titanic really sink on the morning of 15 April 1912? Titanic's older sister, the nearly identical Olympic, was involved in a serious accident in September 1911 – an accident that may have made her a liability to her owners the White Star Line. Since 1912 rumours of a conspiracy to switch the two sisters in an elaborate insurance scam has always loomed behind the tragic story of the Titanic. Could the White Star Line have really switched the Olympic with her near identical sister in a ruse to intentionally sink their mortally damaged flagship in April 1912, in order to cash in on the insurance policy? Laying bare the famous conspiracy theory, world-respected Titanic researchers investigate claims that the sister ships were switched in an insurance scam and provide definitive proof for whether it could - or could not - have happened.

'A vivid account of how the TITANIC sank by survivor Jack Thayer' THE DAILY TELEGRAPH. 'A dramatic first-hand account... TITANIC survivor reveals the horrifying cries of the luxury liner's dying victims' THE DAILY MAIL. On April 14, 1912, John B. 'Jack' Thayer III the 17-year-old heir to a Pennsylvania railroad fortune, was riding in first class with his mother, father and their maid on the most spectacular ship of its era - the TITANIC. Jack was one of only a handful of survivors who escaped by jumping into the freezing Atlantic as the TITANIC sank and spent the next five hours clinging onto the last lifeboat that was swept off the ship's boat deck upturned. He barely survived the disaster, and his detailed and shocking account of that fateful night has riveted those he recounted it to in the following decades. Finally, in 1940, he wrote down what happened, printing 500 copies for his family. Five years later, after the tragic loss of his son in the Second World War, Jack Thayer committed suicide, and his story was mostly forgotten. This new edition published in 2018 includes the historically important series of six drawings by Lewis Skidmore a young art teacher aboard the CARPATHIA (which saved the TITANIC survivors). Jack described to Lewis the stages of the TITANIC'S demise, which Skidmore drew. Critically it shows the ship breaking in two as she sank. Many survivors refuted this assessment but seventy years later Jack and others was proved right when the wreck was discovered resting on the seabed in two halves. It also includes other bonus material, Jack's earlier, much shorter accounts of his amazing escape published in 1912 and 1913.ABOUT THE AUTHOR John 'Jack' B. Thayer III, was born in Philadelphia on 24 December 1894 into the wealthy and aristocratic Thayer family. His father was John Thayer II who ran the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, his mother, socialite Marian Thayer. After surviving the disaster he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, served as an artillery officer in the First World War, went into banking and was later financial vice president of the University of Pennsylvania. He committed suicide on September 20, 1945 following several years of depression, he was found in a car in Philadelphia his throat and wrists cut. He was survived by his wife Lois Cassatt, son John, and three daughters, Lois, Julie and Pauline.

From the moment the iceberg was spotted, at 11:40 P.M. on April 14, 1912, the Titanic’s fate was sealed. Its 2,200 passengers and crew, in the course of two momentous hours, would meet their destiny in the icy, black waters of the North Atlantic. As the moments passed and the reality of what was happening began to sink in, the crew would make heroic efforts to save as many passengers as possible. In the end, however, the great ship would exact a harrowing toll from all on board. Titanic’s Last Hours: The Facts is a riveting account of the last two hours the supposedly unsinkable ship was afloat. Beginning at 11:40 P.M., the book relives the events set in motion after the brush with the iceberg and culminates with the sinking of the ship at 2:20 A.M. The fascinating moment-by-moment action along with large-format color images, maps, and fact boxes bring the nail-biting tension that passengers and crew must have faced in those final hours fully to life. Titanic’s Last Hours: The Facts is part of Bearport’s Titanica series.

IN the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, the icy waters of the North Atlantic reverberated with the desperate screams of more than 1,500 men, women, and children—passengers of the once majestic liner Titanic. Then, as the ship sank to the ocean floor and the passengers slowly died from hypothermia, an even more awful silence settled over the sea. The sights and sounds of that night would haunt each of the vessel’s 705 survivors for the rest of their days. Although we think we know the story of Titanic—the famously luxurious and supposedly unsinkable ship that struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Britain to America—very little has been written about what happened to the survivors after the tragedy. How did they cope in the aftermath of this horrific event? How did they come to remember that night, a disaster that has been likened to the destruction of a small town? Drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished letters, memoirs, and diaries as well as interviews with survivors’ family members, award-winning journalist and author Andrew Wilson reveals how some used their experience to propel themselves on to fame, while others were so racked with guilt they spent the rest of their lives under the Titanic’s shadow. Some reputations were destroyed, and some survivors were so psychologically damaged that they took their own lives in the years that followed. Andrew Wilson brings to life the colorful voices of many of those who lived to tell the tale, from famous survivors like Madeleine Astor (who became a bride, a widow, an heiress, and a mother all within a year), Lady Duff Gordon, and White Star Line chairman J. Bruce Ismay, to lesser known second- and third-class passengers such as the Navratil brothers—who were traveling under assumed names because they were being abducted by their father. Today, one hundred years after that fateful voyage, Shadow of the Titanic adds an important new dimension to our understanding of this enduringly fascinating story.

Believe it or not, researchers are still making new discoveries about the Titanic after more than 100 years! This book is the most visual and most up-to-date chronicle of the famous ship's development, voyage and ultimate tragedy, illustrated with numerous photos and drawings. More than one hundred years after the “unsinkable” Titanic sunk after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic, the tragedy continues to haunt us. That’s partly thanks to the movies—notably James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster, Titanic—that have turned the story into a sort of modern myth. In fact, when it comes to the events of April 15, 1912, untangling fact from fiction has become increasingly difficult. Was the captain drunk? Was the ship going too fast? Did the crew ignore ice warnings? Do the ghosts of the wreck's 1,500-plus victims still haunt the frigid sea? These and other questions are explored—and often answered—here. You will experience the ship’s fateful final day and enter into the glittering lives of such celebrated passengers as John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim. You’ll also learn the fascinating stories of its lesser-known travelers: the man who kidnapped his two sons; the movie star who starred in a film about the disaster, and many other unsung souls whose lives were lost—or changed forever—when the ship went down. In the end, you’ll probably agree that (movie myths aside) the truth is much stranger than fiction.