The deaths of many ships, from 1816 to 1945, fill these pages with courage, endurance, obedience, scandal, action and tragedy. The always mournful stories of the Lusitania and the ; the inexporable laws of storms which humbled the Third Fleet in 1944 and 1945; the disgrace of the French frigate Medusa; the scandal that surrounded the mutiny on the brig, Somers; the sinking of a cranky Japanese submarine in 1910; the human torpedoes of World War I; the gallant actions in the battles of Bunda Strait; Leyte Gulf; the tradition of the sea, ""women and children first"" established by the Birkenhead's sinking; Captain Herndon going down with his paddle wheeler in a gale; fleet actions and sea-air operations; the Graf Spee -- these are some of the maritime disasters and stout ships whose histories make adventuresome reading. The accounts are annotated by the author and others.