A few minutes before midnight on April 14, 1912, the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic, on her maiden voyage to New York, struck an iceberge. Less than three hours later she lay at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean while over 1,500 of her passengers and crewmen drowned or froze to death before any other shp could come to their rescue.
While the world has remained fascinated by the tragedy, the most amazing drama of those fateful hours was not played out aboard the doomed White Star liner. It took place on the decks of two other ships, one fifty-eight miles distant from the sinking Titanic, the other barely ten miles away. The masters of the steamships Carpathia
and Californian, Captain Arthur Rostron and Captain Stanley Lord, were informed within minutes of each other that their vessels had picked up the distress signals of a stricken ship.
Their actions in the hours and days that followed would become the stuff of legend, as one would choose to take his ship into dangerous waters to answer the call for help, while the other would decide that the hazard to himself and his command was too great to risk responding.
After years of research, Daniel Allen Butler, author of the bestselling "Unsinkable," now tells this incredible story, moving from ship to ship on the icy waters of the North Atlantic__in real-time__to recount how hundreds of people could have been rescued, but in the end only a few outside of the meager lifeboats were saved. Drawing on his
deep knowledge of the heyday of the North Atlantic passenger trade, he describes how wireless (at that time a novel invention), ships' lights and signal rockets were employed for just such emergencies. He also establishes how the Titanic's distress rockets were plainly seen by officers of a ship which was near to the tragic scens.
He then looks alike at the U.S. Senate Investigation in Washington, and ultimately the British Board of Trade Inquiry in London, where the actions of each ship's captain are probed, questioned, and judged, until the truth of what actually happened aboard the Titanic, the Carpathia and the Californian is revealed.
The Other Side of the Night is far more than just another book about the Titanic__instead it presents a profound and starling new insight into one of the great mysteries of that "night to remember." It shows why one man would risk his command, his reputation, and his life in an effort to respond to a desperate cry for help, while the other, in choosing caution over compassion, would pretend he never heard it.
DANIEL ALLEN BUTLER, a maritime and military historian, is the bestselling author of "Unsinkable": The Full Story of RMS Titanic, as well as Distant Victory: The Battle of Jutland and the Allied Triumph in the First World War, and The First Jihad: The Battle for Khartoum and the Dawn of Militant Islam. He is an internationally recognized authrity on maritime subjects and a popular guest-speaker for several cruise lines. He lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
