TITANIC: SIGNALS OF DISASTER
John Booth & Sean Coughlan
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White Star Publications
ISBN: 0 9518190 1 1
Binding: Hardback
Pages: 184
Price: Please note that this book is no longer in print. However it is possible to pick
second hand copies up at reasonable prices. I recently obtained a copy in mint condition
for £28. Check the Link pages for possible sources.
John Booth owned what was widely acknowledged to be the largest collection
of Titanic Marconigrams ever assembled. The Titanic Signals Archive was broken up at a sale
at Christie's in 1992. The majority of the collection fell into private hands. Before he sold the messages
he wrote this book with Sean Coughlan which preserves the messages for posterity in one volume.
The book is beautifully written, and contains the text for several hundred messages
transmitted by Titanic and her rescue ships. There are also several photographs of
individual hand-written messages included in the book.
The appendices consist of a table of ship call signs, The Marconi Telegraph communication
table for the North Atlantic relating to the month of April, and a letter from a male survivor.
The radio messages are extremely interesting, and reading them one can see
the disaster unfold as would those on the Carpathia and the world at large.
Why the book has never been reprinted I do not know, I am sure there would be a market for such
a publication.
