About the Book
A glamorously splendid ship sails to New York with thousands of people aboard. She is one of the most modern ocean liners ever built, and her safety features are touted as being state-of-the-art. The ship is the pride of its home country. On the bridge is a master mariner with decades of experience at sea. Despite all this, however, disaster strikes late one night with a freak collision. The damage is such that the ship’s modern safety features are useless: she is destined to sink to a watery grave. The disaster makes headlines around the world.
This, of course, is the story of the Andrea Doria.
The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria recounts the sinking of the Italian Line’s flagship in July 1956. It reads like a modern day A Night to Remember, which is appropriate given that Walter Lord’s book on the Titanic disaster captivated readers that summer. Several of the Andrea Doria’s passengers, in fact, were reading it on this last voyage. Walter Lord used eyewitness accounts to paint a detailed, minute-by-minute account of the Titanic’s sinking. Greg King and Penny Wilson have done the same thing for the Andrea Doria disaster.
My Review
I first listened to this book on Audible but enjoyed it so much that I had to go and buy a physical copy. It’s quite simply a masterpiece. Greg King and Penny Wilson wrote that the Andrea Doria survivors’ “stories are inspiring, dramatic, and occasionally tragic and deserve to be better known.” I teared up at several points in the book: the Stockholm Third Officer’s misreading of his radar screen, the Île de France‘s dramatic arrival, little Norma Di Sandro’s tragic story, and Thure Peterson’s long struggle to save his wife Martha. The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria is more than a book about a sinking ship: it tells the human side of the disaster.
It’s a long book at 344 pages, but it didn’t feel like it to me. I was totally engrossed the entire time. The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria is incredibly detailed and contains lots of information on more than just the Doria’s sinking: her construction in Genoa, the care that went into her lavish interiors, and details on the massive rescue operation that saved 1,660 people on the stricken liner. The book also made me aware of AndreaDoria.org, which was started in 1998 to “keep the Andrea Doria alive.” It contains survivors’ personal recollections and a wealth of other resources. It’s a treasure trove on the Andrea Doria.
Like Walter Lord did in A Night to Remember, Greg King and Penny Wilson have perhaps written the book on the Andrea Doria disaster. The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria is an in-depth, fascinating read that’s bound to satisfy even the most discerning of ship nerds (I use that term affectionately). I cannot recommend this book enough.
About the Authors
Greg King is the author of more than fifteen internationally published works of history, including Twilight of Empire. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Majesty magazine, Royalty magazine, and Royalty Digest. He lives in the Seattle area.
Penny Wilson is the author of several internationally published works of history on late Imperial Russia. Her historical work has appeared in Majesty magazine, Atlantis magazine, and Royalty Digest. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three huskies.