Category: War
Hidden in the Wake: The Lusitania’s LGBTQ+ History
Last year for Pride Month, I wrote a post about the LGBTQ+ history of RMS Titanic. This year I wanted to focus on RMS Lusitania and her stories. Lusitania was one of the most famous ships in the world when she was torpedoed and sunk by U-20 on May 7, 1915. The ship was a…
Silent Night, Deadly Night: The Sinking of SS Léopoldville
On Christmas Eve 1944, the Battle of the Bulge raged in the Ardennes Forest. Adolf Hitler’s war machine launched its last major offensive on December 16, recalling the successful Blitzkrieg tactics used in 1939 and 1940. Over 200,000 German troops and 1,000 tanks advanced along a 75-mile front, pushing about 50 miles into Allied-controlled territory….
Book Review: The Sailing of the Intrepid by Montel Williams and David Fisher
Moored at Pier 86 in New York City—where some of the greatest ocean liners in history have docked—sits a ship with a storied past. The USS Intrepid, an Essex-class aircraft carrier from World War II, saw combat in the Pacific and helped turn the tide of the war. Today it houses the Intrepid Museum and…
Book Review: Phantom Fleet by Alexander Rose
Deep inside the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois is something rather unexpected: a World War II German U-boat. Thousands of people visit U-505’s cold, claustrophobic interiors annually and step back into the past when it and other submarines like it terrifyingly hunted the world’s oceans. The story of how U-505, built…
Book Review: Inside the Britannic by Simon Mills
Britannic—Titanic’s little sister. The third Olympic-class liner, she suffered the same fate as her older sibling and sank near the Greek island of Kea on November 21, 1916. There was a (highly fictionalized) TV movie in 2000, but Britannic has still been largely overshadowed by Titanic in popular culture. But ship nerds (I use that…
Poem: An Elegy for Lucy on the 110th Anniversary
On the 110th anniversary of the Lusitania’s sinking, I wrote an elegy for the ship and those who died in the disaster.
Two Tragedies of Modern Memory: Titanic and the American Civil War
Today marks the 160th anniversary of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. This ultimately led to the surrender of other Confederate forces throughout the country and ended the bloody American Civil War. After four years of terrible warfare, between 650,000 and 750,000 soldiers were dead. Practically…
Movie Review: Britannic (2000)
In January 2000, a made-for-TV movie called Britannic aired. Starring Amanda Ryan, Michael Atterton, John Rhys-Davies, and Jacqueline Bisset, the film tells a highly fictionalized account of HMHS Britannic and her last days in November 1916. I remember renting this movie from Blockbuster back in the day and being really excited to watch a film…
Day of Final Victory: Black Soldiers Aboard the Queen Mary
During World War II, the need to transport large numbers of Allied troops across the globe saw the world’s ocean liners being pressed into military service. Mighty ships like Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Île de France, and Aquitania were pressed into service. So were smaller liners like Laconia, Empress of Japan (renamed Empress of Scotland in 1942), Borinquen, and…
Born of Death: The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
By late January 1945, Nazi Germany was on the verge of losing World War II. On the Western Front, its offensive in the Ardennes failed. The Battle of the Bulge was a major Allied victory that saw German forces on the defensive for the rest of the war. On the Eastern Front, the Soviet Union’s…