Great disasters always attract conspiracy theories and this is just as true of disasters at sea as it is of those on land or in the air. The sinkings of the Titanic and the Lusitania, two of the great maritime disasters of the twentieth century, have attracted more than their share of these theories. Was the sinking of the Titanic a plot by J. P. Morgan to remove opponents to his plan to create a US Federal Reserve Bank? Was the construction of the ship substandard? Was the ship that hit the iceberg that night even the Titanic at all? Might it not have been her sister Olympic instead? And was the Lusitania deliberately allowed to sail into harm’s way to provoke the US into joining the First World War? Was her name obscured so the U-boat captain did not know what ship he was firing on? And how much ammunition was she carrying aboard?

In this book, maritime historian and ocean liner expert J. Kent Layton examines these and more conspiracy theories and helps lay them to rest.