White Stars, Black Sea

06/16/2026

Andrea Doria Live: June 16th, 1951, 75 years ago today - At the outskirts of Genoa, the newly christened hull of the Italian liner Andrea Doria awaits its slide down the ways of Slip No. 1 at the Giovanni Ansaldo & Company yards at Sestri in an event celebrated by thousands as a rebirth of the country’s once proud and formidable fleet. Laid down on the 9th of February, 1950 as the unnamed hull number 918, the ship has risen from the ground up over the course of sixteen months by way of the laborious toil of thousands of Genovese workmen, each carrying with them the skills and pride of a nation still devastated by the effects of the Second World War less than a decade ago. As if a phoenix rising from the repeatedly bombed out post war ruins of Ansaldo, the 9,000 ton shell of the glamorously proportioned liner has carefully taken shape piece by piece, with the progress on the new ship observed from locations all over the neighboring hillsides of Genoa and held as a point of genuine pride for many of the city’s residents. At present, her steel decks are still bare and empty, her fittings and finishings remain in their early design stages and her machinery and engineering equipment nearby still await completion and installation onboard. Once fully fitted out, the vessel will reach a gross registered tonnage of over 29,000 - though on this day, the cavernously empty ship is barren enough to echo with each enthusiastic shout, cry, and clang of chain link as the primed grey hull is readied for her short slide into the nearby waters of Porto di Genova.

Following a formal christening by the archbishop of Genoa, Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, and the smashing of a wine bottle against the prow with the aid of a special silver hammer by the ship’s “godmother”, Mrs. Giuseppina Saragat, the 697’ (212 meter) form of the Doria now slides back, slowly at first and gradually picking up speed until she hits the edge of the Mediterranean around thirty seconds later. As she does, the cheers of thousands of nearby spectators mingle with the sounds of her drag chains and an occasional line of music from a brass band playing "Il Canto degli Italiani". A great ship has been born.

For much more on the story of the Andrea Doria, please stay tuned for our first ever “Andrea Doria Live” presentation here on this page, beginning at midnight Genovese time on July 17th and running daily, hourly, and minute by minute until July 27th.


Image via Archivio Fondazione Ansaldo, June 16th, 1951
Colorized by CNEMM, 2026

06/08/2026

Titanic Live: June 8th, 1912, mid morning - In a scene almost identical to that which played out two days ago aboard SS Ottawa, one final Titanic victim is found by chance this morning by British registered freighter SS Ilford, the ship’s log indicating by her position that these remains have now drifted more than 560 miles (900 km) from the site of the disaster. Once again, with nearly eight weeks elapsed since the tragedy, the elements have taken their toll, and the six Ilford crewmen who row over to collect the body report being unable to recognize any distinguishing features of the man. He is identified instead by his personal effects as Titanic first class saloon steward William Frederick Cheverton, a native of Newport on the Isle of Wight who had transferred from Olympic’s crew roster along with other members of her victualing crew on the morning of April 4th. Cheverton was 27 years old at the time of his death, with a number of years experience at sea - including six years in service with the Royal Navy beginning at the age of 17 in July of 1902. Following his discharge in 1908, Cheverton worked a handful of jobs as a laborer and painter before joining the White Star Line as a steward, the steadier pay sent back home allowing him to help support his parents and disabled sister Nellie. Following the identification of his remains and another brief Anglican service, William Cheverton is buried at sea.

With this final confirmed discovery of a Titanic victim adrift, the number of recovered bodies stands at 337 out of the 1,496 known dead, meaning that only 22% of those lost with the wreck are ever found. Doubtlessly, many floating victims have disappeared over weeks adrift in the vast expanse of the Atlantic, and a number still may have gone undiscovered by crossing vessels for some time following this last encounter by SS Ilford. Several unsubstantiated reports of small wreckage and possible bodies are made later into the year, though none of these are confirmed, and no conclusive identifications of any more Titanic remains are made at sea after today. The final numbers of Titanic victims found thus stand as follows:

Recovered remains by vessel

RMS Carpathia - 4 bodies buried at sea
CS Mackay-Bennett - 190 bodies recovered, 116 buried at sea
CS Minia - 15 bodies recovered, 2 buried at sea
CGS Montmagny - 3 bodies recovered, 1 buried at sea
SS Algerine - 1 body recovered
RMS Oceanic - 3 bodies buried at sea
SS Ottawa - 1 body buried at sea
SS Ilford - 1 body buried at sea


Photograph of SS Ilford via Stuart Smith/Tyne Built Ships
Inset portrait of William Frederick Cheverton via ET

06/06/2026

Titanic Live: June 6th, 1912, late afternoon - In the midst of an otherwise routine voyage more than a month and a half after the loss of Titanic, sailors aboard westbound tanker SS Ottawa spot a single body in the distance off the vessel’s bows, the floating remains still held adrift by a sodden and by now well deteriorating life vest. Captain R.G. Tait orders the vessel stopped in order to collect the body, and the crew tasked with the recovery quickly deduce that the victim must have come from Titanic - though they plot their position as being just slightly over 543 miles (874 km) from the site of the disaster, where the wreck has now been at rest on the seabed for nearly eight weeks.

Though the body has sadly deteriorated especially badly where exposed to the elements, the Ottawa’s crew are able to recover several personal effects before performing a small service of the Church of England and a burial at sea. These effects include a wallet inscribed with the initials “W.T.K.” and a handful of personal letters and documents which identify the man as William Thomas Kerley of Salisbury. Kerley had signed aboard Titanic as a second class assistant saloon steward on April 4th, a date which incidentally was also his 28th birthday. It would be his first experience working at sea.

Following the service and burial, Ottawa carries on with her voyage, though her slow pace and lack of wireless will mean that news of William Kerley’s recovery does not reach shore until her next docking on July 5th, 1912. By this time, coverage of the disaster will finally have begun to wane from the widespread front pages of newspapers around the world, and the sad fate of this second to last victim found adrift will be reported sparingly, and in only rather minor news bulletins printed several weeks after his discovery and commital to the sea.

Portrait of SS Ottawa c.1917 published by the Anglo-American Journal
Inset portrait of William Thomas Kerley via ET

05/16/2026

Titanic Live: May 16th, 1912, late afternoon - From St. John's, Newfoundland, one last ship begins steaming today towards the area southeast of Titanic’s wreck site in a final attempt to recover whatever may be left adrift there, a decision doubtlessly spurred on at least in part by the recent reports of the discovery of Collapsible A in mid Atlantic by RMS Oceanic just three days ago. She is SS Algerine, a 505 ton three masted steamer built in 1880 by Harland & Wolff and presently owned by Bowring Brothers Ltd as a mixed cargo and limited passenger vessel under the command of Captain John Jackman. Also aboard are undertakers Andrew Carnell and Thomas Lawrence of St. John’s, as well as a supply of ice, canvas, embalming fluids and sawdust similar to those carried by the three previously contracted recovery ships.

After being specially fitted with a 125 mile range Marconi set (and seemingly under orders to use her new radio primarily for the transmission of official reports to the White Star Line), Algerine sets off late this afternoon to begin searching near the area where Titanic wreckage was last reported having been seen several days ago. She will steam along a large 200 mile radius circle to the south and east of the disaster scene, following currents and mixed weather in hopes of finding anyone still held adrift by a buoyant life vest. Despite three weeks of searching, Algerine will find only one body (that of twenty seven year old Titanic saloon steward James McGrady) on May 25th. Following this, no further sightings of either bodies or wreckage will be made by the recovery ship, and she will eventually return to port at St. John’s on the morning of June 6th.


Photo of SS Algerine taken from the deck of an unidentified ship via The Rooms, Newfoundland and Labrador

05/14/2026

A highlight of our visit to the Titanic exhibition in Boston last year was the chance to bring our original RMS Olympic bath floor tile (left) to meet its identical twin Titanic sisters, these examples both made by ceramics manufacturers Villeroy & Boch of Mettlach, Germany. Weighing in at a hefty two pounds, three ounces (1kg), these luxuriously smooth pieces are commonly referred to by collectors as swimming bath tiles, though they were also used widely across the vessel in her first and second class lavatories. As with every piece used to construct the Olympic Class ships, their high quality is readily apparent when in one’s hands. The last time these tiles were all in roughly the same location was on March 7th, 1912, when Olympic left Belfast following repairs to her propeller - she would never see Titanic closely again after this date.

Our Olympic tile spent twenty four years in place aboard ship before her arrival at Jarrow for breaking on the 13th of October, 1935. Shortly thereafter, as the story goes, a local workman either purchased cheaply or was allowed to bring home a wheelbarrow full of these bath tiles and used them to line the borders of his flower garden, where they remained in place for many decades. Caked soil may still be seen on close examination in the cracks on our example. Conversely, the Titanic examples seen at right show staining from their eight decades on the sea floor, these having eventually been retrieved from the debris field during the 1994 and 2000 RMSTI recovery operations.


Photo by CNE Maritime Museum/Premier Exhibitions 2025

05/13/2026

Titanic Live: May 13th, 1912, early afternoon - Aboard New York bound White Star liner RMS Oceanic, lookouts in the ship’s crow’s nest suddenly catch glimpse of a substantial piece of drifting wreckage to the northwest, the unknown object appearing to move slowly and erratically a short distance off the liner’s starboard bow. Oceanic is ordered stopped following the sighting, and one of her own small lifeboats is lowered to inspect. The wreckage in fact proves to be the remnants of Titanic Collapsible A, the broken and battered craft having drifted by wind and currents more than two hundred miles from the site of the disaster. On arrival, the crewmen also report the bodies of three men still aboard the collapsible, all now sadly blackened by the sun and falling to pieces after nearly a month adrift. When the crew attempts to move them, the arms of the three victims pull away from the bodies. With the remains unable to be properly retrieved, the crewmen gather what personal effects they can and bury the bodies at sea, joined in their brief service aboard the rotted collapsible by one of the ship’s doctors and a volunteering priest lowered along with them in one of Oceanic’s small emergency cutters.

Following the burials, the small crew then attempt to sink the wreckage with hatchets but meet with no success against the raft’s buoyant layer of granular cork. Instead, rowers will tow the collapsible back to be recovered, its rotting and smashed remains eventually being carried back to Hudson River Pier 59 where they will be deposited into attic storage with the rest of the lifeboats returned by Carpathia.

It will later be determined that the bodies discovered aboard the collapsible had been left in the boat by 5th Officer Lowe shortly before the rescue by Carpathia after it was found that the three men had perished sometime over the course of the night. One is identified as 37 year old First Class passenger Thomson Beattie, while the other unidentified two appear to have been crewmen, likely stokers. Washed off Titanic’s deck in the final moments of the sinking, Collapsible A had become a desperate place of refuge for many with no other option for survival, though without time to properly raise the boat’s canvas sides it offered little protection against the freezing sea. By morning, only half of those who had clung to each other aboard were still alive, these survivors being picked up by Lowe in mostly emptied Lifeboat 14.

See individual photos for additional captions.


Photographs via Henry Aldridge & Son Ltd./AP

05/11/2026

Titanic Live: May 11th, 1912, morning - Harper’s Weekly publishes today a single page report on the arrival of CS Mackay-Bennett on the afternoon of April 30th in Halifax, where all of these six photographs were taken within a few hours of each other as the first phase of the recovery operations concluded. The higher end printing processes employed by the illustrated newspapers of the time meant that a nearly two week gap has elapsed between the return of the dead and the publication of these photographs, with the negatives having been transferred to New York City by train before the long job of producing their halftone copper reproduction plates could begin. The process was slow by modern standards but highly effective, and produced images of high quality and clarity for a public still ravenous for any news of the Titanic disaster and its aftermath around the world.

Note - These photographs were originally printed in black and white in the May 11th, 1912 issue, and ordinarily I would prefer to share them here on this page in their most original forms. However, as these printed materials from Harper’s Weekly were so sharp and clear in quality, I was able to colorize them without changing anything else about the images. Many thanks are therefore extended to our donors and subscribing contributors this year, who have allowed us to purchase an original copy of this publication to properly photograph and reproduce for all of our readers.


Photos originally published by Harper’s Weekly - May 11th, 1912
Colorized by White Stars, Black Sea 2026

05/10/2026

A note for our readers - thank you so much to all of our very kind supporters who have helped to sustain this project already through the purchase of one of our new patches. I have decided that the shipping price was too high, so I am pleased to announce that these limited run pieces are now a flat $5 each or five for $20 with free shipping both in the US and internationally. If you have already purchased one of these, I have included extra materials in your package to hopefully help make up the difference - but if you would prefer a refund on shipping, contact me and I would be happy to do so instead.

And for our remaining Patreon members and Facebook subscribers who would like a patch of your own free of charge, please send along a message with your mailing address and I will get them off to you this week. Thank you again so much for your support, it makes all of the difference in the world.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4499326666/white-stars-black-sea-iron-on-patch

This Patches & Appliques item by CNEMaritimeMuseum has 7 favorites from Etsy shoppers. Ships from Wilton, NH. Listed on May 5, 2026

05/10/2026

The giant hull of Titanic looms up out of a cloud of dust and mist kicked up by her launch just moments before this photo was taken by Harland & Wolff engineer John Kempster, 31st of May 1911. Note the spectators standing at the base of the towering gantry at left, as well as the bits of washed up wooden debris on the slipway in the foreground. Temporary observation platforms had been constructed for the occasion in front of the hull and to her port bow, though these were largely for dignitaries and specially ticketed viewers. As such, a number of the nearby crowd (estimated at 100,000) watched from improvised perches and adjacent dockyards, some coming much closer to the active slipway than would ever be allowed in any modern shipyard today.

Following this, Titanic was tied up to the fitting out wharf while the previously mentioned dignitaries including Bruce Ismay, Thomas Andrews and JP Morgan joined RMS Olympic and tenders SS Nomadic/SS Traffic - all leaving Belfast for the first time. Certainly a red letter day for both shipyard and White Star Line.


Photo by John Kempster/NMNI