Robert Ballard's TITANIC

Exploring the greatest of all lost ships

RRP: £14.99
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978I 1 84425 665 5

April 14, 1912 - RMS. Titanic, the largest and most luxurious ship afloat, lies stricken in the North Atlantic. A brief collision with an iceberg sealed her fate and that of 2,200. The following day the words "TITANIC LOST" shocked the world.

Seventy-three years later on September 1 1985 the greatest of all sunken ships had at last been found - After weeks of frustrating, fruitless searching, Dr. Robert Ballard and a joint French/American expedition team suddenly discovered the hauntingly beautiful Titanic and photograph her upright on the ocean floor.

In the summer of 1986, Dr. Robert Ballard returned to the Titanic and descended 2 ½ miles in a tiny three-man submarine to explore the ghostly wreck. Actually landing on the deck of the ship, Ballard sent Jason Junior, his robotic "swimming eyeball", down the Grand Staircase to "see" glass chandeliers still hanging in place. During eleven separate descents to the Titanic, Ballard and his team explored the entire ship including artefact-strewn debris field and severed stern section - and photographed her in remarkable detail.

Robert Ballard's Titanic is the compelling first-hand account of Dr Ballard's 12-year quest to find the sunken liner. With the help of rare archive pictures, charts, paintings and a 25-inch 'photo mosaic' of the ship, Ballard recounts the Titanic's fateful last night and describes the moment-by-moment drama of the expeditions that found and explored her. The exact location of the Titanic is revealed and, finally, many of the mysteries that have surrounded her tragic fate are laid to rest.

Robert Ballard's BISMARCK

Germany's greatest battleship surrenders her secrets

RRP: £14.99
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1 84425 667 7

'Titanic Team finds Bismarck!' ran the headlines on 14 June 1989, announcing Robert Ballard's discovery of Hitler's greatest battleship. He and his team photographed the Bismarck sitting proudly upright, half at peace, yet still menacing three miles below the surface of the Atlantic off the coast of France. It had taken two years of perseverance against many setbacks, appalling weather conditions, two separate expeditions, and a painstaking survey of more than 100 square miles of seafloor before the German warship was finally spotted. Ballard's remote-control camera's captured the scene with brilliant, clear images.

Standing on the side of an underwater mountain, surrounded by enormous landslide that occurred when the 50,000-ton battleship collided with the ocean floor, the Bismarck's huge guns point eerily upwards and giant swastikas still defiantly emblazon her blow and decks.

The Story of Bismark is one of the most compelling sea saga's of World War II. In May 1941, a shell fired from the sleek new German ship struck the battle cruiser Hood, and within minutes, the pride of British navy was utterly destroyed. An enraged Winston Churchill gave the memorable command to sink the Bismarck - mobilizing the British navy into the greatest sea chase of the war.

Ballard recreates the unforgettable story of the war's greatest sea chase, which resulted in the Royal Navy sinking the Bismarck, and gives a gripping first-person account of his hi-tech hunt for the Bismarck that culminated in its thrilling rediscovery - 48 years after it was sent to the bottom and sheds new light on many questions surrounding the sinking - or was it scuttling - of this mighty war machine.