In 1956, a stunned world watched as the famous Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria sank after being struck by a Swedish vessel off the coast of Nantucket. The following is an excerpt from The … Read the article
In the final part of her Ship of Death essay, Catharine Arnold wraps up the tragic tale of the USS Leviathan, a troopship that highlighted the devastating spread of the Spanish flu.
The 2020 outbreak of coronavirus has terrified the world–and revealed how unprepared we are for the next outbreak of an infectious disease. In The End of Epidemics, Dr. Jonathan D. Quick examines … Read the article
With the death toll rising from Spanish flu, burials at sea became more and more common on the USS Leviathan. Read on for more from Catharine Arnold, author of Pandemic 1918.
Who were Charles Canham and Norman Cota? And why were they sent to Omaha Beach with the greatest urgency on the morning on D-Day? Turns out, they were the only two men who could break the bloody … Read the article
As conditions worsen on the USS Leviathan in October of 1918, another troopship, the Briton, faces similar problems as soldiers are forced to sleep on the deck to prevent the spread of the lethal Spanish flu.
“You’re going to Poland in December?” My family and friends asked.
“Yes!” I answered, adding yet another thick pair of socks to my pack.
Revisiting the American soldiers aboard the USS Leviathan, Catharine Arnold discusses the dark, cramped, and overall ‘hellish’ conditions as the Spanish flu wreaked havoc on the ship.
In three successive waves, from spring 1918 to summer 1919, the ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic killed an estimated 100 million people worldwide. By 1919, Spanish flu was responsible for the deaths of 500,000 people in the United States, … Read the article
It was 1918 and there was a killer on the loose. Worse than any serial predator in modern history, its deadly grasp was swift, its hold resolute, and its thirst for killing unquenchable. No one was safe. … Read the article