PRELUDE TO AN ALLISION
Titanic's Fatal Encounter Revisited
by  Samuel Halpern
                               CONTENTS

Foreword by J. Kent Layton
Preface
Prologue
Chapter I.  Warning, After Warning, After Warning
Chapter II.  “You Nevertheless Do Take Necessary Precautions”
Chapter III.  The Man At The Wheel
Chapter IV.  A Man On An Errand
Chapter V.  The Men In The Nest
Chapter VI.  Haze, Sea Smoke, And Mirages
Chapter VII.  Claims And Misunderstandings
Chapter VIII. The Problematic Accounts Of Joseph Boxhall
Chapter IX.  Under Port Helm After She Struck
Chapter X.  “It Might Have Been A Few Minutes”
Chapter XI.  Putting All The Pieces Together
Chapter XII.  Ships Don’t Turn Like Motor Cars
Chapter XIII.  A Calculated Action?
Appendix A.  What If Titanic Had Struck Head-On?
Appendix B.  She Met More Than A Two-Compartment Standard
Appendix C.  Sidestepping An Iceberg
Acknowledgement
Index
It has long been held that there was little or no time to react when an iceberg suddenly loomed up directly ahead of
Titanic at 11:40pm, Sunday night, April 14th 1912.  The accepted story is that as soon as the lookouts rang a warning
bell 3 times, indicating something sighted ahead, the Officer of the Watch acted almost instinctively by ordering the
helm be put hard over to starboard, and rang down full-astern on the engine-order telegraphs in a frantic effort to avoid
striking this massive iceberg in their path. Did it really happen that way?  Was there no time to react?

This book takes an in-depth look of what took place that night leading up to
Titanic's fatal encounter with the iceberg.  
It explores the warnings that were given to those who were in charge of the vessel, the options that were available to
them but not taken, and examines the whereabouts and movements of all the major players involved.  In addition, using
what we know about the ship's turning dynamics, as well as the time it would take to perform certain tasks that were
taken, we are able to analyze the events and actions that we were told about.  The result is the development of a
detailed and realistic second-by-second timeline of the events that took place from the moment the iceberg was
sighted, and call into question some of the details told to us by certain eyewitnesses, some of whom gave conflicting
and sometimes inconsistent accounts that simply do not hold up when all the evidence is considered.  We now have
better insight as to what most likely occurred during that short period of time, and what would have happened if certain
actions were taken a little sooner, or a little later, than they actually were.