The story of Titanic’s tragic sinking on April 15, 1912, has been told countless times in films and books, inscribing it into popular culture as perhaps the best-known disaster of all-time. When Titanic went down off the coast of Newfoundland, the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was the base from which recovery operations were mounted. Eventually, 337 bodies were recovered, the majority of them by ships dispatched from Halifax. Of this total, 128 were buried at sea and 209 were delivered to Halifax—150 of those buried in three Halifax cemeteries. They remain there to this day, the largest number of Titanic graves in the world, cared for in perpetuity by the city and visited by thousands of people each year.

On the one-hundredth anniversary of Titanic’s sinking, author John Boileau examines the relationship between the city and the unprecedented tragedy. This illustrated history includes over 100 historical photographs of the people and places involved in Halifax’s sombre recovery effort.

Retired colonel John Boileau served in the Canadian Army for thirty-seven years, including command of Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians), and went on to be appointed Honorary Colonel of the Halifax Rifles (RCAC) for ten years. He is an author and media commentator who specializes in military history and has written fifteen books and more that 650 magazine and newspaper articles. Two of his books, Fastest in the World and Halifax and the Royal Canadian Navy were shortlisted for the Dartmouth Book Award for Non-Fiction. John was founding chair of the Halifax Military Heritage Preservation Society and chair of the National Council of Honorary Colonels. He is a recipient of the Order of Nova Scotia, the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Medal (NS), a Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia Vice-Regal Commendation and a Commander Canadian Army Commendation. He and his wife, Miriam, live in Bedford, Nova Scotia.

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