As Fate would have it, more than fifty years elapsed after the end of the war before these two magnificent volumes about WWII-era shipping arrived, but they appeared on the scene within a couple of months of each other. Fortunately, the authors have delved into different components of the WWII shipping inventory, so these books are very much complementary with almost no overlap. The World's Merchant Fleets is more ambitious, covering over 6000 merchantmen, but limited to a strict tabular presentation supplemented with footnotes and photos. A Great Fleet of Ships covers just over 400 merchant ships, but devotes considerable space to sea stories, documents, and background information as well as tabular data and photos. Jordan organizes his book according to nationality, within each nationality according to ship owner, within each ship owner according the name of the line or fleet, and within each line or fleet according to general type.
Most shipping lines have a note with funnel colors, hull colors, routes serviced, and so on.
All these are coded and abbreviated and thoroughly explained at the front of the book. As if this wealth of information were not sufficient, Jordan goes on to offer a lengthy section on losses. This data is also tabular and arranged by nation with date, position, fatalities, survivors, cause of loss, etc. These chapters range from one to twenty pages, with most in the neighborhood of two or three. Minutes later a sheet of flame shot up and the ship became a blazing inferno.