Titanic

THE TRAGEDY OF THE TITANIC

            In 1912 one of the greatest ships of the time was traveling across the Atlantic Ocean; who would have thought that it would become one of the biggest death tolls from a wreck at sea.¹Most people would say that an iceberg was to blame for the sinking of the Titanic, however it is much more than just that. Poor design changes to the ship and the human errors of multiple people would end up sending the ship to its underwater grave, becoming the tragedy of the Titanic.

            The Titanic was a gorgeous boat. She was built in the Belfast shipyards of Harland and Wolff.² On the 31^st of May 1911 she was launched in front of 110,000 people, for that time it was a huge crowd of people.³ Her total length was 883 feet weighing 46,329 gross tonnages with a speed of 21 knots and could carry 905 first class passengers, 546 second, and 1,134 in third class.⁴ The boat boasted the latest in safety features, one of the most notably was the watertight compartments whose doors could be closed electrically.⁵ It was so popular that on the 1^st of June 1911, the Irish New and Belfast Morning News contained reports on the launching of Titanic’s hull. The article talked about the system of watertight compartments and electronic watertight doors and concluded that Titanic was “practically unsinkable.” Also some time in 1911 a Shipbuilders magazine published an article on The Titanic and her sister ship Olympic and it also concluded that the Titanic was practically unsinkable. Even the builders of the ship daringly claimed that she was practically unsinkable and that led to further exaggerations of only god would be able to sink the ship. Overtime that practically was erased from history and it became just the unsinkable Titanic.⁶

            At 11:40 at night, two lookouts in the crow’s-nest spotted an iceberg dead ahead and without hesitation rang the warning bells.⁷ The officers on watch were informed and they had the Titanic turn hard to port as fast as she could, but it was far too late. She collided into the iceberg full speed. On impact several tons of ice fell onto the deck of the boat and reports were made that the first five watertight compartments had been breached.⁸ The boat had been put into reverse moments before colliding into the ice and the boat now remained just floating there while the iceberg floated away into the darkness. The ship would remain floating for another two and a half hours; at first the boat appeared so slightly damaged that most of the passengers and many in the crew convinced themselves that the boat was fine. The great gash that many people think sunk the ship was and is just a myth. The actual opening into the ship seems to have been the result of rivets popping and the hull plating separating.⁹ A lot of false myths like these were formed from false reports from before the Titanic was later found in 1986.

            The Titanic after taking on so much water could hold no more and it sunk to the bottom of the deep ocean. The British Board of Trade hadn’t bothered to revise its lifeboat requirements and because of this there were lifeboats on board for only about one-third the number of passengers and crew when the boat was fully booked.¹⁰ When people were certain that the boat was going down people became frantic to get on a life boat, this caused a lot of chaos on the ship. Before the boat had sunk crewman had to physically prevent passengers from storming the lifeboats; various survivors reported that at least one shot was fired to stop a riot.¹¹ Some passengers never even had a chance to escape after they had gotten trapped below deck. Most of the people who were able to escape the ship, but not get on a life boat died from near freezing temperatures, however there are a few amazing stories. One of them is the story of Jack Thayer; he was a seventeen year old who was about to inherit a Philadelphia fortune. He had leaped from the rail when the water was still 12 to 15 feet below him, then swam as hard as he could. One of the ship’s funnels narrowly missed him as it fell; and he almost drowned from the suction it made. But when he went to the surface for air, he bumped up against an overturned lifeboat and was hauled to safety.¹²  There was also many dogs who were able to survive, one of the most notable of these dogs was one who had swam for hours until it was rescued. When it was all done and over with more than 1,500 lives were lost; the biggest death toll from a wreck at sea in peaceful times, the only one bigger was a 1987 Philippines ferry disaster.  The exact number however is unknown, for the only copy of the number of people on the ship went down with the ship. After all that there had to be someone that was to blame, but who?

            There were many people that could have been said to be responsible for the lost of the Titanic; however the main few were these people. The first person being Joseph Bruce Ismay who was the Managing Director and son of the founder of the White Star Line, the largest organization in the world at the time. He also just happened to be aboard the Titanic on its voyage. He was and is believed to have put pressure on the captain to not slow down when in the ice field.¹³ His survival also has been one of the most controversial, having stepped aboard a collapsible lifeboat at a time when men were not being boarded.¹⁴

                Or was William McMaster Murdoch to blame? He was the officer in charge at the time of the incident¹⁵; however he had reacted in a timely and appropriate manner. A lot of people have speculated that it was his entire fault and that there were things that could have been done differently to save the ship. The situation may have been alleviated, but the engines would have taken a full 20 seconds to reverse, and only about 40 seconds passed from sighting until collision. The engines weren't reversed, according to a few survivors from the boiler room, until the collision, and possibly not until after. Furthermore, it has been speculated that Murdoch would have received better results had he ordered the port side propeller reversed, and the starboard propeller to continue forward. However, this was not something that was practiced during sea trials. When confronted with an immediate emergency, he quite naturally fell back on his training, and during sea trials they executed sharp turns by backing up all the engines.¹⁶

            However could it be that the engineers just did not design the ship well enough? Thomas Andrews was the Titanic’s architect. Belief that the ship was unsinkable came from the sixteen water tight compartments; however white star lines design changes to give the first class even more living space made the compartments not as high as they were in the blue prints. If Thomas had insisted on making them the right height the boat may not have sunk.¹⁷ Then we have the shipbuilders, who of course was not just a single person. The ship used about three million rivets; some of these were later recovered and were looked at. It was found that the shipbuilders had used sub standard iron, the force of the collision made the heads break right off.¹⁸ She was protected by a double bottom and sixteen watertight compartments formed by fifteen bulkheads. The bulkheads were not sealed at the top, since any hole would be “below the water line.”¹⁹ Also her rudder was a copy of a 18^th century sailing ship and with her extra length of 883 feet made an emergency turn near to almost impossible²⁰.

The Marconi wireless telegraph was still a fairly new technological advance, and ships did not rely on it, as they would come to later, as an integral part of operations. The radio operators were under the command of the captain, but they were employed by the Marconi Wireless Company, and their purpose was to handle messages for passengers. Weather reports and other ship-to-ship transmissions were handled as a courtesy, but were a lower priority than traffic for the paying customers. There was an equipment failure on Saturday evening and the extended downtime created a backlog of outgoing messages that the operators felt they had an obligation to catch up. This overload caused numerous warning messages to be misplaced or misdirected, or, in the case of the last one from Californian, ignored.²¹

            Then there were the mistakes made by people that we don’t know about. Such as who decided that the life boat drill should be canceled for a wedding? Because of this mistake the people on the boat were not ready when the emergency had arisen, many lifeboats were not lowered right away and the ones that were did not have the whole capacity of the lifeboat. Some of the first lifeboats to go were not even half full. Even more unusual is that somehow the binoculars in the crow’s nest had disappeared, maybe stolen or just simply misplaced.²² This made it especially hard for the people in the crow’s nest to see for it was a very unusual night, with no moonlight to reflect off a floating mountain of ice and a sea so calm that no surf would etch an icebergs location.²³

When a ship goes down it is normally the captain who gets all the blame, but what about one on another ship? His name was Captain Lord of the ship Californian, who was close enough that he could have saved everyone on the ship. He claimed during the BOT hearings that the ship, he and his crew saw firing flares could not have been the Titanic, as it appeared to be too small. However, he could not explain why another ship would have been firing distress rockets at the same time that the Titanic had, according to testimony received from Second Officer Lightoller. Furthermore, when word was finally received of the Titanic's fate, the Californian pursued an odd, roundabout route to arrive there. North and slightly west of Titanic's last position when word was received, Californian proceeded west through the ice field, then south, and then east through the debris field a second time. No adequate explanation has ever been given for this odd behavior.²⁴ Also had the radio operator on the Californian not gone to bed he would have heard the cries for help from the Titanic. The captain of the Californian took no action what’s so ever. He just presumed that the boat was having a party and did not even try to go and investigate, until it was way too late. The British and American inquires both agreed that it was Stanley Lord’s fault, for taking no action what’s so ever; he would have been able to save everyone on the whole ship.²⁵

Then finally you have the captain of the Titanic, Captain E.J. Smith.  Captain E.J. Smith was well respected and considered a competent mariner. He was 62 years of age and was rumored to be retiring after this last voyage. He was paid 6,250 per year with a 10,000 dollar bonus if none of the ships under his command were damaged within that year.²⁶ Before the ship sunk he had ignored seven iceberg warnings from his crew and other ships nearby.²⁷ He even ordered the ship to go the full speed of 21knots even after twenty-one ice warnings, of those only seven reached the boat, and only one was confirmed to have reached him.²⁸ He did however sail further south than the normal route to try and avoid the icebergs. Smith was only doing what he and captains like him had been doing for years, taking calculated risks to make their companies look good. It was a risk no different in kind from the one that had led to the wreck of the Republic three years earlier. But Captain Smith's casual, almost cavalier, air that evening, when he lingered late over a second cigar following an elegant dinner with some of the ship's more distinguished passengers, casts him in an inevitably unfavorable light.²⁹

            These major people and series of events doomed the boat. The poor design changes to the ship and the human errors of these many people ended up sending the ship to its underwater grave. As you can see there are certain people who can be blamed more than the other, however everyone played their part; so you decide who is to blame?