THE
WHITE STAR LINE
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The story of the R.M.S."Titanic"
(cont)
At 00.05, twenty five minutes after the Titanic had struck the
iceberg Captain Smith ordered his officers to ready the lifeboats
for lowering. It was a further ten minutes before he ordered
his radio officer to transmit a distress signal and to fire
off rockets. Meanwhile, the stewards were instructing the passengers
to put on warm clothing and go onto the upper decks with their
lifebelts. On deck First Officer Murdoch and Second Officer
Lightoller were ordering the women and children into the lifeboats
which had now been swung out ready for lowering. Some men tried
to defy the orders, men with young families, or men with wives
who refused to go without them, but initially they were restrained.
However, many people still believed that the Titanic would not
sink and wished to remain on board, so at 00.30 men were allowed
into the boats. It was only then that the third-class passengers
were allowed onto the upper decks. Their accommodation was in
the forward part of the ship and the trim of the ship made it
difficult for them to climb the ladders.
Captain Smith delayed ordering the boats into
the water for as long as practicable. He was aware of their
limited capacity and that no one could survive in the near freezing
water for more than a few minutes. He dearly hoped that another
ship could reach them before the Titanic finally sank. The distress
call had been acknowledged but by ships which were all 150 to
500 miles away. The Frankfurt had replied at 00.18 followed
by the Mount Temple, the Virginian, the Burma and the Olympic
but the nearest could only hope to arrive in 10 hours or so.
At 00.25 there was a glimmer of hope, the Cunard steamship Carpathia
was only 60 miles away. Her captain, Arthur Rostron, altered
course, increased speed to a maximum of 14 knots and hoped to
arrive within four hours. But would the Titanic stay afloat
that long?
By 00.45 Captain Smith realised that he could
no longer delay the lowering of the boats. The ship was considerable
down at the bow and Thomas Andrews had calculated that the ship
could only stay afloat for another hour or so. Murdoch and Lightoller
were still having difficulty in getting passengers into the
boats and as there was a shortage of available seamen to lower
the boats it took along time to get them away. the four collapsible
boats were not launched until 02.05.
4th Officer Boxall
2nd Officer Lightoller
John Phillips & Harold Bride
Bandleader - Wallace Hartley
At around 01.00 a light was spotted on the
horizon. More rockets were fired and wireless signals were sent,
but to no avail. The light moved away and disappeared. Survivors
of the disaster later described the scene:' The sea was as calm
as a pond, just a gentle heave as the boat dippled up and down
in the swell. It was an ideal night except for the bitter cold.
In the distance the Titanic looked enormous. Every porthole
and saloon was blazing with light. It was impossible to think
that anything could be wrong with such a leviathan were it not
for the ominous tilt downwards in the bows, where the water
was by now up to the lowest row of portholes.' From a distance
of 15 or 16 miles things could have looked fairly normal to
an observer.
A stunned Thomas Andrews remained on board,
last seen in the smoking room, but Bruce Ismay found a place
in a boat and, as a result, faced years of criticism which eventually
forced him to resign from the White Star Line and withdraw from
public life. With the exception of the seamen detailed to man
the lifeboats the ship's crew stayed on board with the passengers
who were left on board and could only watch as the boats pulled
away from the ship. Engine-room officers and crew remained at
their posts keeping steam up for lights and pumps until the
rising waters forced them move upwards onto the open decks.
Radio Officer Phillips and his assistant Bride continued to
send messages to the Olympic, the Frankfurt and the Carpathia
urging them ,'to hurry....hurry'. It was only when the transmitters
failed at 02.10 were they forced to give up.
Just before 02.10 Captain Smith gave the order
to 'Abandon ship. Every man for himself.' He remained on the
bridge and was never seen again. At 02.20 the Titanic finally
sank to her final resting place in the cold waters of the North
Atlantic. A survivor described the final scene. 'At about 2
o'clock we observed her settling very rapidly with the bows
and bridge completely under water. She lowly tilted straight
on end with the stern vertically upwards. The lights in the
cabins and saloons died out, flashed once more then went out
altogether. At the same time the machinery roared down through
the vessel with a groaning rattle that could have been heard
for miles. It was not quite the end. To our amazement she remained
in that upright position for five minutes. We watched at least
150 feet of the Titanic towering above the sea, black against
the sky. Then, with a quick dive, she disappeared. Our eyes
had looked for the last time on the gigantic vessel which had
set out from Southampton. Then there fell on our ears the cries
of hundreds of our fellow beings struggling in the icy water,
crying for help we knew could not be answered.
A total of !,503 passengers and crew perished
in the disaster. When the Carpathia arrived on the scene at
03.20 around 712 persons including 393 women and children had
been lowered in the boats or subsequently picked up. (Various
sources differ on the final number saved.) The recovery operation
commenced at 04.10 and continued until 08.30 when the last boat
load were finally taken on board. During this time the Californian
arrived and the two ships did all they could for the survivors
and eventually set course for New York where they arrived on
21st April.
On the morning of the 16th April British breakfast
tables were stunned into silence when the following brief announcement
appeared in The Times. 'An ocean disaster, unprecedented in
history has happened in the Atlantic. The White Star liner Titanic,
carrying nearly 3000 people, has been lost near Cape Race, and
there is grave reason to fear that less than 700 of the 2358
passengers have been saved.' The Daily Mirror was more informative
with the headline ' Disaster to the Titanic: World's largest
ship collides with an iceberg in the Atlantic during her maiden
voyage'. That edition carried photographs of the ship and some
of the passengers and crew. The subsequent four editions kept
the public fully informed of the catastrophe as the story unfolded,
the story of a catastrophe so devastating that King George V
and President Taft and exchanged messages of sympathy on behalf
their respective countries.
Why did it happen and who was to blame for
the heavy loss of life? Two enquires into the sinking blamed
the captain of the steamship Californian for ignoring the rockets
but evidence indicated that the Californian could not possibly
have been the ship which turned away. Captain Smith was not
blamed as it was normal practice for ships to proceed at full
speed when the weather was calm and clear. As for not spotting
the iceberg sooner; it was possible that the iceberg had recently
turned over and was showing a dark side. There was no wind or
swell to produce ripples close to the iceberg which would have
been noticed sooner. Although scapegoats were sought at the
time the Titanic disaster was an unfortunate accident. Some
good did emerge, however, and new regulations were introduced
requiring ships to carry sufficient life boats to carry all
the passengers and crew and vessels were required to steer a
more southerly course across the Atlantic to keep well clear
of icebergs. Another regulation was introduced requiring ships
not keeping a 24 hour radio watch to fit an alarm on the bridge
which would automatically ring if a distress call was received.
Furthermore, an International Ice Patrol was formed to track
and report on the ice situation to trans-atlantic shipping.
There are many books about
the Titanic and we have bookmarked three- Anatomy of the Titanic
by Tom McCluskie The Complete Titanic: From the Ship's
Earliest Blueprints to the Epic Film
by Stephen J Spignesi Ken Marschall's Art of Titanic
by Ken Marschall
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