The Sinking of the RMS Titanic and other ships.

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Good list, and while she never actually sunk, worth mentioning the Olympic as well - the sole surviving sister ship out of Titanic, Gigantic/Britannic and herself....and certainly had a couple of close calls as well before eventually being scrapped in the 30's. Wasn't known as "Old Reliable" for nothing!

Later this month will also be the 100th anniversary of the launching of Titanic....

Have you ever read Shan F. Bullock's "A Titanic Hero: Thomas Andrews"? It is a contemporary work, being published in 1913, and is quite brief, but it is an excellent depiction of Andrews' life and career, and includes interviews with those who knew him best. Would absolutely recommend it to anybody with even a passing interest.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

And today, on May 7, 1911 the Lusitania was completing a peaceful voyage. Not quite the case four years later.

We tend to forget that some ships and vehicles of ill-fate had long successful careers before the final tragedies:

R.M.S. Lusitania - 1907-1915 (and it even played a role in a famous homicide case - in 1908 Oscar Slater was arrested in New York City after crossing from England on the Lusitania.

Steamship Andrea Doria (1953-1956) - in three years she had built up a reputation as one of the finest ocean liners ever to sail.

Steamship Normandie (1936-1942) - winner of the Atlantic Blue Ribbon, and possibly the most beautiful steamship ever built.

Airship (or zeppelin) Hindenburg (1936-1937) - had been a popular success the previous year, even appearing in the Berlin Olympics of 1936, and (I beieve) traveling to South America once or twice.

It is the suddenness of their final tragedies, off Kinsale, off Nantucket, at the pier in Manhattan, and at Lakehurst, that graft themselves into our memories, especially when photographs or newsreals of the disasters (to Andrea Doria, Normandie, and Hindenburg.

For the sake of the men who created these great machines of travel, let us try to recall them all in happier days.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Interesting stuff, and yes, there's also of course the famous story with the Titanic sending out CQD first off on the wireless, then Harold Bride saying to Jack Phillips "Try SOS, it's the new signal....might be the only chance you get to use it!". Sadly, very prophetic."

Have you ever seen a Readers Digest special edition book called "Strange Stories, Amazing Facts" ? It's a huge, hard-cover book - fairly old now, I think it was published in about the 70's - and it isn't particularly factually accurate, but it covers a lot of Marie Celeste type events.....worth having a look through if you get the chance.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Hi Adam,

You are right about the lack of modern wireless being involved in disappearances prior to say 1909 (the year the White Star liner Republic sank in a collision off Nantucket when rammed by the Italiam steamer Florida - Jack Binns became an international hero by sending out the CQD distress signal so that most of the passengers were rescued). But such equiptment were on the Cyclops, the Kobenhavn, the Marine Sulfer Queen and (since you mentioned the Bermuda Triangle) the ill fated Flight 19 out of Florida. It really is a matter of luck.

The boat Mary Celeste was found abandoned. What happened to the crew is the mystery. Conan Doyle, in his first successful story "J. Habbakuk Jephson's Statement" renamed the ship Marie Celeste.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Very interesting list, thanks for posting that up!
One of the major factors in their mysterious disappearances might also be that the vast majority of them vanished during a time when communication was quite poor between vessels, other vessels and land....generally only bigger passenger ships were equipped with the wireless system and a trained operator after that was invented. The Titanic sinking itself shows this up, with the Californian's sole wireless operator asleep when the Titanic was frantically sending distress signals - another officer picked the headset up but couldn't understand what the message was and didn't bother to wake the wireless operator. Cyril Evans was his name from memory.

There's also the infamous Bermuda Triangle and "disappearances" of boats like the Marie Celeste.....supernatural theories continue to abound....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

This still leaves us with a problem the subject opened up - that of the myriads of ocean vessels (some liners, some cargo ships, some military vessels, some pleasure craft) that have just disappeaared. It is easy to think of some.

1) Collins liner Parcific (January 1856)
2) Inman liner City of Glasgos (1854)
3) U.S.S. Levant, after paying a call on the city of Honalulu (then capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii (1860)). A part of the ship's spar (I believed) washed up on an island shortly afterwards from a hurricaine.
4) Inman liner City of Boston (1870)
5) British naval training vessel H. M. S. Atalanta (1880)
6) White star liner Naronic (1893)
7) Blue Star liner Waratah (1909)
8) American collier, U. S. S. Cyclops (1918)
9) Danish training vessel - the barque Kobenshavn (1930).
9) Danish ship Hans Hedtoft (1956) - it hit an iceberg somewhere off Greenland.
10) Marine Sulfer Queen (1963)

Sometimes it is easly to recall these ships, even if their fates are uncertain. Sometimes we can guess their fates - Waratah had stability problems and icebergs probably claimed the Naronic and Hans Hedtoft. But for most we can only guess feebly about them. Occasionally something does turn up. The steamer Portland sank in the 1898 storm off the New England Coast that has been named for her ("the "Portland Gale") but there were no survivors although bodies an wreckage did turn up on Cape Cod. Then three or four years back they found the wreck. The ship was trying to turn back to Boston when the ship's superstructure was torn off. It doomed anyone still in the ship and certainly anyone on those top cabins.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Yes, and to the Grimm search team as well apparently!

No doubt there are propeller blades laying around in the depths of the Atlantic, even some of the officers and engineers on board the Titanic who didn't see the iceberg thought immediately after the collision that the ship had dropped a propeller blade....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Hey Jeff,

Didn't Robert Ballard come to the conclusion back in the 80's that Grimm's "propeller" was, on closer observation, nothing more than an odd-shaped rock?

Cheers,
Adam.

You are right Adam but the photo looked like a propeller blade to me.

[Adam Went]

Hey Jeff,

Didn't Robert Ballard come to the conclusion back in the 80's that Grimm's "propeller" was, on closer observation, nothing more than an odd-shaped rock?

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

A Propeller - A "Grimm" problem

I have often wondered, as the propeller Grimm said he found was not from Titanic, but looked like the ones from White Star, is it just possible Grimm might have almost unlocked a true sea mystery - the disappearance in 1893 of the White Star liner Naronic that may have hit an iceberg in that same general vicinity during a snow storm? It is just barely possible. Of course in the aftermath of the real Titanic discovery Grimm's attempts (published in the book entiled BEYOND REACH - that was a really bad guess title) further thought or consideration of the propeller was dropped. Too bad.

About twenty years ago the wreckage of a ship believed to be the steamship Pacific of the Collins line (which vanished in 1856) was found, but there is some controversy about whether it is the Pacific or not.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hey Errata,

That's a fantastic story, thanks for sharing it!
That's a pretty damn good guess to get it within such a close distance without any knowledge of the exact co-ordinates at all....
Certainly unfortunate that Dixon wasn't still alive in 1985, he no doubt would have been the victim of a torrent of abuse.

Actually, Jack Grimm, a US multi-millionaire had funded I believe 3 different expeditions to hunt for the Titanic through the early 1980's, all 3 being unsuccessful despite his at one time claiming that they had found a "propeller" at the bottom. Finding the Titanic was all the rage around that time with the invention of technology capable of reaching 2.5 miles under the ocean - it was probably the spark for the often-ridiculed film "Raise The Titanic" around 1980/81.

I seem to remember reading that they eventually found the wreck hidden away in a corner of the original Grimm search area that they didn't cover. Morally, Ballard was definitely the right man to have the honour.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Errata]

No, nobody knew for certain what condition the wreck was in until Ballard & co discovered it in 1985 - .

Funny story: My grandfather was in the Coast Guard, and wrote a significant portion of the Search and Rescue information for the north Atlantic. Because the Coast Guard does the Ice Patrol up there, they are the ones who drop the wreath every year on the anniversary of the Titanic sinking. So one year in the late 60s, my grandfather does the math, and tells the ice patrol where the Titanic likely was. Just so they could drop the wreath in the right place. A certain Commander Dixon (I think) laughed at my grandfather, told him he was wrong, an idiot, and should stick to to helicopters (he was also a test pilot)

I remember watching Ballard's expedition on tv, the first images. I was at my grandparents house, and my grandfather and I were riveted. Ballard deliberately did not give out the location of the wreck at that time. All the sudden my grandfather starts scribbling out numbers and weird math, jumped up out of his chair and shouted "F@&% you Dixon! I told you you smug bastard!"

This from the man who won $500 dollars in the lottery and said "Oh? Well, okay I guess". Not a demonstrative man.

Evidently my grandfather was only off by 1 mile to the south. And he admitted that most of his calculations were based on theories and what ifs, but he nigh nailed it. And evidently Commander Dixon's dismissal of his skill preyed on him for the next twenty something years, until he was vindicated by Ballard. Good think Dixon was already dead, or my grandfather would have been unlivable.

[Adam Went]

Errata:

Seems that modern day Germans like to distance themselves as much as possible from the events of World War II though, which is perhaps fair enough too in some ways. It's an interesting story nonetheless and wouldn't be surprised if there aren't some elements of truth to it.

YS:

No, nobody knew for certain what condition the wreck was in until Ballard & co discovered it in 1985 - interestingly, it's come out since then that Ballard was funded on his Titanic expedition by the US Navy only because he was a naval officer and was made to complete top secret expeditions to the Thresher and (IIRC) Squalus submarine wrecks to make sure the Soviets hadn't been nosing around them (given that the Cold War was still on at the time) - there's a couple of doccos out about it, fascinating stuff and worth checking out if any of you ever get the chance.

In 1912, some eyewitnesses to the sinking claimed that they saw the ship breaking up on the surface, others didn't say that - fairly solid proof, IMO, that the structure of the ship was still attached when it went underwater but was torn apart into two major sections during the long descent to the bottom.

Cheers,
Adam.

[YankeeSergeant]

Coal?

Hi Adam,

Thanks for noting my interest (and Errata's), regarding ships and shipwrecks.
Long before my interest in crime and Whitechapel, I was fascinated by ships and the Titanic in particular.

I think the wreck of the burned up Morro Castle was scrapped after 1934.

The speed of the wreck of the "Lusy" is amazing. The torpedo may have set off coal dust, and lower deck portholes were prematurely opened (the same may have happened to the Britannic in 1916 too). Ballard was able to show that there was no secret hoard of cannon ammunition (just a small consignment of rifle ammunition) on the ship. Also Schweger only used one torpedo, and was amazed by the confusion on board the vessel and the speed of the sinking.

I did not know of the boy on that picnic.

Best wishes,

Jeff

Jeff, Was "Big Lucy powered by coal? I though for some reason (And I may be wrong) that she was oil driven.

[YankeeSergeant]

NIght to remember

Graham:

I do agree with you that A Night To Remember is more factually accurate, and a very good film overall - despite the fact that it doesn't show the Titanic splitting in half, as Cameron's film does (excusable as obviously the ship hadn't yet been discovered in 1958 when ANTR came out.)

I'm not a huge fan of Cameron's Titanic, but it's not as bad as some make it out to be, and more importantly, James Cameron is a good person and genuinely cares about the Titanic and its people. When 96 year old last Titanic survivor Millvina Dean was struggling to meet her nursing home expenses and was starting to have to sell her autograph and Titanic memorabilia just to make ends meet, Cameron, along with others, donated tens of thousands of dollars of their own money to her to make sure she could live the rest of her life out more than comfortably. He also returned to the wreck in the early 2000's to film Ghosts Of The Abyss, a truly excellent film.

Suzi:

Wow, what a fascinating family story!

Cheers,
Adam.

Given the fact that no-one knew exactly what happend when they filmed A Night to Remember, they did a splendid job. They weren't aware at the time that the ship had split in two if I remember correctly. The Breaking was confirmed when Ballard finally located the wreck in the 1980s and was able to dive on her.