The Sinking of the RMS Titanic and other ships.

[Adam Went]

Jeff:

Interesting point, considering Olympic was still in service for some two decades after both her sisters had gone down. Britannic of course was a victim of war though. If you have a copy of, or can get a copy of Bob Ballard's "Lost Liners" there's some photos of the surviving Olympic memorabilia in modern times.

No doubt you've heard of Robin Gardiner and Dan Van Der Vat's book "Riddle Of The Titanic" which claims that Olympic and Titanic were switched and it was really the Olympic which was sunk as part of a massive scam?

Lusitania and Mauretania had another sister called Aquitania - now she was a real tough old ship. Served in and survived both world wars. Here's an info page about her which might be of interest:

http://www.ocean-liners.com/ships/Aquitania.asp

Hatchett:

Glad to hear there's another member here with that book - we can perhaps forgive some of the factual accuracy issues given the emotion of the time it was written and what we've learnt in the 98 years since.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Adam Went]

I'm the kind of reader who will buy a heap of books and then they'll just sit around never getting read....so just recently i've finished reading one of those books that had sat on the shelf gathering dust for years, and i'd definitely highly recommend it to anybody with an interest in the Titanic, or marine exploration in general, because it covers quite a few bases in a way which most books don't.....

It's "Her Name, Titanic" by Charles Pellegrino....the author having been involved in Titanic and maritime studies for a loooooong time now. It's not the most up to date book, having been written in 1987, but Stephen King described it as "Hypnotic", and he's quite right - an excellent read.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Archaic]

Titanic Documentary

Here's an interesting documentary about Titanic that examines the possibility that she suffered greater hull damage than was previously thought.
(The link contains a good summary.)

'Titanic's Final Moments': http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/titan...ries+Online%29

Best regards,
Archaic

[Mayerling]

Jeff:

Interesting point, considering Olympic was still in service for some two decades after both her sisters had gone down. Britannic of course was a victim of war though. If you have a copy of, or can get a copy of Bob Ballard's "Lost Liners" there's some photos of the surviving Olympic memorabilia in modern times.

No doubt you've heard of Robin Gardiner and Dan Van Der Vat's book "Riddle Of The Titanic" which claims that Olympic and Titanic were switched and it was really the Olympic which was sunk as part of a massive scam?

Lusitania and Mauretania had another sister called Aquitania - now she was a real tough old ship. Served in and survived both world wars. Here's an info page about her which might be of interest:

http://www.ocean-liners.com/ships/Aquitania.asp

Cheers,
Adam.

Hi Adam,

Yes, I had heard of Gardiner's and Van Der Vat's book, but I believe further examination of the wreckage of the Titanic showed that it could not be Olympic due to certain numbers on the plates or something like that.

I have never read the book by Carlo Pelegrino, but I've heard it is an absolute must for fans of Titanic.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hey Archaic and Jeff,

Thanks for the link, Archaic. Of course the old theory before the ship was found was that she'd had a huge 300 foot gash down her side but it was discovered later that the iceberg damage itself was actually minimal, it just popped rivets and plates, etc and this continued to worsen as the water pressure build up, hence letting the water in faster.

Yeah pretty sure Gardiner and Van Der Vat's work has pretty well been ruled out altogether now Jeff, though it was outlandish to say the least in the first place.

Also, on a final note, the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the great German battleship Bismarck has just taken place. What an amazing sequence of events that was.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Hey Archaic and Jeff,

Thanks for the link, Archaic. Of course the old theory before the ship was found was that she'd had a huge 300 foot gash down her side but it was discovered later that the iceberg damage itself was actually minimal, it just popped rivets and plates, etc and this continued to worsen as the water pressure build up, hence letting the water in faster.

Yeah pretty sure Gardiner and Van Der Vat's work has pretty well been ruled out altogether now Jeff, though it was outlandish to say the least in the first place.

Also, on a final note, the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the great German battleship Bismarck has just taken place. What an amazing sequence of events that was.

Cheers,
Adam.

Adam, I am going to try his again - again I wrote a response and it was demolished by the Board for no reason (supposedly I had not signed on - but I had).

I was unaware of the anniversary of Bismarck's career. In many ways it resembles the Titanic. Both were the greatest of their class of ship up to that time. Both were on a maiden voyage. Both were lost with heavy loss of life (ironically, because it was a warship, Bismarck lost 2,200 men and that is more than the 1,517 or so lost on Titanic, but the latter were lost in peacetime). Bismarck did have a chance to prove herself - she sank HMS Hood.* Titanic only could boast not having been in a collision with the ship New York, and completing the voyages to Cherbourg and Queenstown before her rendevous with the iceberg.

*Ironically Hood too was to lose more than Titanic: 1,800 to 1,517 or so.

I always felt that Bismarck's cruise was a waste, as she only travelled with Prince Eugen. She should have had Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, Schleswig-Holstein, and Eugen. Possibly a more formadable fleet of dreadnoughts might have changed the result of the battle-campaign. But Hitler never did like or understand sea power.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Part two

To continue what I would have put in the single message:

Finally, if I am not mistaken the man responsible for rekindling interest in Bismarck was Ludovick Kennedy in his book about it's voyage, pursuit, and destruction. I believer that was the basis for the film SINK THE BISMARCK in 1960. Kennedy (a believer in the abolition of capital punishment) also wrote the first popular (not first book) on the Christie - Evans case, TEN RILLINGTON PLACE (also turned into a film). So he sort of links both shipwreck/sea adventure and true crime books in himself. To be fair though, Kennedy was involved in the pursuit of the Bismarck.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Definitely agree with you about Bismarck, she was the pride of the German fleet and considered by many to be unsinkable, as with the Titanic.

You may be interested to know, if you didn't already, that John Moffat, who was one of the men responsible for the bombing of Bismarck from the air, which jammed her rudder and essentially meant she was just cruising around in a large, inescapable circle - is still alive. He's in his 90's now, as most of them are, but I understand he was or is attending some sort of memorial to the battle. He also has a relatively new book called "I Sank The Bismarck" - here's a link to an article in regards to this:
More at http://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk...tion_1_1644250

Also some sort of nice ending to a tragic tale that it was Robert Ballard who discovered both Titanic and Bismarck....and within a few years of each other too.

Karl Doenitz and Erich Raeder, commanders of the German fleet of course ended up on trial at Nuremberg in 1946.....Doenitz got 10 years and Raeder got life IIRC.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Errata]

I remember from my childhood parking myself in front of the TV to watch some Titanic special starring Telly Savalas opening up some safe pulled up from the wreck. And I don't think it was a main safe, maybe a purser's safe? I remember ruined banknotes being in it, and that it was live.

Does anyone remember anything interesting at all coming out of that safe? I think I was maybe nine, and don't remember anything really other than Telly Savalas and bitter disappointment.

[Robert]

Kennedy had an abiding interest in things naval, for which this obituary provides the explanation :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/6374967/Sir-Ludovic-Kennedy.html

[Mayerling]

I remember from my childhood parking myself in front of the TV to watch some Titanic special starring Telly Savalas opening up some safe pulled up from the wreck. And I don't think it was a main safe, maybe a purser's safe? I remember ruined banknotes being in it, and that it was live.

Does anyone remember anything interesting at all coming out of that safe? I think I was maybe nine, and don't remember anything really other than Telly Savalas and bitter disappointment.

Hi Errata,

That show with Savalas was on the air about 1989 or so, and was subject to a great deal of criticism. For one thing, Savalas was given some particularly stupid dialog: "One moment it was unsinkable, but the next it was unthinkable". They found a piece of luggage which was opened up - it belonged to a second class passenger (who survived, by the way). There was also some "Titanic expert" who insisted that the ship was on fire from the moment it left Southhampton, and that was the real cause of the sinking.
That this idiot was ignoring a collision with an iceberg that hundreds of people witnessed was only part of he reason for disliking his comment. His big fire was that coal bunker fire that had burned for a day, but never threatened the ship at all.

They did not find any safe for that program, but a few years earlier a safe had been retrieved by Peter Gimbel from the Andrea Doria, and placed for its protection in a shark tank at he New York City Aquarium at Coney Island. It was opened on television, and turned out to have some waterlogged currency. Gimbel had been looking for another safe (the purser's I believe) but found this one. The other safe supposedly had valuables in it (jewelry).

The purser on Titanic (McElroy?) actually had been handing out jewelry from his safe to First Class Lady Passengers as they entered life boats.

The most interesting piece of personal property retrieved from the wreck site of Titanic (and not part of the Savalas program) was the wallet of Major Arthur Peuchen of the Cold Stream Guards. It was mentioned that he dropped the wallet while getting into lifeboat, and it's retrieval decades later was amazing.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Errata, I think Jeff has pretty well hit the nail on the head. Sure you aren't thinking about the opening of the "safe" at the beginning of James Cameron's "Titanic", and the bitter disappointment of Bill Paxton at not finding anything worthwhile? (Incidentally, Paxton is real life friends with Cameron and he travelled to the wreck again with Cameron in 2001 to film Ghosts Of The Abyss.)

A safe was indeed found at the Titanic site not long after it was discovered by Ballard & Co - they tried to open it and the handle did turn, but the safe would not open. As Ballard was and is very much against salvaging items from the wreck, he wouldn't allow it to be raised. I seem to recall hearing something about it being discovered later that the bottom of the safe had rusted out anyway!

There was indeed a fire in the coal bunker of the Titanic which burned for part of the voyage, but it was nothing serious. The suggestion that has been made in the past was that the constant heat against the hull, blended with the chilling temperature of the ocean on the other side caused the hull to heat up and then cool very quickly, making some of the steel brittle, so that when it hit the iceberg it shattered all the more.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Errata]

Hey all,

Errata, I think Jeff has pretty well hit the nail on the head. Sure you aren't thinking about the opening of the "safe" at the beginning of James Cameron's "Titanic", and the bitter disappointment of Bill Paxton at not finding anything worthwhile?

Cheers,
Adam.

I never saw Cameron's Titanic. And I never will. Firstly, DiCaprio gives me the creeps, and secondly my dad lent me out to a Titanic researcher when I was about 12, so I know way too much about the details to enjoy a movie. And no one wants to sit next to the girl saying "thats wrong. And that's wrong. That's not even physically possible... that's wrong..."

On the other hand, might be totally worth it if it showed how a mechanical camel would exercise people.

I swear I remember the safe and the soggy currency. Is it possible they showed that part of the previous program in the beginning of the Savalas one? A sort of whole "last time it was disappointing, but this time it could be awesome" kind of thing?

[Natalie Severn]

My great grand father,James Dobbin, was killed in the launch of the Titanic---the fist launch in the Harland and Wolff shipyard.He was a shipwright.100 years ago yesterday I believe!
Poor man.Its sad.It was why they said it was launched with blood.
Norma

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Errata:

Completely understand what you mean about watching a movie like that if you've already learnt most of the facts about the ship and the sinking - it's a bit like sitting through a film about JTR. It's not a bad movie actually but I think the purists' favourite will always be A Night To Remember - now that was a really good film.

For some reason your story about the safe does ring a bell but I can't think of anything related to the Titanic - especially from the late 80's when most people were still interested in exploring the wreck rather than salvaging it. But if there ever was a real Titanic safe raised and opened then it's probably justice served that nothing interesting was in it.

Nats:

What a fascinating story, thanks for sharing....must be good to know that you're tied in some way with Titanic history. IIRC, they had to use 22 tons of soap and tallow on the slipways to help her into the water, and afterwards those who were present took bits and pieces of the soap home with them as a souvenir. (Although I think Olympic would have been the first ship launched off that slipway, she was launched before Titanic?)

Also, for those who were of a spiritual nature, there was concern from the outside that the ship's identification number, when reflected in a mirror or, more importantly, in the water, read "No Pope" - leading many to suggest the ship was unholy. That was among many premonitions and forebodings of doom.

Cheers,
Adam.