W.T. Stead On The Titanic- Myths Vs. Facts

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Yes, very true, there were sightings of both debris and bodies for miles around the area of the sinking for a considerable time afterwards. It also wasn't helped by the fact that it took the Mackay-Bennett a few days to get to the scene, by which time a lot of the bodies had spread out as you mentioned - many more probably went down with the ship.

I can't remember the exact figure off the top of my head but I think the MB only recovered a few hundred of the bodies, then a couple of other vessels which were tasked with 'double checking' managed to pick up another hundred or so between them, but the majority were never found and many of those who were found couldn't be identified.....very sad.

Cheers,
Adam.

[kensei]

This might be somewhat gruesome to contemplate but it's something I've always wondered about, since there is some discussion here of all those bodies floating in the ocean for so long- is anything known on whether there was any predation by sharks or other sea creatures? The sounds and smells of shipwrecks generally do tend to attract them. I know the water was cold but some sharks do live in cold water- the Greenland shark for instance, which is huge. The area is also known for giant squid, which are thought to come nearer the surface at night.

[louisa]

Sharks live in all the oceans. We're only made aware of the ones in warm waters because warm climates are where most people have their holidays.

Many of the bodies would have been eaten by fish.

[Adam Went]

Kensei/Louisa:

Yes, i'm afraid that would have been the unfortunate fate of the bodies of some of the victims - even if not in the immediate vicinity of the shipwreck, as we've said, they floated some considerable distance. One needs only look at the film footage of the shipwreck to see that some pretty large marine life lives even in that harsh climate.

We must remember as well that not all of the victims ended up on the stern of the ship in the final minutes, some of them chose to stay indoors, or were forced to stay indoors.

Also strangely and gruesomely enough, the thought of these people being in a pretty bad state after just a few days in the water makes me think about the condition of poor M.J. Druitt after having been in the Thames for nearly a month before being discovered.....different circumstances entirely, I know, but still horrible.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Kensei/Louisa:

Yes, i'm afraid that would have been the unfortunate fate of the bodies of some of the victims - even if not in the immediate vicinity of the shipwreck, as we've said, they floated some considerable distance. One needs only look at the film footage of the shipwreck to see that some pretty large marine life lives even in that harsh climate.

We must remember as well that not all of the victims ended up on the stern of the ship in the final minutes, some of them chose to stay indoors, or were forced to stay indoors.

Also strangely and gruesomely enough, the thought of these people being in a pretty bad state after just a few days in the water makes me think about the condition of poor M.J. Druitt after having been in the Thames for nearly a month before being discovered.....different circumstances entirely, I know, but still horrible.

Cheers,
Adam.

Hi Adam,

A book on the disaster that I have by Michael Davie mentions a particularly horrid situation that may have killed one of the first class victims. After the sinking people asked about a wealthy Canadian who was on board Titanic, and who was a large and somewhat loud (but in a pleasant way) man, who nobody who saw could miss. Yet no survivors recalled seeing him on deck as the ship went down. None recalled him near the lifeboats either. Than it was recalled that the gentleman was a heavy sleeper. He was the sort of individual who turned in early that night, and would probably not have heard any steward knocking at the door to warn him that the ship was sinking. It was later surmised he must have slept through those terrible last hours without noticing anything until it was too late. He probably drowned in his stateroom.

Also, Walter Lord and others have commented on one of the questions Senator William A. Smith asked at the hearings about whether any of the passengers went to the watertight compartments to save themselves. Smith's reputation was only rebuilt by Wyn Wade's account of the U. S. hearing in his book, but at the time people called the Senator "Watertight" Smith for his error regarding the watertight compartments.*

*When the poisoner John Tawell wss on trial in 1845 for killing his mistress Sarah Hart with prussic acid, his barrister Sir Fitzroy Kelly made a similar goof by trying to claim Ms Hart had been killed by eating apples with their pips (pits) which contain minor amounts of cyanide. After that trial (Tawell was convicted and hanged) Kelly became known forever after as "Apple Pip" Kelly.

As for Monty Druitt's body, gases in the human body may have distended parts of it. He was probably identified by his posessions.

Jeff

[jason_c]

Hey all,

Kensei:

Off the top of my head, no, I don't believe the body of Thomas Andrews was ever recovered, like the vast majority of victims. He went down with the ship. He was always a man who loved technology and it really struck me in the film Ghosts Of The Abyss when Bill Paxton said something along the lines of "If only there was some way for Thomas Andrews to be able to see these little robots [Jake and Elwood] exploring his ship...."

Im sure you are correct. Andrews body was never recovered.

[Ben]

Hi Jeff,

The Canadian gentleman in question was George Wright of Halifax. There are indeed no accounts of his whereabouts during the sinking, and I've yet to find a single survivor account that alludes to his presence on board during the entire trip! There are a quite a number of relatively high-profile passenger whose movements remain nebulous. Ann Isham, one of only five first class females to perish, was another who nobody remembered meeting as far as we're aware. In the case of Seattle/Denver businessman Hugh Rood, there was even speculation that he was never aboard (or else fellow Denverite Margaret "Molly" Brown would have mentioned him, so the theory goes). To my mind, it seems just as likely that the shipboard acquaintances of these passengers were also victims.

Adam - Yes, the Gellar book is an excellent read!

All the best,
Ben

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Jeff:

Interesting account of the Canadian gentleman, what a horrible way to go that would have been. Several passengers and crew likely suffered the same fate, unfortunately, whether it was by choice or not. The engine room crew were amongst those, having made the heroic decision to stay below decks and keep the power going for the lights and the wireless, sealing their own fate. And those poor third class passengers, some of whom remained trapped below decks. Another scene in Ghosts Of The Abyss was when they were deep in the innards of the ship and came across some of the gates which closed off the third class areas from the rest of the ship - they were still locked. THAT was a moment which sent shivers down the spine and many of the crew on the ship watching it were in tears.

Incidentally, a test was once carried out on a scale model of the ship to see whether leaving the watertight compartments open would have allowed the ship to survive longer, as it would have sunk on a more even level. The result was that it would have sunk some 35 minutes sooner, having capsized with even the smallest shift in such a hefty amount of water.

Seem to remember as well that the Lusitania may have sunk quicker than she otherwise might have because the watertight doors were controlled automatically from the bridge, but after the torpedo struck, the power went out very quickly and so they had no control over the doors or the engines.

Ben:

Glad you've seen the book. It is a brilliant one but also a reminder of the time that has elapsed since the sinking - when that book was written in around 1998, several survivors were still alive. Now there are none.

Cheers,
Adam.

[louisa]

I'm wondering how accurate a test - using a scale model of the Titanic - would actually be. The water density and pressure would be different - wouldn't it? I'm no scientist though.


I expect everyone reading this thread already knows about the following excellent website - but just in case they don't...here it is:

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/

[Archaic]

Sterring Mistake?

Hi everyone. I just caught up on the thread and very much enjoyed reading everyone's posts.

Jeff, love the story about Senator 'Watertight' Smith asking if the passengers saved themselves by fleeing to the safety of the Titanic's watertight compartments.

Thank God Senator Smith lived 100 years ago, because if he lived today he'd probably be a Presidential candidate.

While looking for a particular video to post I came across a news article I haven't seen before. Perhaps some of you have, as it came out last year, but for the benefit of the others: Charles Lightoller's grand-daughter says that he told her the impact with the iceberg was directly caused by human error- the helmsman misunderstood an order and turned the wheel right instead of left.

Lightoller Article: http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=11701578

The ABC News video accompanying the article is interesting, but it's about the weak rivets on the Titanic, not about what Lightoller told his grand-daughter. I'll see if I can find another interview with her.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Archaic]

Was There A Change In the Standards of Ship Communications?

Here's a better BBC article about what Lightoller's grand-daughter, Lady Patten, says she told her about the Titanic's collision. Now I can understand how the helmsman might have accidentally turned the wheel in the opposite direction.

BBC:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11390144

And a good one from the Discovery Channel. Discovery News: http://news.discovery.com/history/st...ys-author.html

Lady Patten's story sounds perfectly reasonable, but I have to say I wish she wasn't a novelist.

I'm curious as to what the rest of you think about this story- does it sound credible and help explain why the collision occurred? I've steered the rudder of sailboats and know that in order to get the boat where you want to go you have to steer sort of "backwards" to how you'd turn a steering wheel, but did the change in the way maritime communications were given really change so late as c.1912?

That seems odd, as steamships had already been around for decades. Wouldn't the White Star Line have made sure that all crew were well-drilled in responding correctly to orders before they ever set out on a voyage?

Thanks and best regards,
Archaic

[Adam Went]

Louisa:

The scale model was pretty thorough, it was made of clear materials and was divided into the correct watertight compartments with the correct amount of damage the iceberg caused and so on.....I can't remember the name of the docco off the top of my head but will post it up if I do....

ET is the best Titanic website and they also have a forum over there as well - i'm a member there and am always arguing the point with somebody, usually Michael H. Standart. Worth joining if you're a Titanic enthusiast.

Archaic:

Very interesting articles, thanks for that! Seem to remember reading something similar to this before, and like you, i've steered sailboats in which you had to turn the wheel right in order for the boat to turn left, and vice versa.

But given that the iceberg was, as Fred Fleet put it, "dead ahead", would it have made any difference which way they had tried to steer the ship? I think any which way would have caused irrepairable damage, she was such a huge, heavy object that she couldn't be turned or stopped in such a short space of time.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Errata]

Here's a better BBC article about what Lightoller's grand-daughter, Lady Patten, says she told her about the Titanic's collision. Now I can understand how the helmsman might have accidentally turned the wheel in the opposite direction.

Archaic

It's credible in so far as the sail vs. steam conflict. My mom is a coast guard historian and was telling me about it awhile ago. Evidently the confusion ran quite a few ships aground in the old days.

My problem with the story is that I don't think it particularly washes, timewise. I don't think there is any way the Titanic could have gotten out of the way of the iceberg even if they had steered it correctly. Because of the amount of iceberg that is underwater, the conditions of the sea and weather, no binoculars, etc. by the time they spotted the iceberg it would have been too late. The Titanic didn't have a prayer of missing that thing. I mean, people were getting hit by the ice coming off the floe. If you look at a picture of the berg in question, you can see that in order to remain "upright" the underwater portion of ice has to be at least half again as big as the surface.

I think it's possible that the Titanic was in fact steered away, but after they hit some guy might have had an "oh sh*t" moment and wondered if he had screwed it up. I say this because despite the faulty rivets, there is still a lot of play in the idea that if the Titanic had just rammed the iceberg it would have stayed afloat. Turning into an iceberg with such a significant underportion would essentially be like a car hitting a wall. Even going straight probably would have had the same effect. But turning away would have been a ship long scrape, much like what was described. So I dunno.

But the sail and steam system confusion is true. True in general I mean, I can't say if it happened on the Titanic. But I would think that if it had, and he was the only guy left after the sinking still with White Star who knew about it, he would have made a big stink about it before hopping on the Oceanic. Ismay and Lightoller knew about the error, Ismay resigns, That leaves Lightoller who knows about a potentially catastrophic problem, and he says nothing? I don't care how loyal you are to your employers... you don't come away from a sunk ship and get on another one without making damn sure it doesn't happen again.

[Mayerling]

Hi all,

Thanks Ben for naming that unfortunate Mr. Wright. For him and all the others (like Ms Isham) who may have been stuck below deck, it must have been a horrendous nightmare moment at the end.

Adam I saw that test with the model Titanic. It was a curiosity, and I'm not sure it really proved anything. I think it was A. A. Hoehling and Mary Hoehling in their THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE LUSITANIA who suggested that the rapidity of the sinking may have been due to the ship's watertightness.
But actually there are other valid explanations for the "Lucy"'s sinking so fast. The torpedo may have caused a large amount of internal damage due to coal dust or hitting a boiler. Also, as the trip was approaching it's end, many lower deck portholes were opened to allow sea air to freshen cabins - and ironically these may have allowed more water to enter the ship as it sank. A similar theory was advanced for the Britannic in 1916, bu it did not sink as fast as the Lusitania.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Errata:

Yep, if you have 45,000 tons of ship smacking into an ice wall at high speed, it's going to do some pretty serious damage. All the passengers would have been woken up and then some. It actually probably would have been similar to the Andrea Doria sinking in 1956 after colliding with the Stockholm, when a huge portion of the casualties died either in or as a result of the initial shock and damage caused by the collision instead of the actual sinking itself. Then again, AD took 11 hours to sink, not 2.5.....

The simple fact is that the sheer size of the Titanic meant that by the time the message of the ice was comprehended, relayed to the bridge and then a decision was made on what to do, that much more distance had been travelled at 20 odd knots that any glimmer of hope there might have initially been of avoiding the berg were all but dashed......she did turn, just not enough.

Jeff:

18 minutes of chaos for the Lusitania.....I agree with you though, there's any number of explanations for why she sank so fast, and sadly because of the way she lies and the condition she is in on the ocean floor now, it's impossible to tell just what damage was done to what parts of the ship at the time.

Cheers,
Adam.