On This Day: Titanic sinks two hours forty min. after hitting an iceberg - 710 of 2,224 survive - Apr. 15, 1912
(edited from Wikipedia)
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Sinking of the Titanic
RMS Titanic sank in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean, four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. The largest ocean liner in service at the time, Titanic had an estimated 2,224 people on board when she struck an iceberg at around 23:40 (ship's time) on Sunday, 14 April 1912. Her sinking two hours and forty minutes later at 02:20 ship's time (05:18 GMT) on Monday, 15 April, resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 people, making it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.
Titanic received six warnings of sea ice on 14 April but was travelling at a speed of roughly 22 knots (41 km/h) when her lookouts sighted the iceberg. Unable to turn quickly enough, the ship suffered a glancing blow that buckled her starboard side and opened six of her sixteen compartments to the sea. Titanic had been designed to stay afloat with up to four of her forward compartments flooded, and the crew used distress flares and radio (wireless) messages to attract help as the passengers were put into lifeboats.
In accordance with existing practice, the Titanic's lifeboat system was designed to ferry passengers to nearby rescue vessels, not to hold everyone on board simultaneously; therefore, with the ship sinking rapidly and help still hours away, there was no safe refuge for many of the passengers and crew with only twenty lifeboats, including four collapsible lifeboats. Poor preparation for and management of the evacuation meant many boats were launched before they were completely full.
The Titanic sank with over a thousand passengers and crew still on board. Almost all of those who jumped or fell into the sea drowned or died within minutes due to the effects of cold shock and incapacitation. RMS Carpathia arrived about an hour and a half after the sinking and rescued all of the 710 survivors by 09:15 on 15 April, some nine and a half hours after the collision. The disaster shocked the world and caused widespread outrage over the lack of lifeboats, lax regulations, and the unequal treatment of third-class passengers during the evacuation. Subsequent inquiries recommended sweeping changes to maritime regulations, leading to the establishment in 1914 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) which still governs maritime safety today.
[Unprecedented scale]
At the time of her entry into service on 2 April 1912, the Titanic was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners, and was the largest ship in the world. She and the earlier RMS Olympic were almost one and a half times the gross register tonnage of Cunard's RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania, the previous record holders, and were nearly 100 feet longer. The Titanic could carry 3,547 people in speed and comfort, and was built on an unprecedented scale. Her reciprocating engines were the largest that had ever been built, standing 40 feet high and with cylinders 9 feet in diameter requiring the burning of 600 long tons (610 t) of coal per day.
[Steep first class fares]
The passenger accommodation, especially the first class section, was said to be "of unrivalled extent and magnificence", indicated by the fares that first class accommodation commanded. The Parlour Suites (the most expensive and most luxurious suites on the ship) with private promenade cost over $4,350 (equivalent to $137,000 today) for a one-way transatlantic passage. Even third class, though considerably less luxurious than second and first classes, was unusually comfortable by contemporary standards and was supplied with plentiful quantities of good food, providing her passengers with better conditions than many of them had experienced at home.
[Titanic's builder on board]
Captain Smith felt the collision in his cabin and immediately came to the bridge. Informed of the situation, he summoned Thomas Andrews, Titanic's builder, who was among a party of engineers from Harland and Wolff observing the ship's first passenger voyage. The ship was listing five degrees to starboard and was two degrees down by the head within a few minutes of the collision. Smith and Andrews went below and found that the forward cargo holds, the mail room and the squash court were flooded, while No. 6 boiler room was already filled to a depth of 14 feet. Water was spilling over into No. 5 boiler room, and crewmen there were battling to pump it out.
Within 45 minutes of the collision, at least 13,500 long tons (13,700 t) of water had entered the ship. This was far too much for Titanic's ballast and bilge pumps to handle; the total pumping capacity of all the pumps combined was only 1,700 long tons (1,700 t) per hour. Andrews informed the captain that the first five compartments were flooded, and therefore Titanic was doomed. Andrews accurately predicted that she could remain afloat for no longer than roughly two hours.
[Passengers skeptical at first]
Few passengers at first were willing to board the lifeboats and the officers in charge of the evacuation found it difficult to persuade them. Millionaire John Jacob Astor declared: "We are safer here than in that little boat." Some passengers refused flatly to embark. J. Bruce Ismay, realising the urgency of the situation, roamed the starboard boat deck urging passengers and crew to board the boats. A trickle of women, couples and single men were persuaded to board starboard lifeboat No. 7, which became the first lifeboat to be lowered.
The lifeboats were lowered every few minutes on each side, but most of the boats were greatly under-filled. No. 5 left with 41 aboard, No. 3 had 32 aboard, No. 8 left with 39 and No. 1 left with just 12 out of a capacity of 40. The evacuation did not go smoothly and passengers suffered accidents and injuries as it progressed.
By 01:20, the seriousness of the situation was now apparent to the passengers above decks, who began saying their goodbyes, with husbands escorting their wives and children to the lifeboats. Distress flares were fired every few minutes to attract the attention of any ships nearby and the radio operators repeatedly sent the distress signal CQD.
By this time, it was clear to those on Titanic that the ship was indeed sinking and there would not be enough lifeboat places for everyone. Some still clung to the hope that the worst would not happen. Other couples refused to be separated.
The industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim changed out of his life vest and sweater into top hat and evening dress and declared his wish to go down like a gentleman.
[Immigration laws and treatment of third-class passengers]
At this point, the vast majority of passengers who had boarded lifeboats were from first- and second-class. Few third-class (steerage) passengers had made it up onto the deck, and most were still lost in the maze of corridors or trapped behind gates and partitions that segregated the accommodation for the steerage passengers from the first- and second-class areas.
This segregation was not simply for social reasons, but was a requirement of United States immigration laws, which mandated that third-class passengers be segregated to control immigration and to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
First- and second-class passengers on transatlantic liners disembarked at the main piers on Manhattan Island, but steerage passengers had to go through health checks and processing at Ellis Island.
In at least some places, Titanic's crew appear to have actively hindered the steerage passengers' escape. Some of the gates were locked and guarded by crew members, apparently to prevent the steerage passengers from rushing the lifeboats.
A long and winding route had to be taken to reach topside; the steerage-class accommodation, located on C through G decks, was at the extreme ends of the decks, and so was the farthest away from the lifeboats. By contrast, the first-class accommodation was located on the upper decks and so was nearest. Proximity to the lifeboats thus became a key factor in determining who got into them. To add to the difficulty, many of the steerage passengers did not understand or speak English. It was perhaps no coincidence that English-speaking Irish immigrants were disproportionately represented among the steerage passengers who survived. Many of those who did survive owed their lives to third-class steward John Edward Hart, who organised three trips into the ship's interior to escort groups of third-class passengers up to the boat deck. Others made their way through open gates or climbed emergency ladders.
["Stoic passivity"]
Some, perhaps overwhelmed by it all, made no attempt to escape and stayed in their cabins or congregated in prayer in the third-class dining room. Leading Fireman Charles Hendrickson saw crowds of third-class passengers below decks with their trunks and possessions, as if waiting for someone to direct them. Psychologist Wynn Craig Wade attributes this to "stoic passivity" produced by generations of being told what to do by social superiors. August Wennerström, one of the male steerage passengers to survive, commented later that many of his companions had made no effort to save themselves. He wrote:
Hundreds were in a circle [in the third-class dining saloon] with a preacher in the middle, praying, crying, asking God and Mary to help them. They lay there and yelled, never lifting a hand to help themselves. They had lost their own will power and expected God to do all the work for them.
The remaining boats were filled much closer to capacity and in an increasing rush.
[Fate of Andrews and Smith]
The ship's designer, Thomas Andrews, was reportedly last seen in the first-class smoking room after approximately 02:05, apparently making no attempt to escape. However, there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that Andrews was sighted in the smoking room prior to 01:40, as well as other reports that indicate that Andrews then continued assisting with the evacuation. He was reportedly seen throwing deck chairs into the ocean for passengers to cling to in the water, heading to the bridge, perhaps in search of Captain Smith. Mess steward Cecil Fitzpatrick claimed to have seen Andrews jump overboard from the bridge with Smith. Neither man survived.
As most of the passengers and crew headed to the stern, where the priest Thomas Byles, a second-class passenger, was hearing confessions and giving absolutions, Titanic's band played outside the gymnasium.
Part of the enduring folklore of the Titanic sinking is that the musicians played the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee" as the ship sank, though some regard this as dubious. Nonetheless, the claim surfaced among the earliest reports of the sinking, and the hymn became so closely associated with the Titanic disaster that its opening bars were carved on the grave monument of Titanic's bandmaster, Wallace Hartley, one of those who perished.
[Legislation]
The disaster led to major changes in maritime regulations to implement new safety measures, such as ensuring that more lifeboats were provided, that lifeboat drills were properly carried out and that radio equipment on passenger ships was manned around the clock. Radio operators were to give priority to emergency and hazard messages over private messages and to use the Q code to minimize language problems. Shore stations of the rival international "wireless" networks, Marconi of Britain and Telefunken of Germany, were required to handle all radio calls including those of the other network. An International Ice Patrol was set up to monitor the presence of icebergs in the North Atlantic, and maritime safety regulations were harmonised internationally through the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Titanic
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