Next to Noah’s Ark, the RMS Titanic–double the size of the Ark–is probably the most renowned ship in history; the former built to avoid disaster, the latter became synonymous with disaster.
Living on the edge of the largest surfaced fresh water lake in the world, as we do, Lake Superior has claimed its share of floating vessels. Some 350 shipwrecks are noted in the recorded history of the coldest and deepest of the Great Lakes that doesn’t give up her dead.
However, if you were to tally the loss of life due to ill-fated vessels that sent their crews to a watery grave in the frigid waters of Superior, it would not equal the loss of life brought about on that tragic April night in the North Atlantic when 1,500 souls—65 percent of all those on board— went to meet their Maker as the RMS Titanic sank to its 12,500 ft. icy graveyard, approximately 375 miles south of Newfoundland.
Wearing a bowler hat and a long overcoat, Edward John Smith, a British Merchant Navy officer, took a taxi from his home to Southampton docks, located on the south coast of England, where he boarded the RMS Titanic at 7 a.m. to prepare for the Titanic’s maiden voyage. Departing at noon Wednesday April 10, 1912, for the anticipated seven day crossing from Southampton to New York City, Smith, White Star Line’s most senior captain –known as the “Millionaires’ Captain”– could not know, as he watched the coastline fade into the horizon, that he would never return to his wife and daughter in Southampton.
Opulence
The White Star Line, a prominent British shipping company founded in 1845, faced an increasing challenge from its main rival Cunard, which had adopted a policy of speed for its recently launched ships the Lusitania and the Mauretania – the fastest passenger ships then in service. The man who built the Titanic, Joseph Bruce Ismay, an English businessman who served as chairman and managing director of the White Star Line, proposed construction of a ship with opulent interiors. If they were not going to be able to rival Cunard for speed, Ismay reasoned, they would make up for it in grandiose and luxury. “Build them at whatever cost.”
Negligence
Titanic boasted the most powerful radio telegraph system of any ship in the world in 1912, and it was put to extensive use by the ship’s telegraph operators Harold Bride and Jack Philips. This was even more so the case on the foreboding Sunday, the 14th, as a backlog of telegraphs existed from the previous evening in which the radio was out of action for a number of hours due to a malfunction.
The weight of telegraphs going out from Titanic seemed to override the six messages it had received from nearby ships about iceberg sightings in the area. They did not seem of major concern to many including Captain Smith who shared this information with the ship’s owner Ismay and posted one in the bridge for crew to see.
By 9:30 p.m. the radio room had made contact with mainland America and had a backlog of telegraphs to communicate to the United States. At this point Bride made a fateful decision not to pass on an ice warning from the nearby steamer Mesaba warning the titanic of pack ice and large bergs.
Jack Phillips, who had now taken over from Bride, was still working furiously in the telegraph room when at around 10:40 pm he received a very emphatic message from the liner Californian. “Say, Old man, we are stopped and surrounded by ice.” The stressed and tired Phillips abruptly cut him off stating he was busy.
After receiving the curt message the S.S. California radio operator turned off the ship’s radio and retired for the night. The stage was now set for certain disaster. Captain Smith sailed headlong into a known danger area at full speed with less than adequate lookout, while he, himself retired for the night after dining with the more prestigious passengers under a moonless yet starry sky.
Polar explorer Sir Earnest Shakelton was consulted as an expert witness during the investigation following the chain of events and decisions that led to the disaster. Shakelton stated, “Ordinary precaution would be to slow down. You have no right to go at that speed in an ice zone.” Enigmatically, Shakelton would, himself, encounter disaster three years after the Titanic’s sinking during his Imperial Trans- Antarctic Expedition when his ship, Endurance, became trapped in an ice flow and was slowly crushed before the shore parties could be landed (another story with a different outcome, however.)
At 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg immediately ahead of Titanic and alerted the bridge. It was too late; the starboard side of Titanic struck the iceberg, creating a series of holes below the waterline.
After striking the iceberg, the passengers began asking questions, all were told, “everything was under control,” despite the fact Titanic was taking on water. Less than 10 minutes after impact, water had risen 14ft. above the keel.
Distress signals were sent by wireless, rockets, and lamp, but none of the ships that responded were close enough to reach Titanic before she sank. The SS Californian, which was the last to have been in contact before the collision, saw Titanic’s flares but failed to assist.
The American and British Inquiries, made in the wake of the sinking, found the captain of the SS Californian’s actions that fateful night to be both unprofessional and negligible. The U.S. Senate inquiry was particularly critical of the vessel’s Captain, Stanley Lord, calling his inaction during the disaster “reprehensible”.
Those aboard Titanic were ill-prepared for such an emergency. The officers did not know how many they could safely put aboard the lifeboats and launched many of them barely half-full. Third-class passengers were largely left to fend for themselves, causing many of them to become trapped below decks as the ship filled with water.
At 2:20 a.m., Monday the 15th, two hours and 40 minutes after Titanic struck the iceberg, she was gone.
Arrogance
An editorial that appeared in the New York Times on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic suggested, “The way it sank held enough lessons about morality and choices to fuel an entire industry of movies and books. The ship’s passengers were segregated according to wealth and class, with the lowest level ultimately having the least chance of rescue.
Meanwhile, the hubris that created claims the ship was unsinkable hindered what could have been critical preparation time for an orderly evacuation, as many believed there was no real danger.” Captain Smith himself had declared in 1907 that he “could not imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.”
Had the SS Californian responded to Titanic’s distress calls, the lifeboats may have been adequate to ferry the passengers to safety as planned.
The Times editorial continued, “Those decisions were a microcosm of many of the decisions people have to make during a lifetime. They are the biggest reason the Titanic endures as a metaphor.”
Ignorance
“More than any other disaster, the sinking of the Titanic has worked its way into the culture in myriad ways over the last century. People with solutions that don’t really address a problem are said to be merely rearranging her deck chairs. Situations that are on a certain trajectory toward failure are said to have already struck the iceberg.”
I would proffer the proposed county budget is an iceberg looming on the horizon.
Next week:
Part 2: Distress Signals
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