BY

Keith Mc Donald

The history of the Titanic can be traced back as far as 1907 when J. Bruce Ismay and Lord James Pirrie, a partner in the firm Harland and Wolff, met at a dinner party. Plans were made to build two luxury ships, the Olympic and the Titanic each costing one and a half million pounds. Between 1908 and 1909, construction of both ships began in Belfast at Harland and Wolff shipyards. By May 31st 1911 the hull of the Titanic was successfully launched. Then ten months of fitting was to follow. The boat was completed by March 31 and was due to set sail on April 10th.

The TITANIC was one of the largest and most luxurious ships in the world. It had a gross registered tonnage {i.e., carrying capacity} of 46,329 tons, and when fully laden the ship displaced {weighed} 66,000tons. The TITANIC was 882.5 feet {269km} long and 92.5 feet {28.2m} wide at its widest point. It was designed and built by William Pierre s Belfast firm Harland and Wolff to service the highly competitive Atlantic ferry route. It had a double-bottomed hull divided into 16 compartments that were presumed to be watertight. Because four of these could be flooded without endangering the liners buoyancy, it was considered unsinkable.

According to the official report, the weather on the departure day was good. There was a "smooth sea and moderate south-westerly winds", perfect for the crossing. It was a day of excitement for all, especially those who had the incredible opportunity o scroll upon the sheltered promenade decks of the ship seventy feet above the water. The newspaper report of the time state that "mass hysteria filled Liverpool harbour as the British luxury passenger liner embarked on its long awaited journey to New York". The captain on board for the maiden voyage was E. J. Smith. His career was long and before this voyage he had sailed over two million miles for the White Star Line and they had complete confidence in him, entrusting him with the command of their best and newest ships. This was to be his last voyage before his retirement and he seems to have "taken special steps to ensure that it would be both safe and pleasurable".

The Titanic did not leave Southampton harbour until soon after noon. At this time her siren boomed out and those making this luxury crossing were escorted to the ship. With a distant tremor the engines began to turn, inch by inch the gap between the black hull and the quay widened. It was at this point that an early disaster nearly struck the liner. The displacement of such a large volume of water in an enclosed space combined with the effect of an offshore breeze caused a moored liner The New York to snap her mooring. As tug boats frantically attempted to get a line on the American liner Captain Smith cut out his port engines to halt the swing of the other ship. The New York's stern cleared the Titanic port quarter by a matter of inches. As Geoff Tibballs writes, "it had been a near miss".

By 6.30pm, the ship had arrived at Cherbourg and in less than two hours had set sail for Queenstown. She arrived there at 1.30 p.m. on April 11th and anchored of Roche's point. Francis Browne, a Jesuit seminarian, disembarked and took the last known photograph of the Titanic for the next 73 years.

During the first day of the Atlantic crossing "the Titanic sailed 286 miles, the second day 519 and the third day over 546 miles". All the passengers were eager to get to New York as early as possible and the captain increased the speed even more the fourth day, which was 14 April 1912. Ice reports had been received by the Titanic from as early in the voyage as Friday 12th and Sunday evening the liner had already received seven additional warnings including some from the Noordamm, Caronia, Baltic, Amerika, California and the Mesaba.

At 10 p.m. Mr. Lightroller, the ships second officer turned over the ship to Mr. Murdoch, the first officer telling him that "the ship was within the region of the reported ice". At this point, the temperature was 32F; the sky cloudless and the air clear which meant that spotting any iceberg would be extremely difficult. In addition "the necessary vigilance was not helped by the lack of a pair of binoculars in the crows nest". At 10:50 p.m. The Californian sent a wireless message directly to the Titanic telling them that they were stopped and surrounded by ice. Jack Phillips the wireless operator on the Titanic irritated by the interruption in his work replied " shut up , shut up, I am busy" .

At 11:39 the ship was moving at a speed of 20.5 knots when lookouts, Fredrick Fleet and Reginald lee, spotted an iceberg dead ahead about 500 yards away towering some 55-60 feet above the water. They immediately sounded the warning bell with three sharp rings and telephoned the bridge." Iceberg right ahead". sixth officer moody on the bridge acknowledged the warning and relayed the message to Murdoch who instinctively called "hard-a-starboard" to the helmsman and ordered the engine room to stop engines and then ordered full astern. Murdoch then activated the lever to close all watertight doors below the waterline. The helmsman spun the wheel as far as it would go. After several seconds, the Titanic begins to veer to port, but the iceberg struck the starboard bow side, brushed along the side of the ship, and passed by into the night. The impact, jarring to the crew down in the forward area, was not noticed by many of the passengers." Thirty-seven seconds had passed from sighting to collision".

At 11:50 p.m. Captain Smith asked designer Thomas Andrews to conduct a visual inspection of the damage. Water at this stage had poured in the risen fourteen feet in the front of the ship can only stay afloat "for an hour or an hour and a half". Smith ordered radio operators, Harold Bride and Jack Phillips to send out the distress call. By 12:05 a.m. orders were given to uncover the lifeboats and to get the passengers and crew ready on deck. However, there was only enough room in the lifeboats for about half of the estimated 2,228 people on board. Twenty minutes later crewmembers began loading the lifeboats with women and children. By 12:45 the first of the lifeboats was safely lowered away. It could have carried 65 people but pulled away from the Titanic carrying only 28.

By 1:15 a.m. water began to reach the Titanic’s name on the bow and the tilt of the deck grew increasingly steeper. Lifeboats now started to leave more fully loaded. Within half an hour most of the forward lifeboats have been lowered. Passengers now moved towards the stern of the ship. At 2:05 a.m. the last lifeboat departed. There were now over 1,500 people left on board the sinking ship with the tilt of the decks growing steeper by the minute. At this stage Phillips sent the last radio message and Capt. Smith told crewmembers, " It’s every man for himself". He returned to the bridge to await the end. Thomas Andrews, the ship’s builder, was seen alone in the first-class smoking room staring into space.

As the Titanic’s bow plunged under, Father Thomas Byles heard confession and gave absolution to over one hundred second and third class passengers gathered at the aft end of the boat deck. The ships band stopped playing and many passengers and crew jumped overboard. However the Titanic’s forward funnel collapsed at this point crushing a number of swimming passengers. At 2:18 a.m. items in the ship were heard crashing through walls and falling toward the sinking bow. The ship’s lights blinked once and then went out. Several survivors saw the ship break in two with the bow section sinking first. Two minutes later the Titanic’s broken off stern section settled back into the water, becoming level for a few moments. Slowly it filled with water, tilting its end high into the air, before sinking vertically into the sea. Those struggling in the icy water slowly froze to death with over 1,500 people perishing.

By 3:30 a.m., the survivor in the lifeboats sighted the rescue ship rockets and within forty minutes, the first lifeboat was picked up. By 8.50 a.m. the Carpathia left the area bound for New York, carrying 705 survivors. J Bruce Ismay wired the White Star New York offices with the following message "Deeply regret advice you Titanic sank this morning after collision with iceberg, resulting in serious loss of life. Full particulars later".

On Sept. 1, 1985, the wreck of the titanic was found lying upright in two pieces on the ocean floor at a depth of about 13,000 feet (4,000 m). The ship, located at about 41degrees 46’ N 50 degrees 14’ W, was subsequently explored several times by manned and unmanned submersibles under the direction of American and French scientists. The expeditions found no sign of the long gash previously thought to have been ripped in the ship’s hull by the iceberg. The scientists posited instead that the collision’s impact had produced a series of thin gashes as well as brittle fracturing and separation of seams in the adjacent hull plates, thus allowing water to flood in ad sink the ship. In subsequent years marine salvagers raised small artifacts from the wreckage and even attempted to lift a large piece of the hull.

Public curiosity in the tragedy not only survives intact but also shows every sign of remaining insatiable. Many reasons have been given for this interest. It could be argued that the wreck of the Titanic could be seen as one of the great epic tales of the 20^th century. Ballard, for example, feels that "in the popular imagination the events of the night of April 14, 1912, have distilled themselves into a powerful morality play about overweening pride leading inevitably to a tragic fall" In the aftermath of the disaster it could be argued that the destruction of the ship by a spur of ice shattered popular early 20^th century faith in the supremacy of technology, progress and privilege. In retrospect it can be argued that the utter failure of this "unsinkable" machine and its representation of society symbolised in many the end of the 19^th century. The 20^th century had begun but with a tragic start.

Short Questions

I learnt many new skills while doing research for this essay.

These skills include:

• I learnt how to read many sources before trying to write an essay.

• I know a lot about Microsoft Word and how to use the footnotes and how to format text.

• I have learnt the skill of historical writing, ie how to write a bibliography when and how to use footnotes.

1. Review

While doing my research topic I become aware that to read just one book, would lead to the essay being one sided.

The way I did this was to read widely from books, up Internet, and Encarta.

Bibliography.

Ballard R.D. The Discovery of the Titanic, Time Warner books, Canada 1987.

Gardiner, R and Van Der Vat, The Riddle of the Titanic Weidenfield and Nicolson, London, 1995

Tresh, P. Titanic, Magma Books, London, 1992

Tibballs, G. THE Titanic: The Extraordinary Story of the Unsinkable Ship, Carlton Books London, 1997

Internet resources.