Titanic: The Sinking
of the Great Ship.
Nichola Nesbitt
British passenger
liner that sank on her maiden voyage 14-15 April 1912. The largest vessel of
her time, she was sailing from Southampton to New York when she stuck an
iceberg in the North Atlantic. About 1,500 people were drowned. The disaster
resulted in international agreements on greater safety precautions at sea. In
1985 the wreck of the Titanic was located on the ocean floor.
The Titanic was one
of the largest ships in the world at the start of the 20th century. It
had a huge carrying capacity of 46,329 tons, and when fully laden the ship
weighed 66,000 tons. The Titanic was 882.5 feet [269km] long and 92.5 feet
[28.2m] wide. It was built and designed 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 sixteen compartments that were presumed
watertight because four of these sixteen compartments could be flooded without endangering
the liners buoyancy. The ship was considered unsinkable.
The weather on the
day of the departure was good, according to the official weather report. There
was a ‘smooth sea and moderate south-westerly winds’, so it was prefect for
crossing. It was an exciting day for all, especially for who had the
opportunity to scroll upon the sheltered promenade decks of the 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 the Titanic for her
maiden voyage was E. J. Smith. His career was long before this voyage as he had
already sailed over two million miles for the White Star Line and they had complete
confidence in him, entrusting him with the command and in control of their best
and newest ships. This was to be his last voyage before he would retire and he
seems to have taken special steps to ensure that the journey would be safe and
pleasurable.
The Titanic left
Southampton harbour soon after noon. At this time her siren boomed out and
those making the crossing to New York were escorted to the ship. With a distant
roar the engines began to turn, inch by inch and the gap between the quay and
the black hull widened. The Titanic was pulled and pushed by the tugs Neptune, Hector, Vulcan, Hercules, Albert
Edward, and Ajax, came out of the White Star dock. The crowds ran down
towards the ocean quays to wave the ship
off. One eyewitness said, “she had got underway beautifully. It is doubtful
whether the Olympic has ever cleared the new dock in such a splendid manner as
the Titanic on this occasion.”[1]
An early disaster
nearly struck the liner. At this stage the displacement of 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 her mooring. “Tug boats attempted
to get a line on the American liner and the Captain 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 few inches. Geoff Tibballs writes, “it had been a near miss”.
After an hours delay the Titanic headed
towards Cherbourg, France, arriving there at 5:30 P.M. then at 8:10, the was ship
on her way to Queenstown, arriving there the next morning at 11:30 A.M. a
number of passengers boarded, and seven disembarked. 1385 bags of mail were
also thrown aboard. Then, for the last time, the Titanic lifted her anchor and
sailed out for New York.The last known picture of the ship was taken at this
time.
During the first day
of the Atlantic crossing “The Titanic sailed 386 miles, 519 on the second day
and over 546 miles on the third day”. All the passengers were eager to get to
New York as early as possible and the captain increased the speed of the ship
even more on the fourth day, which was the 14th April 1912. The
Titanic had been receiving ice reports from early on in the voyage and by
Sunday evening the liner had received several additional warnings including
some the Noordamm, Caronia, Baltic,
America, California and the Mesaba from.
At 10 P. M. Mr.
Lightroller, the ships second officer turned over the ship to the first officer
Mr. Murdoch, telling him that “the ship was within the region of reported ice”.
The temperature at this point was 32 degrees F, the sky cloudless and the air
clear that meant spotting an ice- berg would be very difficult. Also in
addition “The necessary vigilance was not helped by the lack of a pair of binoculars
in the crows nest”. Soon later the California sent a wireless message directly
to the Titanic telling them that they were surrounded by ice. The wireless
operator on the Titanic Jack Phillips was annoyed by the interruption in his work
replied “Shut up, shut up, I am very 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 sea. They immediately sounded the warning bell with three sharp
rings and telephoned the bridge “Iceberg right ahead”. Sixth officer Moody on
the bridge acknowledge the warning and relayed the message to Mr. Murdoch who
instinctively called “ Hard- A- Starboard” to the Helmsman and ordered full
astern. Murdoch then activated the lever to close all watertight doors below
the waterline. The Helmsman spun the wheel as far as possible. After several
seconds, the Titanic begins to veer to port, but the iceberg struck the
starboard bow side and brushed along the side of the ship and passed by into
the night. The impact, although jarring to the crew down in the forward area,
was not noticed by the passengers. “Thirty- seven seconds had passed from
sighting to collision”.
At 11:50 p.m.
Captain Smith asked the ship designer Thomas Andrews to conduct a visual
inspection of the damage. At this stage water had already poured in and had
risen by about fourteen feet in the front part of the ship and Andrews warned
that the ship would only stay afloat for maybe about an hour or an hour an a
half. Captain Smith ordered radio operators to send out the distress call. By
12:05 a.m. orders were given to uncover the lifeboats and to get all passengers
and crew ready on deck. But there was only enough room in the lifeboats for
about half of the estimated 2, 228 people on board. Twenty minutes later crew2
members began filling the boats with women and children. By 12:45 the first of
the lifeboats was safely lowered away. Each lifeboat could hold up to 65
people, but only pulled away from the Titanic with only carrying 28.
By 1:15 a.m. water
had began to rise more quickly and now reached up as far as 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 a half an hour most of the lifeboats
had been lowered. All passengers now moved towards the stern of the ship. 2:05
a.m. the last of the lifeboats departed. Now there were 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 Captain Smith
told crew members, “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 aft end of the Boat Deck. The ships band stopped playing
and many passengers and some crew jumped overboard. The Titanic’s forward
funnel collapsed at this point crushing a large number of swimming passengers.
At 12:18 a. m. items in the ship were heard crashing through walls and falling
toward the sinking bow. The lights of the ship blinked once and then went out.
Many 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 tilted its
end high into the air, before sinking 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
rescue ship rockets were sighted by the survivors in the lifeboats 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 advise you Titanic sank this
morning after collision with iceberg, resulting in serious loss of life. Full
particulars later”.
The world- wide
attention given to the discovery of the wreck of the Titanic located at a
“depth of 12,500 feet” by a Franco- American expedition led by Robert Ballard
in 1985 indicates that even now public curiosity in the tragedy shows every sign of remaining insatiable. Many
reasons have been given for this interest. It could be argued that the wreck of
the Titanic can be seen as one of the great epic tales of the 20th
century. For example Ballard 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 ice shattered popular early 20th 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 19th century. The 20th
century had begun but with a tragic start.
As a result of the
disaster, The First International Convention for safety of life at sea was
called in London in 1913. The convention drew up rules requiring that every
ship have a lifeboat space for each person embarked; that lifeboat drills will
be held during each voyage; and because The Californian
had not heard the distress signals of the Titanic,
that ships maintain a 24- hour radio watch. The international ice patrol also
was established to warn ships of icebergs in the North Atlantic shipping
lanes.On September 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. The ship, located at about 41 degrees 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 and sink the ship. In subsequent years marine salvagers
raised small artefacts from the wreckage and even attempted to lift a large
piece of hull.
Short Questions
Q1.Bibliography Wenborn, N. The 20th Century the Pictorial History. The Hamlin
Publishing Group Limited London, 1989.
Luck, S. Atlas Philip’s World and Encyclopaedia, George
Philip Limited. London, 1988.
Q2 Review.
One of the books that I used
for this project was the 20th
Century the Pictorial History. This book was published by The Hamlin
Publishing Group Limited in London in 1989.This was a good source of
information because:
1. It was written in a clear and
understandable way.
2. There were pictures,
photographs and bits of documents and
3. It had a good bibliography.
Q3 Why did this
topic merit study?
{1} The ship
was built in Ireland.
{2} It was
one of the greatest maritime disasters ever.
{3} While it
was a huge disaster and there is no mention of it in the Leaving Cert books.
Q4 Experiences /
Skills
I learned
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, i.e. how to write a bibliography
when and how to use footnotes.