- 9 hours ago
An examination of the sinking of the British ocean liner and possible reasons for why she sank so quickly.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.
00:15The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine.
00:26April 10, 1912.
00:28For RMS Titanic, it was her maiden voyage and her last.
00:35Just four days later, the ship everyone thought was unsinkable sailed at full speed into the perilous waters of the North Atlantic.
00:45An iceberg loomed up out of the dark, slicing a huge gash down her side.
00:51She took two and a half hours to sink.
00:54In the icy waters, 1,503 people died.
01:00Less than half that number were saved.
01:04Why did so many drown?
01:06Was the captain to blame?
01:07Or was this, the world's most notorious maritime disaster, a tragedy predestined in time?
01:15The precise point in the North Atlantic, where the Titanic went down, has never been satisfactorily located.
01:32On board were said to be hordes of treasure, some of it too valuable to be recorded on the ship's manifest.
01:43Gold bullion to pay for First World War armaments.
01:46A jeweled copy of the Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam.
01:52The personal belongings of no fewer than 57 millionaires who had chosen to sail on her.
01:58The upper decks of the Titanic, said a commentator, had a smell all of their own.
02:05A smell of perfume and of champagne and of wealth.
02:1112,000 feet beneath the forbidding sea, she is a prize and a challenge that many men have dreamed of recovering.
02:18Yet, her whereabouts remained unknown.
02:23In 1981, the Texas oil millionaire Jack Grimm went searching for her for the second year running.
02:30The search ship carried on board the most modern equipment that science could provide.
02:36Sonar detectors.
02:39Underwater cameras capable of operating in spectacular detail at depths no previous expedition had ever ventured.
02:48For so large a vessel, to vanish without trace is just one of the puzzles that have fascinated naval historians ever since her fated voyage.
02:58She was thought by the world at large to be unsinkable.
03:02The flagship of the White Star Line, she was the largest luxury liner ever built.
03:09She was the technological masterpiece of her time.
03:12Just as no expense was spared on her hull, her fittings were of surpassing luxury.
03:19First-class passengers could enjoy cabins with ornate carvings and plush furnishings.
03:24A lavish menu.
03:35Silk sheets adorned some beds.
03:38A maid's room adjoined each suite.
03:41Nothing was too good.
03:43Only a few pitiful human reminders were salvaged from the wreckage.
03:49The discharge book of the lookout seaman who spotted the fateful iceberg too late.
03:58The life vest that carried Mrs. John Jacob Astor, the wife of one of the millionaires, to safety.
04:05Her husband, like most men, chose to stay on board and die like a gentleman.
04:10A champagne cork from an early evening celebration.
04:16A deck chair washed into the icy waters and picked up by one of the rescue ships.
04:22The handkerchief of one of the survivors.
04:27A strangely unlucky sequence of events put the Titanic on course for disaster.
04:32The captain knew that there was ice in the area and steered eight miles further south than planned in order to miss it.
04:42The lights on the foredeck were dimmed to give the lookouts a better view.
04:47The night was eerily calm.
04:49Well, the first thing you usually see of an iceberg is the glint from the crystallized surface.
04:58And you see this long before you see the actual berg itself.
05:00You see a kind of glow.
05:02On this occasion, probably, the iceberg had just fallen over so that it wasn't showing a crystallized side.
05:11It was showing a side that had been under the water for a long time and was totally dark.
05:15So there was no swell, no sea, no ripples around the berg.
05:19Nothing to see at all.
05:21Just a dark shadow on the water.
05:23Immediately, three warning bells were rung.
05:29The huge ship was steered hard to port in a desperate attempt to miss the berg.
05:37Lewis Gorman of the Titanic Historical Society explains what happened next.
05:43A spur of the iceberg, and as most people know, an iceberg is more below the water than above.
05:49And the spur ripped the ship below the water line, approximately from the bow to number one, below number one funnel,
06:02opening up these compartments in this area.
06:06Now, the watertight compartments in the ship are vertical.
06:10And what happened is that the forward compartments were opened.
06:15As they filled with water, the law of physics took over here, and the weight distribution changed, and the ship began to tilt.
06:29Had the ship hit the berg head-on, she would not have sunk.
06:32She would have absorbed it in maybe the first two compartments, and she would have maintained her floatability.
06:39However, this did not happen, and the spur of the iceberg acted as a big razor blade opening up the compartments.
06:48As this happened, they did not realize, of course, the passengers, the extent of the damage.
06:55This was such a large and well-built ship that it felt just like a jar.
07:02Eyewitnesses' account tell us that many people didn't realize it.
07:07It was only as the ship began to settle, as things began to slide, as water in the glasses began to slam,
07:14that you realized that something was amiss.
07:18One of the few survivors of the tragedy alive today was seven years old at the time,
07:24traveling on the Titanic with her mother and father.
07:27Eva Hart has a vivid memory of that night.
07:31The greatest tragedy about the Titanic is the fact that she hadn't enough lifeboats.
07:35If she'd had enough lifeboats, no-one would have died.
07:38And so it was just a question of the people who were on deck first,
07:42people who were there in plenty of time, got a seat in a lifeboat, their lives were saved,
07:48and because my mother was wide awake and fully dressed, we were up on deck right away.
07:54My mother said it was such a little bump that it reminded her of a train pulling up.
08:01You see, we were on the port side of the ship,
08:03and this tremendous gash was on the starboard side of the ship,
08:07and it certainly wasn't enough to wait.
08:09My father went up on deck as she made him go, and he came back, and he came back and said to her,
08:18you'd better put on this very thick coat of mine, and I'll put on another one.
08:23Which he did, he put this thick coat on her, and he put another coat on himself,
08:27and he picked me up out of my bed, and wrapped a blanket round me, and carried me up onto the deck.
08:35And people were milling about up there.
08:37My father said to my mother,
08:39now stand here by this lifeboat, and whatever anyone may say to you, don't move.
08:45And we stood there, and gradually people came thronging onto the deck,
08:48and there seemed to be people rushing about, and to my recollection, a tremendous amount of noise.
08:54And he did come back and say, no, they weren't going to launch the boats.
09:00And then he went away again, and came back and said,
09:04yes, they are going to launch the boats, but it's only a quick coat.
09:07One of the officers tells me, you'll probably be back on board for breakfast.
09:14And anyway, they launched the boats, and my father put my mother and I in.
09:20He helped other women and children, and he made no attempt at all to get in.
09:24And we fortunate people who were on deck in time, were saved.
09:30The uppers had two and a half hours in which to wait to die,
09:34knowing that there was no means of saving.
09:37Well, quite the most terrifying thing that I think, the thing that I can't even bear to think about now,
09:48is the sound of people drowning.
09:50When they finally were all in the water, the ship went under the water, all of which we saw, and I was wide awake.
09:57The terrible sound of people drowning, yet nothing could describe it.
10:03Fifteen hundred and three people falling into icy water and screaming and drowning, and the noise of hissing steam.
10:13That was very prevalent.
10:14And one day when I was older, I was saying something about it to my mother, and I said,
10:19oh, that terrible noise.
10:21And she said to me, yes, and a terrible silence that followed it.
10:26And it hit me then, I realized that it did.
10:29It seemed as if everything in the world stood still after that moment.
10:38Gradually, the full and terrible extent of the tragedy became known.
10:43While mourners grieved, newspapers started asking questions.
10:48Who was to blame?
10:50Why were there so few survivors?
10:52The hunt for a scapegoat began.
10:55The world was stunned by the tragedy of the Titanic.
11:00And ever since, writers have tried to piece together the causes of the disaster.
11:08At an inquiry headed by Lord Mersey, vital questions were asked, one by one.
11:14I understand the Titanic was engaged in a race to beat the speed record across the Atlantic.
11:19Is this true?
11:20She was not, as some people surmise, trying to break the speed record for the North Atlantic.
11:25She was not that fast.
11:27The Titanic received at least four warnings of icebergs in the area.
11:31Why did she ignore them?
11:33The fourth and most dramatic warning came about dinner time.
11:37This was of icebergs and growler ice right in the path that she was taking.
11:43Now, there's a lot of doubt whether this ever got to the bridge.
11:47At the time, the Titanic's radio officer was sending personal messages to the shore
11:54from the passengers expecting to get ashore the following day, etc.
11:59And probably this message, this vital message, never got to the bridge.
12:03Everyone thought the Titanic was unsinkable. Why then did she sink?
12:09No marine architect would say such a ship is unsinkable.
12:13However, by the standards of design at the time, it was the best designed ship in terms of compartmentation and floatability.
12:22Knowing there was ice in the area, why did Captain Smith not slow down or even stop like other liners in the area?
12:28Quite simply because it was the custom of the White Star and most of the other crack transatlantic liners
12:36to get their passengers to the other side without stopping if they could avoid it.
12:40They did so because they knew that with a good lookout they could see icebergs
12:45and unless the visibility was bad, they didn't stop.
12:49So the Titanic didn't stop and it is only with hindsight that you might ask why did she not stop or slow down.
12:55How carefully did the crew look for icebergs? Can they be charged with carelessness or negligence?
13:03In those days there was no such thing as radar.
13:06The only procedure was extra lookouts, for example.
13:12In the forward lookout, two lookout men were set.
13:16All precautions that could be taken, apart from stopping the ship, were in fact taken.
13:23The lights on the foredeck were dimmed so they wouldn't dazzle the lookouts.
13:27The lookouts were warned to look out for ice.
13:31Every witness agrees that with enough lifeboats, every single person on the Titanic could have been saved.
13:36Why then were there so few lifeboats?
13:40The Board of Trade, which governed the life-saving accommodation on British ships in those days,
13:47believed that if she had enough watertight compartments, they needn't have enough lifeboats,
13:54needn't have more lifeboats than a certain minimum number.
13:56So, was no one to blame?
14:00With 1,503 people drowned, the inquiry had to come up with an explanation.
14:06The judgment was that a nearby ship, the Californian, had failed to come to the rescue quickly enough.
14:12Her captain, Stanley Lord, was censured.
14:15But ever since, there has been a fight to clear his name.
14:17Mystery still surrounds the part that the Californian played.
14:23Her radio operator, it is said, was asleep at the time.
14:27Her logbook shows she was stationary among the icebergs.
14:31Captain Lord was inexperienced in such conditions.
14:35But could she have seen the distress signals from the Titanic and failed to answer them?
14:40This was the crime for which Captain Lord was pronounced guilty.
14:43As the survivors bobbed about in their lifeboats waiting to be rescued,
14:49undoubtedly, a ship of some sort approached.
14:52I saw a ship, which seemed to me to be quite close by,
14:56close enough to see all her ports and the lights on her deck,
15:00and definitely not moving.
15:02And it seemed so close.
15:04And I can remember crying for a long time and saying,
15:07why doesn't that ship come to us?
15:09It wasn't big compared with the Titanic, because she was very big.
15:13But certainly it was a ship and the outline of the ship and all the lights on it.
15:18Not just some lights on the horizon.
15:21But was this ship the Californian?
15:24Peter Padfield, having examined the evidence from both the British and American inquiries into the disaster,
15:30thinks Captain Lord was made a scapegoat.
15:32To my mind, the evidence is conclusive.
15:35It could not have been Captain Lord, because when the Titanic sank,
15:40none of the lookouts or the officers on the watch of the Titanic could see any ships in the vicinity.
15:46Subsequently, while they were getting the boats down, a ship did appear, came towards the Titanic,
15:55until she was as close as five miles, and you could see her side lights,
15:59and then she turned and went away again.
16:02The evidence is conclusive that the Californian was stopped during the whole night.
16:07And therefore, that single fact, apart from many others,
16:11convinces me that it couldn't possibly have been the Captain of the Californian.
16:15The dispute is basically about the relative position of the two ships.
16:20According to the inquiry, the Californian was no more than five miles away,
16:25and should easily have seen the distress signals.
16:28But in the confusion that followed the collision with the iceberg,
16:32did the Titanic's signals officer make a mistake?
16:35He worked out a position by dead reckoning, based on a star sighting six hours before.
16:42He did not allow for drift.
16:43The currents in that part of the North Atlantic are powerful.
16:48Allowing for drift, it's possible that the Titanic and the Californian
16:53would have been separated by at least 20 miles,
16:56and the distress signals impossible to see.
16:59The matter could be settled once and for all,
17:02if a search expedition could pinpoint the actual position of the Titanic.
17:07So far, this has not happened,
17:09as the chief scientist of the 1981 vessel admitted.
17:14The one interesting thing is where the Titanic,
17:17this is where the Titanic hit the iceberg, okay?
17:20The current was drifting in this direction,
17:22and here is where they picked up the survivors hours later.
17:25You can see we have quite a few anomalies in that particular area.
17:28The scientists can't tell for sure if it's a man-made object or geological.
17:35There is considerable doubt about whether the Titanic is still intact.
17:39Charles Haas of the Titanic Historical Society explains the possibilities.
17:44Many survivors' accounts report that there was a loud, roaring, rumbling noise,
17:51as if everything in the ship had broken loose and had crashed down to the bow.
17:56In fact, this was probably the ship's boilers.
17:59There were 29 of them, and each one weighed 90 tons,
18:02plus the ship's engines weighing hundreds of tons.
18:04And all of this tremendous weight plummeted down towards the bow,
18:09crashing and smashing its way through everything,
18:12until it probably exited right through the bow of the ship.
18:15Once the ship achieved an equilibrium,
18:19it then settled back slightly and plunged downward underwater.
18:24Now, there are two theories as to what became of the ship.
18:26The first was that she continued in a nose-down position until she finally hit the bottom,
18:32striking somewhere at a speed of 30 to 50 miles an hour.
18:36The other theory said that the Titanic sank like a leaf,
18:41in that she moved back and forth through the water
18:45and suffered less damage when she finally hit the bottom.
18:50It is on record that a number of passengers cancelled their reservations,
18:54seemingly foreseeing disaster.
18:57It was an extraordinary coincidence that she should sink on her maiden voyage,
19:02and that she should strike an iceberg below the waterline
19:05in the only way that made her vulnerable.
19:08Eva Hart's story of her mother's premonition of disaster
19:12is just one of many similar tales.
19:15My father made up his mind to cut his losses here,
19:19and to go to Canada.
19:20Well, he booked a first-class passage for us in the ship called Philadelphia.
19:26Now, from the very moment that this had been decided,
19:30my mother had an extraordinary premonition,
19:35something she'd never had in her life before, never had again.
19:39Then came the day I heard my father say to her very cross,
19:41and I wouldn't mind quite so much if you told me what it is, you're so frightened of.
19:46And she said, I couldn't tell you, I don't know.
19:48But I know it's a fatal thing for us to do, we just mustn't go.
19:52And then came the news that we couldn't sail in the Philadelphia,
19:56because there was a dock strike, and I really think my mother thought that was more or less a reprieve.
20:01But not my father.
20:03And one day, to his immense joy, we were told that if we paid some extra money,
20:08we could go second-class in the Titanic.
20:12The largest ship in the world.
20:14And then and only then did my mother say, well, now I know I am frightened.
20:21And he said, why are you frightened?
20:24And she said, because they say this ship is unsinkable,
20:28and that is flying in the face of God.
20:31They will never get there.
20:33And she was so right.
20:36And never again in her life did she have premonition.
20:39But to that premonition, I owe my life.
20:43Because my mother never went to bed in that ship.
20:46She slept in the daytime and sat up at night.
20:50The story of the Titanic is one that raises more questions than it answers.
20:55Where exactly was she lost?
20:57Will we ever find out?
20:59What was the mystery ship that sailed so close to her in the night?
21:04A radio operator asleep.
21:06An ice warning that never reached the bridge.
21:10A collision that struck where the Titanic was most vulnerable.
21:14Could this set of circumstances be entirely accident?
21:20As a result of the Titanic tragedy,
21:23the United States Coast Guard runs an international ice patrol.
21:27And all transatlantic liners use a more southerly route.
21:29Perhaps it's a small consolation for the relatives of the 1,503 people who died on that cold April night.
21:38The United States Coast Guard
21:41The United States Coast Guard
21:42Coming up next, In Search Of continues with a probe into the claim that the sinking of the Lusitania was part of a plot to engage the U.S. in World War I.
21:55Then 20th Century with Mike Wallace reports on child abuse scandals.
21:59And later tonight, Haydn's head and Liberace's piano turn up along with Charlie Chaplin's shoes on Histories Lost and Found at 8 here on the History Channel, where the past comes alive.
22:10On the History Channel, where the past comes in at 8 here to be labeled as an animal.
22:11He now has put all the time to pieces of the Coast Guard during the培мо listing.
22:12Backline'sBI Jersey
Be the first to comment