The Titanic (RMS Titanic) is a British steamer of the White Star Line, the second of three Olympic-class twin steamers. The largest passenger liner in the world at the time of its construction. During the first voyage on April 14, 1912, she collided with an iceberg and sank at 2:20 am the next day - 2 hours and 40 minutes after the collision. There were 1,309 passengers and 898 crew members on board, for a total of 2,207 people. Of these, 712 people were saved, 1495 died. The Titanic disaster became legendary, several feature films were shot based on its plot.

Laid down March 31, 1909 at the shipyards of the Harland and Wolf shipbuilding company in Queens Island (English) (Belfast, Northern Ireland), launched on May 31, 1911. In addition to the fact that at the time of its construction, the Titanic was the largest passenger liner, it took a record amount of fat, locomotive oil and liquid soap to lubricate the gangway guides to launch the ship - 23 tons. The ship passed sea trials on April 2, 1912. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the ship, the Titanic Museum was opened at the Harland and Wolf shipyard.

titanic: the whole truth about the sunken ship

Technical characteristics of the liner

Gross tonnage 46,328 registered tons, displacement 52,310 tons with a draft of 10.54 m (many sources indicate a displacement of 66 thousand tons, but this is not true.

Length 269 m, width 28.19 m, distance from the waterline to the boat deck 18.4 m.

Height from the keel to the tops of the pipes - 52.4 m;
Engine room - 29 boilers, 159 coal furnaces;
The unsinkability of the ship was ensured by 15 watertight bulkheads in the hold, creating 16 conditionally watertight compartments; the space between the bottom and the flooring of the second bottom was divided by transverse and longitudinal partitions into 46 watertight compartments.
Maximum speed 23 knots.

Watertight bulkheads, marked from bow to stern with the letters "A" to "P", rose from the second bottom and passed through 4 or 5 decks: the first 2 and the last 5 reached deck "D", 8 bulkheads in the center of the liner reached only the deck "E". All bulkheads were so strong that they had to withstand significant pressure when getting a hole.

The Titanic was built to stay afloat if any 2 of its 16 watertight compartments, any 3 of the first 5 compartments, or all of the first 4 compartments were flooded.

First 2 bulkheads

in the bow and the last in the stern were solid, in all the rest there were sealed doors that allowed the crew and passengers to move between compartments. On the flooring of the second bottom, in the bulkhead "K", there were the only doors that led to the cooling chamber. On decks "F" and "E" in almost all bulkheads there were airtight doors connecting the rooms used by passengers, all of them could be battened down both remotely and manually, using a device located directly on the door and from the deck that reached bulkhead. To batten down such doors on the passenger decks, a special key was required, which was available only to the senior stewards. But on deck "G" there were no doors in the bulkheads.

In bulkheads "D" - "O

”, Directly above the second bottom in the compartments where the machines and boilers were located, there were 12 vertically closed doors, they were controlled from the navigation bridge with the help of an electric drive. In case of danger or accident, or when the captain or watch officer deemed it necessary, the electromagnets, on a signal from the bridge, released the latches, and all 12 doors lowered under the influence of their own gravity and the space behind them turned out to be hermetically closed. If the doors were closed by an electric signal from the bridge, then it was possible to open them only after removing the voltage from the electric drive.

In the ceiling of each compartment was a spare hatch, usually leading to the boat deck. Those who did not have time to leave the room before the doors closed could climb its iron ladder.

British Code of Navigation requirements

In formal accordance with the current requirements of the British Merchant Shipping Code, the ship had 20 lifeboats, which were enough to board 1178 people, that is, for 50% of the people who were on board at that moment and 30% of the planned load. 65 people were placed in one boat, but the sailors of the Titanic in the first minutes after the collision sent boats with only 20 passengers. The chief engineer of the ship, seeing this, told the sailors that 65 people fit in the boat. The team did not agree, fearing that the boat might not withstand the overload. Only after the engineer convinced the team of the reliability of the boats (which, according to the results of all checks, could withstand the weight of 70 adult men), the boats began to fill up completely. There were also "collapsible boats" used by some officers (Charles Lightoller was one of them).

The Titanic had 8 steel decks

Located one above the other at a distance of 2.5-3.2 m. The top one was a boat, under it there were 7 others, indicated from top to bottom with letters from “A” to “G”. Only decks "C", "D", "E" and "F" ran the entire length of the vessel. The boat deck and the "A" deck did not reach either the bow or the stern, and the "G" deck was located only in the front of the liner - from the boiler rooms to the bow and in the aft - from the engine room to the stern cut. On the open boat deck there were 20 lifeboats, along the sides there were promenade decks.
Deck "A" with a length of 167 m was almost entirely intended for first-class passengers.

Deck "B"

170 m long was interrupted in the bow, forming an open space above deck "C", and then continued in the form of a 38-meter bow superstructure with anchor handling equipment and a mooring device. In front of deck "C" there were anchor winches for 2 main side anchors, there was also a galley and a dining room for sailors and stokers. Behind the bow superstructure there was a promenade (the so-called inter-superstructure) deck for third-class passengers 15 m long. On deck “D” there was another, isolated, third-class promenade deck. Along the entire length of deck "E" were the cabins of passengers of the first and second classes, as well as the cabins of the stewards and mechanics. In the first part of deck "F" there were 64 cabins for passengers of the second class and the main living quarters for passengers of the third, stretching for 45 m and occupying the entire width of the liner. There were 2 large salons, a dining room for third-class passengers, a swimming pool and a Turkish bath complex.

G-deck

captured only the bow and stern, between which the boiler rooms were located. The forward part of the deck, 58 m long, was 2 m above the waterline, gradually lowered towards the center of the liner and at the opposite end was already at the level of the waterline. There were 26 cabins for 106 third class passengers, the rest of the area was occupied by the luggage compartment for first class passengers, post offices and a squash court with a gallery for spectators. Behind the bow of the deck there were coal bunkers, which occupied 6 watertight compartments around the chimneys, followed by 2 compartments with steam pipes for reciprocating steam engines and a turbine compartment. This was followed by the aft part of the deck 64 m long with warehouses, pantries and 60 four-berth cabins for 186 third-class passengers, which was already below the waterline.

Titanic Size Comparison

Size comparison of the Titanic with modern cruise ship Queen Mary 2, Airbus A-380, bus, car and person.
One was aft, the other was on the forecastle, each was steel with a teak top. On the front, at a height of 29 m from the waterline, there was a mars platform (“crow's nest”), which could be reached by an internal metal ladder.

Description

In front of the boat deck there was a navigation bridge, 58 m away from the bow. On the bridge there was a wheelhouse with a steering wheel and a compass, immediately behind it was a room where navigation charts were stored. To the right of the wheelhouse were the navigational cabin, the captain's cabin and part of the officers' cabins, to the left - the rest of the officers' cabins. Behind them, behind the front funnel, was the cabin of the radiotelegraph and the cabin of the radio operator. In front of deck "D" there were living quarters for 108 stokers, a special spiral ladder connected this deck directly to the boiler rooms, so that stokers could leave for work and return without passing by the cabins or saloons for passengers. In front of deck "E" there were living quarters for 72 loaders and 44 sailors. In the first part of the "F" deck there were quarters of 53 stokers of the third shift. Deck G contained quarters for 45 stokers and oilers. The abbreviation "RMS" in the name "Titanic" literally means "Royal Mail Ship". The ship had a standard ocean post office (Transatlantic Post Office) and a mail depot on decks F and G, staffed by 5 postal employees who were considered British civil servants. The postmaster was O. C. Woody. The Titanic Post Office had a standard calendar postmark with "Transatlantic Post Office 7" all around. This stamp was used to cancel postage stamps on letters and postcards sent from the Titanic, as well as to register registered letters in transit delivered to the Titanic from Southampton, Cherbourg and Queenstown.

Second bottom

located about one and a half meters above the keel and occupied 9/10 of the length of the vessel, not capturing only small areas in the bow and stern. On the second day, boilers, reciprocating steam engines, a steam turbine and electric generators were installed, all firmly fixed on steel plates, the remaining space was used for cargo, coal and drinking water tanks. In the engine room section, the second bottom rose 2.1 m above the keel, which increased the protection of the liner in case of damage to the outer skin.
Power of steam engines and turbines

Screws "Olympic" before launching. Identical were on the Titanic
The registered power of steam engines and turbines was 50 thousand liters. With. (actually 55 thousand hp). The turbine was located in the fifth watertight compartment in the stern of the liner, in the next compartment, closer to the bow, steam engines were located, the other 6 compartments were occupied by twenty-four double-flow and five single-flow boilers that produced steam for the main machines, turbines, generators and auxiliary mechanisms. The diameter of each boiler was 4.79 m, the length of the double-flow boiler was 6.08 m, the single-flow boiler was 3.57 m. Each double-flow boiler had 6 fireboxes, and the single-flow boiler had 3. In addition, the Titanic was equipped with four auxiliary machines with generators, each with a capacity of 400 kilowatts, generating electricity at a voltage of 100 volts. Next to them were two more 30-kilowatt generators. High-pressure steam from the boilers went to 2 triple expansion steam engines, which rotated the side propellers. From the machines, the steam then entered the low-pressure turbine, which drove the middle propeller. From the turbine, the exhaust steam entered the condensers, from where fresh water went back to the boilers in a closed cycle. The Titanic developed a decent speed for its time, although it was inferior to the competitor's turbo ships - Cunard Line.

The liner had 4 ellipsoid tubes

The size of 7.3 × 6 m, height - 18.5 m. The first three removed smoke from the boiler furnaces, the fourth, located above the turbine compartment, served as an exhaust fan, a chimney for ship kitchens was connected to it. A longitudinal section of the vessel is presented on its model exhibited at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, where it is clearly seen that the last pipe was not connected to the fireboxes. The fourth chimney was purely decorative to make the ship look more powerful.

10,000 light bulbs, 562 electric heaters were connected to the distribution network, mainly in first-class cabins, 153 electric motors, including electric drives for eight cranes with a total capacity of 18 tons, 4 cargo winches with a capacity of 750 kg, 4 elevators, each for 12 people. In addition, electricity was consumed by the telephone exchange and radio communications, fans in the boiler room and engine rooms, apparatus in the gym, dozens of machines and appliances in the kitchens, including refrigerators.

The telephone exchange serviced 50 lines.

The radio equipment on the liner was the most modern, the power of the main transmitter was 5 kilowatts, the power came from an electric generator. The second, an emergency transmitter, was powered by batteries. 4 antennas were stretched between the two masts, up to 75 m long. The guaranteed range of the radio signal was 250 miles. During the day, under favorable conditions, communication was possible at a distance of up to 400 miles, and at night - up to 2000.

radio equipment

arrived on board on April 2 from the Marconi company, which by that time had monopolized the radio industry in Italy and England. Two young radio officer officers assembled and installed the station all day, for verification, a test connection was immediately made with the coast station at Malin Head (English), on the north coast of Ireland, and with Liverpool. On April 3, the radio equipment worked like clockwork, on this day a connection was established with the island of Tenerife at a distance of 2000 miles and with Port Said in Egypt (3000 miles). In January 1912, the Titanic was assigned radio call signs "MUC", then they were replaced by "MGY", previously owned by the American ship Yale. As the dominant radio company, Marconi introduced its own radio call signs, most of which began with the letter "M", regardless of the location of the station and the country of home of the vessel on which it was installed.
Celebrities on the ship

Many celebrities of that time took part in the first trip of the liner, including the millionaire and large industrialist John Jacob Astor IV and his wife Madeleine Astor, businessman Benjamin Guggenheim, the owner of Macy's department store Isidor Strauss and his wife Ida, the eccentric millionaire Margaret Molly Brown, who received after the death of the ship, the nickname "Unsinkable", Sir Cosmas Duff Gordon and his wife, fashion designer Lady Lucy Duff Gordon, popular at the beginning of the century, businessman and cricketer John Thayer, British journalist William Thomas Steed, Countess Rothskaya, military assistant to US President Archibald Butt, film actress Dorothy Gibson and many others.

Threat to shipping in the North Atlantic

The threat to shipping in the North Atlantic is icebergs breaking off from glaciers in western Greenland and drifting under the influence of currents. Ice fields (huge ice floes or accumulations of ice floes) originating in the Arctic Basin, as well as off the coast of Labrador, Newfoundland and in the Strait of St. Lawrence, and drifting under the influence of winds and currents.

The shortest route from northern Europe to the United States runs along the coast of Newfoundland, directly through the zone of fog and icebergs. In order to streamline navigation in the North Atlantic, in 1898, shipping companies entered into an agreement establishing 2 transatlantic routes, passing much to the south. For each of the routes, separate routes were determined for steamers moving west and east, separated from each other at a distance of up to 50 miles. From mid-January to mid-August, during the season of the greatest ice danger, steamers moved along the South Route. The rest of the year, the Northern route was used. This order usually made it possible to minimize the likelihood of encountering drifting ice. But 1912 turned out to be unusual. From the South Highway, along the western route of which the Titanic also moved, reports of icebergs came one after another. In this regard, the US Hydrological Service raised the issue of moving the route to the south, but the corresponding decisions were made belatedly, after the disaster.

The path of the Titanic and the place of its crash.

Wednesday, April 10, 1912
12:00 p.m. — The Titanic leaves the Southampton harbor and narrowly avoids colliding with the American liner New York. There are 2,060 people on board the Titanic (1,152 passengers).
19:00 - stop in Cherbourg (France) for disembarkation 24 and embarkation of 274 passengers and mail.
21:00 - Titanic left Cherbourg and headed for Queenstown (Ireland).
Thursday, April 11, 1912
12:30 pm stop at Queenstown for disembarkation 8 and disembarkation of 123 passengers and mail; one crew member, 23-year-old fireman John Coffey (John Coffey), deserts the Titanic for unknown reasons. On board, at the same time, he leaves all his documents.
14:00 - The Titanic leaves Queenstown with 1,337 passengers and 908 crew (2,209 people) on board.
Sunday, April 14, 1912
0900 hours - Caronia reports ice at 42°N, 49-51°W.
13:42 - "Baltik" reports the presence of ice in the area of ​​41°51'N, 49°52'W.
13:45 - America reports ice at 41°27'N, 50°8'W.
19:00 - air temperature 43 ° Fahrenheit (6 ° C).
19:30 - air temperature 39 ° Fahrenheit (3.9 ° C).
19:30 - The Californian reports ice at 42°3'N, 49°9'W.
21:00 - air temperature 33 ° Fahrenheit (0.6 ° C).
21:30 - Second Officer Lightoller warns the ship's carpenter and watchmen in the engine room to monitor the system fresh water- water in pipelines can freeze; he tells the lookout to watch the appearance of ice.
21:40 - Mesaba reports ice at 42°-41°25'N, 49°-50°30'W.
22:00 - air temperature 32 ° Fahrenheit (0 ° C).
22:30 - temperature sea ​​water dropped to 31° Fahrenheit (−0.56°C).
11:00 p.m. — The Californian warns of ice, but the Titanic's radio operator cuts off the radio before the Californian can give the area's coordinates.
23:39 - At a point with coordinates 41 ° 46 'north latitude, 50 ° 14 ' west longitude (later it turned out that these coordinates were calculated incorrectly), an iceberg was sighted at a distance of about 650 meters straight ahead.
23:40 - Despite the maneuver, after 39 seconds, the underwater part of the vessel touched, the hull received numerous small holes for a length of about 100 meters. Of the 16 watertight compartments of the ship, the first 5 were cut through.

Stages of the sinking of the Titanic

Monday, April 15, 1912
00:05 - The trim on the nose became noticeable. An order was given to uncover the lifeboats and convene the crew and passengers to the assembly points.
00:15 - the first radiotelegraph signal for help was transmitted from the Titanic.
00:45 - The first flare is fired and the first lifeboat (No. 7) is launched. The bow deck goes under water.
01:15 - Class 3 passengers are allowed on deck.
01:40 - The last flare is fired.
02:05 - the last lifeboat is launched (collapsible boat D). The bow of the boat deck goes under water.
02:08 - The Titanic jerks violently and moves forward. A wave rolls over the deck and floods the bridge, washing passengers and crew members into the water.
02:10 - the last radiotelegraph signals were transmitted.
02:15 - The Titanic lifts the stern high, exposing the rudder and propellers.
02:17 - Electric lighting goes out.
02:18 - The Titanic breaks in two as it sinks rapidly.
02:20 - The Titanic sank.
02:29 - At a speed of about 13 miles per hour, the bow of the Titanic crashes into the ocean floor at a depth of 3750 meters, burrowing into the sedimentary rocks of the bottom.
03:30 - flares fired from the Carpathia are noticed from the lifeboats.
04:10 - Carpathia picked up the first lifeboat from the Titanic (boat No. 2).
08:30 - Carpathia picked up the last (No. 12) lifeboat from the Titanic.
08:50 - Carpathia, taking on board 710 people who escaped from the Titanic, heads for New York.
Thursday, April 18, 1912
The Carpathia Arrives in New York

Iceberg

Photo of an iceberg taken by the chief steward of the German ship Prinz Adalbert on the morning of April 16, 1912. The steward was unaware of the disaster at the time, but the iceberg caught his attention because it had a brown streak at its base, indicating that the iceberg had hit something less than 12 hours earlier. It is assumed that it was with him that the Titanic collided.
Recognizing an iceberg in a light haze, the forward looking Fleet warned “there is ice in front of us” and hit the bell three times, which meant an obstacle right on the course, after which he rushed to the telephone connecting the “crow’s nest” with the bridge. Moody's sixth mate, who was on the bridge, responded almost instantly and heard a cry of "ice right on the nose!!!" (English ice right ahead!!!). With a polite thank you, Moody turned to the officer of the watch, Murdoch, and repeated the warning. He rushed to the telegraph, put his handle on the “stop” and shouted “right to board”, at the same time transmitting the order “full back” to the engine room, pressed the lever, which turned on the closing of the watertight doors in the bulkheads of the boiler rooms and the engine room.

Photo of an iceberg taken from the cable-laying ship Mina, which was one of the first ships to find dead passengers and the wreckage of the ship. Presumably, the Titanic could have collided with this particular iceberg, since, according to the crew of the Mine, it was the only iceberg near the crash site.
According to the terminology of 1912, the command "right on board" meant turning the stern of the ship to the right, and the bow to the left (since 1909, Russian ships have already used natural command delivery, for example: "left rudder"). The helmsman, Robert Hitchens, leaned on the handle of the steering wheel and quickly turned it clockwise until it stops, after which Murdoch was told "Right rudder, sir!" At that moment, Alfred Oliver, the helmsman of the watch, and Boxhall, who was in the chart house, came running to the bridge when the bells rang out in the "crow's nest". A. Oliver, in his testimony in the US Senate, however, definitely stated that at the entrance to the bridge he heard the command "left rudder" (corresponding to turning to the right), and this command was carried out. According to Boxhall (British Inquiry Question 15355), Murdoch reported to Captain Smith: "I turned to port and reversed, and was about to turn to starboard to get around him, but he was too close."

It is known that binoculars for lookouts were not used on the Titanic, since there was no key to the safe with binoculars. He was taken in by Captain Blair's second mate when the captain kicked him off the team, taking on board a team member from the Olympic. It is possible that the lack of binoculars was one of the reasons for the crash of the liner. However, the existence of binoculars became known only 95 years after the shipwreck, when one of them was exhibited at the Henry Eldridge and Sons auction house in Devizes, Wiltshire. The second assistant to the captain of the Titanic was to be David Blair, for which he arrived on April 3, 1912 from Belfast to Southampton. However, the management of the White Star Line replaced him at the last moment with Henry Wilde, the first officer from the similar ship Olympic, because he had experience in managing such big liners, causing Blair, in his haste, to forget to hand over the key to the person who took his place. However, many historians agree that the presence of binoculars would not have helped to prevent a catastrophe. This is also confirmed by the fact that the lookouts in the "crow's nest" noticed the iceberg before those on the bridge who had binoculars with them.

Lifeboat "Titanic" D, filmed by one of the passengers of the "Carpathia"
There were 2,207 people on board the Titanic, but the total capacity of the lifeboats was only 1,178 people. The reason was that, according to the rules then in force, the total capacity of lifeboats depended on the tonnage of the ship, and not on the number of passengers and crew members. The rules were drawn up in 1894, when the largest ships had a displacement of about 10,000 tons. The displacement of the Titanic was 52,310 tons.

But even these boats were only partially filled. Captain Smith gave the order or instruction "women and children first". The officers interpreted this order in different ways. Second mate Lightoller, who was in charge of launching the boats on the port side, allowed men to take places in the boats only if rowers were needed, and under no other circumstances. First mate Murdoch, who commanded the launch of the boats on the starboard side, allowed men to go down into the boats if there were no women and children nearby. So, in boat number 1, only 12 seats out of 65 were occupied. In addition, at first, many passengers did not want to take seats in the boats, because the Titanic, on which there was no visible external damage, seemed safer to them. The last boats filled better, because it was already obvious that the ship would sink. In the very last boat, 44 seats out of 65 were occupied. But in the sixteenth boat that left the side there were many empty seats, there were 1st class passengers in it.

The crew did not even have time to lower all the boats that were on board. The twentieth boat was washed overboard when the front of the steamer went under water, and she floated upside down.

Rescue of passengers and crew

The CS Mackay-Bennett team pulls passengers' bodies out of the water
The report of the British Commission on the results of the investigation into the circumstances of the sinking of the Titanic states that "if the boats had been delayed a little longer before launching, or if the doors of the passage had been opened for passengers, more of them could have got on the boats." The reason for the low survival rate of class 3 passengers with a high degree of probability can be considered obstacles placed by the crew for the passage of passengers to the deck, closing the doors of the passage. People in boats, as a rule, did not save those who were in the water. On the contrary, they tried to sail as far as possible from the wreck, fearing that those in the water would capsize their boats or be sucked into the funnel from a sinking ship. Only 6 people were picked up alive from the water.

"Californian"

Serious criticism fell upon the crew of the SS Californian and personally on the ship's captain, Stanley Lord. The ship was only a few miles from the Titanic, but did not respond to her distress calls. The Californian radioed the Titanic to alert the Titanic of ice build-up—which caused the Californian to stop overnight—but the warnings were ignored by the Titanic's senior wireless operator, Jack Phillips.

Evidence from a British investigation showed that at 22:10 the Californian observed the ship's lights to the south. Captain Stanley Lord and third officer S. W. Groves (who was released by Lord at 11:10 p.m.) later decided it was a passenger liner. , and that a port light appeared. By order of the Lord, Morse light signals were sent to the ship between 23:30 and 01:00, but no response was received.

Captain Lord retired to his cabin at 11:00 pm for a night's rest, but Second Officer Herbert Stone, while on duty, notified Lord at 01:10 am that an unknown ship had fired 5 missiles. Lord asked if they were company signals, i.e. colored flashes used for identification. Stone replied that he did not know and that the missiles were white. Captain Lord instructed the crew to continue signaling the ship with a Morse lamp and went to bed. Three more rockets were seen at 01:50 am, and Stone noted that the ship looked strange in the water, as if it was tilted. At 02:15 am, Lord was notified that the ship was no longer in sight. Lord asked again if the rocket lights had any color and was informed that they were all white.

The Californian eventually decided to react. At approximately 05:30 a.m., Chief Officer George Stuart woke up wireless operator Cyril Farmstone-Evans and informed him that rockets had been seen during the night and asked to contact the ship. In response, he received news of the sinking of the Titanic; Captain Lord was notified of this, and the ship went to provide assistance. It arrived much later than the Carpathia, which had already picked up the survivors.

As a result of the investigation, it turned out that the ship seen by the Californian was the Titanic, and that the Californian could have come to his aid if not for the actions of Captain Lord. Nevertheless, Lord declared his innocence until the end of his life, and many researchers still argue that the well-known relative position of the Titanic and the Californian make it impossible for the former to be the very “mysterious ship”, the theme of which “caused ... millions of words and… hours of heated debate”

In the early days, newspapers reported false information about the number of victims, based on conflicting rumors.
Almost all the women and children from cabins 1 and 2 were saved. More than half of the women and children in Class 3 cabins died as they had difficulty finding their way up through the maze of narrow corridors. Nearly all of the men also died. The tragedy of the Polsson family claimed the lives of Alma's mother and all her four young children, whom Father Niels was waiting in vain for in New York.

The fate of the passengers

338 men (20% of all adult men) and 316 women (74% of all adult women) survived, including Violet Jessop, Dorothy Gibson, Molly Brown, Lucy Duff Gordon, the Countess of Rothes and others. Of the children, 56 survived (slightly more than half of all children).

In May 2006, at the age of 99, the last American eyewitness who survived the crash of the Titanic died. This was reported by the Boston funeral home. She died yesterday at her home. Swedish-born Lillian Gertrud Asplund (Swed. Lillian Gertrud Asplund), who was five years old at the time of the disaster, lost her father and three brothers in her. Her mother and brother, who was then three years old, survived. They were third-class passengers and escaped in boat number 15. Asplund was the last to remember how the tragedy happened, but she avoided publicity and rarely spoke about this event.

The last passenger on the Titanic, Millvina Dean, who was two and a half months old at the time of the ship's sinking, died on May 31, 2009 at the age of 97. Her ashes were scattered to the wind on October 24, 2009 in the port of Southampton, from where the Titanic began its only voyage.

A kind of record belongs to the maid Violet Jessop, who survived the accident on all 3 ships of the Olympic class. She worked on the Olympic when it collided with the cruiser Hawk; escaped from the Titanic, and subsequently survived when the Britannic sank by hitting a mine during the First World War.

Distribution of victims by social status

Ownership Total number Rescued Rescued in % Victims Victims in %
I class 324 201 62 123 38
II class 277 118 42.6 159 57.4
III class 708 181 25.6 527 74.4
Team 898 212 23.6 686 76.4
Total 2207 712 32.26 1495 67.74

Vessel Country Tonnage Year Number of casualties Cause of death
Goya Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg Germany 5 230 1945 April 16 ~ 7 000 Soviet Union Socialist Republics Attack submarine L-3
Junyo-maru Flag of Japan.svg Japan 5 065 1944, September 18 5 620 United Kingdom Attack of the submarine HMS Tradewind
Toyama Maru Flag of Japan.svg Japan 7 089 1944 June 29 5 600 United States of America USS Sturgeon submarine attack
Cap Arkona Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg Germany 27 561 1945, May 3 5 594 Great Britain Air attack
Wilhelm Gustloff Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg Germany 25 484 1945, January 30 ~ 5 300…9 300 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Armenia Flag of the Soviet Union (1923-1955).svg USSR 5 770 1941, November 7 ~ 5 000 Germany Air attack
Ryusei-maru (eng. SS Ryusei Maru) Flag of Japan.svg Japan 4 861 1944, February 25 4 998 United States of America Attack of the submarine USS Rasher
Doña Paz Flag of the Philippines (navy blue).svg Philippines 2 602 1987 December 20 4 375 Tanker collision and fire
Lancastria Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Great Britain 16 243 1940, June 17 ~4 000 Germany Air attack
General Steuben Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg Germany 14 660 1945, February 10 3 608 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Attack of the submarine S-13
Tilbeck War Ensign of Germany 1938-1945.svg Germany 2 815 1945, May 3 ~ 2 800 Great Britain Air attack
Salzburg Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg Germany 1 759 1942, October 1 2 086 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Attack of the submarine M-118
Bismarck War Ensign of Germany 1938-1945.svg Germany 50 900 1941, 27 May 1995 Great Britain battle with British ships
Titanic Flag of the United Kingdom.svg UK 52310 1912 April 15 1495 Iceberg impact
Hood, battlecruiser Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg Great Britain 41 125 1941, 24 May 1 415 Germany battle with German ships
Lusitania Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Great Britain 31 550 1915, May 7 1 198 Germany U-20 submarine attack
Among the disasters that occurred outside of hostilities, the Titanic ranks third in terms of the number of victims. The sad leadership is behind the Doña Paz ferry, which collided with an oil tanker in 1987. More than 4,000 people died in the collision and subsequent fire. Second place is held by the wooden paddle steamer "Sultana", which sank on April 27, 1865 on the Mississippi River near Memphis due to the explosion of a steam boiler and fire. The total death toll on the steamer exceeded 1,700, the largest disaster on a riverboat.

Looking for the wreckage

In 1994, a piece of ship plating was transferred to the laboratory of the Canadian Department of Defense in Halifax. The laboratory workers decided to subject it to the so-called impact test on Charpy samples, which determines the brittleness of steel. The essence of the test was as follows: a prototype, fixed in a special clamp, had to withstand the impact of a 30-kilogram pendulum. For comparison, a similar piece of steel used in modern courts was tested. Before testing, both samples were kept in an alcohol bath at a temperature of 1.7 °C (the same was the temperature of sea water at the site of the shipwreck). Modern steel passed the test with honor: as a result of the impact, the metal plate only bent in a V-shape, and the fragment of the Titanic was broken into two parts. Perhaps he became so fragile after lying at the bottom of the Atlantic for 82 years. Canadian researchers managed to get a sample of 80-year-old steel from the Belfast shipyard, where the Titanic was built at one time. He endured the impact test on Sharpy samples no better than his sunken brother.

The experts concluded that the steel used to cover the Titanic's hull was of poor quality, with a large admixture of phosphorus, which made it very brittle at low temperatures. If the skin had been made of high quality, tough, low phosphorus steel, it would have softened the force of impact to a great extent. The metal sheets would have simply bent inward and the damage to the hull would not have been so serious. Perhaps then the Titanic would have been saved, or at least would have remained afloat for a long time, sufficient to evacuate most of the passengers. Also, according to the research data, the susceptibility of steel sheathing in cold waters to brittle rupture was revealed, which also accelerated the sinking of the vessel.

On the other hand, this test only proves that modern steel is much better than the one used at the beginning of the 20th century. It does not prove that the steel used to build the Titanic was of poor quality (or not the best) for its time.

In the first years of the 21st century, in a number of mass media, with reference to the latest studies of the ship's hull by deep-sea submersibles, the opinion was expressed that in a collision with an iceberg, the ship did not receive a hole, and its skin withstood the blow. The cause of death was that the hull rivets could not prevent the divergence of its sheets, and outboard water began to flow into the resulting long gap.

Research and tests

Conducted research and tests, analysis of procurement documents showed that forged iron rivets were used as rivets, and not steel, as was originally planned. Moreover, these rivets were of poor quality, they contained a lot of third-party impurities, in particular coke, during forging, this coke collected in the heads, further increasing fragility. During the impact of the iceberg, the heads of cheap rivets simply broke, and sheets of 2.5-centimeter steel diverged under the pressure of ice.

Internal communication system

the liner was extremely unsatisfactory, there was no direct communication with the captain - he had to report all messages orally. Radio communication at sea in 1912 was still a novelty. Unlike the rest of the team, the radio operators did not work for the shipping company, but for the Marconi K ° company, for which the transfer of paid messages to especially wealthy passengers was a priority - it is known that in just 36 hours of work, the radio operators transmitted more than 250 telegrams.

The radio log from the Titanic did not survive

But according to the surviving records from various ships that had contact with the liner, it was possible to more or less restore the picture of the work of radio operators. Reports of drifting ice and icebergs began to arrive already in the morning of the fatal date - April 14, the exact coordinates of the high-risk zone were indicated. The Titanic continued to sail on, without swerving off course or slowing down. At 19:30, in particular, a telegram came from the Mesaba transport ship: “I report ice from 42 degrees to 41 degrees 25 minutes north latitude and from 49 degrees to 50 degrees 30 minutes west longitude. Saw a large number of icebergs, ice fields. At this time, the senior communications officer of the Titanic, Jack Phillips, worked for the benefit of the passengers, transmitting an inexhaustible stream of messages to the Cape Ras station, while the most important message never reached the captain, lost in a pile of paper - the Mesaba radio operator forgot to mark the message as "Ice Report" with the prefix MSG, which meant "personally to the captain." This little detail overshadowed Philips' selfless work.

On the other hand, on April 14, in addition to this message, several more iceberg warnings were received from other ships. The captain took certain measures, in particular, the officers were warned of the danger verbally and in writing, and those looking ahead were ordered to look for the presence of icebergs. Therefore, it cannot be said that Captain Smith did not know about them.

The news about the absence of binoculars from the lookout was received with criticism (according to many testimonies, the binoculars were only on the Belfast-Southampton segment, after this stop Hogg, on the orders of the captain, for some reason folded them in his cockpit). There is an opinion that having binoculars looking ahead, despite a moonless night, would notice an iceberg not a quarter of a mile (450 m), but 2 or 3 miles (4-6 km). On the other hand, binoculars narrow the field of view, so they are used only after the lookout has noticed something, for a more detailed study of the alleged object. At the same time, lookouts without binoculars discovered the iceberg earlier than the watch officer who had binoculars. On the other hand, on the Titanic there was a special group of lookouts who had some experience. On many other ships, random sailors from the crew were placed as lookouts.

If there were even a slight wave or swell in the ocean, he would see white lambs at the “waterline” of the iceberg. As it later became known, the Titanic collided with a “black” iceberg, that is, with one that had recently turned over in the water. The side facing the liner had a dark blue color, because of this there was no reflection (an ordinary white iceberg under such a condition could be seen from a mile away).

The question of what prevented the senior on the bridge, the first assistant W. Murdoch, whose immediate duty was to constantly monitor the situation, to discover the iceberg himself in a timely manner, remains open: Murdoch died in a shipwreck. The captain of the Carpathia, Rostron, said that 75% of the objects in the sea are detected from the bridge earlier than from the "crow's nest". When his ship sailed at night to the site of the accident of the Titanic, all the icebergs on their way were seen from the bridge before they were discovered by the lookouts.

There is an opinion that if Murdoch had not given the order to reverse immediately after the command "left rudder", the Titanic would certainly have avoided a collision, since the reverse negatively affects the effectiveness of the rudder. In this case, however, the time required to execute the command is overlooked. This takes at least 30 seconds and the command was probably received with a delay; - commands for the engine room are rarely given along the route of the liner (the last one was given three days before), so no one is standing at the engine telegraph. The team simply did not have time to execute, otherwise the Titanic would have experienced a strong vibration, but no one mentions it. According to the testimonies of the survivors, the cars stopped and reversed after the collision, so this command had no practical significance.

There is also an opinion that the most correct decision would be to start only the left car in reverse. Running the propellers apart, that is, in opposite directions, would help speed up the turn and slow down the speed. The middle propeller was driven by a steam turbine that ran on the residual steam from the onboard machines; this turbine had no reverse gear. Thus, the stopped screw, behind which there was a single rudder of a very small area, created a turbulent flow in which the already inefficient rudder almost completely lost its effectiveness. Perhaps even, in order to avoid a collision, it would be necessary, on the contrary, to increase the speed of the middle propeller to increase the efficiency of the steering wheel. Moreover, the reverse takes a considerable time, and, therefore, there were practically no chances to quickly reduce the speed.

Attention should be paid to the fact that the accident occurred on the first flight. The navigators had no experience in operating this vessel, which explains the untimely and inefficient maneuvering attempts. At the same time, Captain Smith, First Officer Wild, and First Officer Murdoch, who was on duty during the accident, had experience working on the Olympic built according to a similar project. In 1903, in a critical situation, Murdoch, with his timely and decisive actions, canceling the command of his superiors, saved the steamer Arabic from a collision.

There are also suggestions that the Titanic would have remained afloat if the rudder had not been shifted and the ship would have “rammed” the iceberg, taking a hit on the stem. The device of partitions was just aimed at the "survival" of the ship in a head-on collision, while the sides of the ship were not protected. “Wilding, a shipbuilder from Belfast, calculated that the bow of the ship would be indented by 25-30 meters, but the ship would not die. It would be instant death for those who were at the bow of the vessel at that time, but the inertia of the course would be rather slow, comparable to a car traveling at this speed, which had its brakes instantly pressed to the stop,” says Barnaby. However, Murdoch is justified by the fact that he did not have the ability to measure the distance to the iceberg and could not know that the maneuver he had taken would not succeed. Therefore, he can hardly be reproached for the fact that he did not give a command that would obviously kill people.

The liner was not designed to flood all the first five compartments. Such a design, although possible, is extremely expensive - the only ship built this way, the Great Eastern, was unprofitable. The unprofitability of this giant ship is confirmed by the fact that it was not found possible to use it for its intended purpose, and it went down in history as a cable ship used in laying the transatlantic telegraph cable. It is also impossible not to take into account the likelihood of risk. After all, apart from the Titanic, in peacetime, not a single ship suffered such damage.
High liner speed

Despite warnings about icebergs, the captain of the Titanic did not slow down or change route. But that was standard practice at the time. So, during the investigation into the death of the Titanic, Captain Gerhard C. Affeld, who commanded 5 transatlantic ships, showed that, having received warnings about icebergs, he never changed the route and reduced speed only in case of fog or bad weather. He studied the logbooks of the ships entrusted to him. According to these logs, other captains, having received warnings about icebergs, also did not change their route and, as a rule, did not slow down. On the other hand, not everyone followed this practice: the ship Californian closest to the Titanic, having reached the iceberg field, stopped at its border (and gave the Titanic a warning that was ignored).

Lookout Reginald Lee testified that he spotted the iceberg from a distance of "half a mile (926 m) maybe more, maybe less." The Titanic would cover half a mile in 80 seconds. Helmsman Hichens testified that by the time of the collision the ship had managed to turn 2 points. Since the windows of the wheelhouse were darkened so that the light did not interfere with the observation from the bridge, Hichens could not see the iceberg. An experiment on the twin steamer Olympic showed that a turn of 2 points would take 37 seconds, counting from the moment the command was given. The authors of the book Report into the Loss of the SS Titanic: A Centennial Reappraisal, published on the occasion of the centenary of the shipwreck, restore the timing of the accident, and put forward a version of “missed 30 seconds” after the signal of the lookouts, who left Murdoch for then to visually detect an iceberg, assess the situation and make a decision.

The main subjective cause of death

there were outdated rules of the British Merchant Shipping Code, which made the number of lifeboats dependent on the tonnage of the ship, and not on the number of passengers. The rules were established in 1894 when the tonnage of passenger ships did not exceed 12,952 tons, and all ships of 10,000 tons and above fell into one category. For such vessels, regulations required that the lifeboats had enough space for 962 people. The tonnage of the Titanic was 46,328 tons.

The owners of the Titanic, formally fulfilling the instructions (and even slightly overfulfilling them, since the Titanic's boats had 1,178 seats, not 962), provided the ship with an insufficient number of boats. Despite the fact that there were enough lifeboats to board 1178 people, only 704 were saved. There were certain subjective reasons for this. For example, second mate Charles Lightoller, who commanded the launching of the boats on the port side, followed Captain Smith's order "women and children first" literally: he allowed men to take places in the boats only if rowers were needed and under no other circumstances.

Based on the stories of Charles Lightoller, his granddaughter Lady Patten put forward a new version of the death of the transatlantic liner. According to the writer, the Titanic did not sink because it was sailing too fast, because of which it simply did not have time to avoid a collision with an iceberg. There was plenty of time to dodge the ice block, but the helmsman, Robert Hitchens, panicked and turned the helm in the wrong direction. The ship received a hole, due to which it eventually sank. However, passengers and crew could have been saved if the Titanic had stopped immediately after the collision. In addition, the nearest ship was only a few miles from the liner. The manager of the company that owned the huge ship, Joseph Bruce Ismay, convinced the captain to continue sailing, fearing that the incident could cause him considerable material damage. He wanted to save the Titanic, but he thought only about the financial side of the matter. The rate of water entering the holds of the liner has increased exponentially. Water entered the hull at a rate of approximately 400 tons per minute. As a result, the ship sank in a matter of hours. About why the liner went down, Lightoller told only his relatives. According to Patten, her relatives feared for their reputation and therefore did not want to disclose the true causes of the 1912 disaster. “My relatives died a long time ago, and I realized that I was the only one in the world who knows about the true cause of the sinking of the Titanic,” the writer said.

A set of adverse factors

The cause of the collision and loss of the vessel was a combination of adverse factors:

The iceberg began to melt and, as a result, turned over and became almost transparent, due to which it was noticed too late.
The night was windless and moonless, otherwise the lookout would have noticed the "lambs" around the iceberg.
The speed of the steamer was too high, due to which the impact of the iceberg on the hull was of maximum force. If the captain had ordered in advance, when entering the iceberg belt, to reduce the speed of the ship, then perhaps the impact force on the iceberg would not have been enough to break through the Titanic's hull.
The non-transmission of several telegrams from neighboring ships by members of the radio room, busy sending private telegrams from wealthy passengers for money, about the dangerous proximity of icebergs to Captain Smith, which lowered his vigilance.
The best steel of the time, from which the Titanic was made, became brittle at low temperatures. The water temperature that night was +2 ... +4 ° C, which made the ship's hull very vulnerable.
The poor quality of the rivets that connected the plating sheets of the side of the ship, when an iceberg hit, the heads of forged iron rivets, which replaced the originally provided steel rivets, crumbled due to their “porosity” due to the inclusion of foreign impurities in them.
The arrangement of partitions between the compartments was made based on a frontal impact, and the doors between the partitions simply could not withstand the pressure of water and broke under its pressure.
Lack of binoculars for the lookout.
The absence of red signal flares that indicated danger.

At the time of the sinking, the ships closest to the Titanic were: the Carpathia, the fishing vessel Samson and the Californian. Of these, the telegraph was installed on the Carpathia and the Californian.
The Carpathia was 49 miles from the Titanic. And it was this ship that was the first to arrive at the crash site 4 hours later and took all the surviving passengers from the boats.
The fishing schooner Samson was 17 miles from the Titanic. Fishermen were engaged in illegal catching of seals on this vessel. At the sight of white flares (they indicated attention) and because of the bright light of the liner, the captain of the Samson thought it was a coast guard signal and hurried to take the ship away. There were no red signal flares on the Titanic (they indicated danger and the captain who sees them is obliged to go there). If there were red flares on the liner, then the victims could have been avoided.
The ship "Californian" was 26 miles from the "Titanic" and at the sight of flares, the captain thought that fireworks were being set off there. At the same time, the ship's radio station did not function, since the only radio operator was resting after the watch. The next morning the captain told the story of the missiles to the telegraph operator. The telegraph operator began to check incoming messages, and five minutes was enough for him, and he understood everything about the sinking of the Titanic. For this, the captain of the Californian lost his rank for failing to provide assistance to a sinking ship.

Flood depth

On September 1, 1985, an expedition led by the director of the Woods Hall Institute of Oceanology, Massachusetts, Dr. Robert D. Ballard, discovered the Titanic's place of occurrence at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at a depth of 3750 meters.

The distance between the remains of the bow and stern of the Titanic is about 600 meters.

The remains of the ship were discovered 13 miles west of the coordinates that the Titanic transmitted in its SOS signal.

In April 2012, one hundred years after the shipwreck, the wreck acquired the protection of the 2001 UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. From now on, the states parties to the Convention have the right to prevent the destruction, looting, sale and unauthorized distribution of objects found at the shipwreck. They can take everything necessary measures to protect the wreckage of a sunken ship, as well as to ensure proper treatment of the human remains resting in them.

Investigation of the site of the sinking of the Titanic

Research into the sinking of the Titanic was undertaken in August-September 2001 by Oscar-winning Titanic director James Cameron. Cameron and a group of scientists plunged to the Titanic on the Russian deep-sea submersibles Mir-1 and Mir-2. With the help of two small ROV submersibles "Jack" and "Elwood" and CGI technology, the documentary "Ghosts of the Abyss: Titanic" (2003) was filmed, in which viewers can look inside the Titanic.

In addition, 12 dives on the same vehicles were carried out in September 1995 in preparation for the filming of the film Titanic. Footage of the exterior and interior of the wreck was used in the film.

Conspiracy theory

The similarity between the Olympic and the Titanic gave rise to a conspiracy theory, according to which it was not the Titanic that was actually sent on the tragic flight, but the Olympic. This became possible after the replacement of stern sheets with the name of the vessel, as well as all household and interior items bearing the name of the vessel (of which, in general, there were quite a few). According to supporters of the theory, this would explain many facts: the lack of binoculars for lookouts, reverse while avoiding the iceberg, high speed.

The theory is based on the assumption of fraud in order to obtain insurance. In 1911, when leaving for voyage 11, the Olympic collided with the British cruiser Hawk. At the same time, the latter miraculously remained afloat, while the Olympic escaped with minor damage. By that time, the White Star Line company was already suffering serious financial losses. The insurance for the ship could well cover all the losses, but the damage received in the collision with the cruiser was not enough to pay the insurance. It was necessary that the ship received even more damage (which, however, would not affect its buoyancy). Therefore, when passing through a dangerous area, the ship was deliberately exposed to the risk of colliding with an iceberg - the owners of the White Star Line company were confident that even if they received serious damage, the ship would not sink.

Despite the seemingly obvious absurdity of this version, it has become widespread, and it turned out to be very difficult to refute it. Against her, for example, was the fact that many passengers of the Titanic had previously sailed on the Olympic and would hardly have noticed the substitution. In addition, the presence on board the top officials of the White Star Line also testified not in favor of the conspiracy theory. Supporters of the conspiracy theory explained the presence of Bruce Ismay on board by his desire to divert suspicion from himself and confidence in the "unsinkability" of the ship. Actually, the conspiracy theory was debunked only after the parts were lifted from the ship, on which the number 401 (the building number of the Titanic) was knocked out, since the building number of the Olympic was 400. However, despite numerous counterarguments, the version of the conspiracy is still still continues to exist - evidence of this is a number of modern popular science articles and documentaries that defend this point of view.

The Titanic II will set sail in 2016
Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has announced his intention to build a replica ship, the Titanic 2 cruise ship.

It will be built at a Chinese shipyard and, recreating the look of the legendary ship (there will be the same four steam pipes), it will at the same time be equipped with modern navigation and propulsion equipment, including a diesel power plant, a bow bulb, side thrusters (thrusters) and an enlarged rudder . The vessel is expected to be ready for its maiden voyage in April 2016.

Monument to the crew of the Titanic in Southampton

Main article: Titanic in culture
The crash of the liner has become one of the most famous disasters in the history of mankind. To some extent, the image of the Titanic has become a symbol of the death of something that seemed powerful and unsinkable, a symbol of the weakness of human technogenic civilization before the forces of nature. The catastrophe was widely reflected in art, especially mass art. The first film dedicated to the disaster - "The Survivor of the Titanic" - appeared already in May 1912, a month after the crash. In the same year, 1912, but before the catastrophe occurred, Morgan Robertson's book "Futility, or the death of Titan" ("Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan") was published, the action of which took place on board a passenger ship "Titan", similar in description and displacement to the "Titanic". In this book, the Titan dies after colliding with an iceberg in the fog while sailing from New York to the UK. As a result, a legend appeared about the “prediction” of the Titanic disaster by Morgan Robertson. This fact is reinforced by the fact that despite the publication of the book in 1912, it was written in 1898.

The film "Titanic"

The film Titanic, released in 1997 by James Cameron, was the world box office leader for 13 years ($1,845,034,188, including $600,788,188 in the US), but in 2010, the Titanic record was broken by the film Avatar ”, released by the same director; In April 2012, on the centenary of the disaster, Cameron released his old film in 3D.

In honor of the centenary of the sinking of the liner, the mini-series "Titanic" directed by Jon Jones was filmed. World premiere March 21, 2012.

"Titanic: Blood and Steel" is a 12-episode film, where the main characters will be the actual creators of the liner, previously called unsinkable, forced to work in an atmosphere of political and financial pressure. The world premiere took place on April 15, 2012.

The death of the ship was dedicated to many songs of performers and groups playing in different genres. In particular, in the song of the same name by the Austrian artist Falco (1992), the Titanic is considered as a symbol of decadence, the end of an era, in the song of the Russian group Nautilus Pompilius from the album of the same name Titanic (1994), the floating ship appears as a symbol of death and doom.

Manufacturers "Revell" and "Zvezda" produce prefabricated plastic models-copies of the "Titanic".

This is certainly interesting and I would even say "romantic" from a technical point of view, such as or for example. More than a century has passed since these huge liners plowed the waters of the Atlantic. But their research continues to this day.

British journalist Shenan Meloni studied the history of the Titanic for 30 years and came to "sensational" conclusion: the main cause of the crash was a fire in the fuel storage, which lasted about two weeks. This is certainly interesting, but don't you think that he didn't tell us anything new?

After all, on the twentieth of September 1987 French television told the world "breaking news": the cause of the death of the Titanic, it turns out, was the fire that broke out in the hold of the ill-fated liner, and not at all a collision with an iceberg.

Since after 30 years they resurface "sensational" versions, then let's remember them all as they are. Maybe you will find something sensational for yourself too :-)

Here they are...

On a cold night between April 14 and 15, 1912, the most famous maritime disaster in the history of mankind occurred in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The ship of the company "White Star Line", bearing the proud name "Titanic", having died in the middle of its first voyage and taking with it one thousand five hundred and four human lives, was doomed to become the most famous ship in the world.

Why did the most perfect ship of that era sink - a ship that was considered completely unsinkable? Let's with the help of a blogger prosto_serge let's collect all the proposed versions:

Gemini: Titanic (right) and Olympic

Version one. Conspiracy theory

Few people know that the Titanic had a twin brother - the Olympic ship, an exact copy of it, also owned by the White Star Line. How is it, the reader may wonder, because the Titanic was considered a unique ship, the largest ship of that era, and now it turns out that there was another ship that was not inferior to it in size? No, the Titanic was indeed longer than its twin. By two inches. Just imagine - the length of a matchbox! - but still longer. Another thing is that it was almost impossible to notice these inches with the naked eye (and, perhaps, with the armed one too), so that an outsider, looking at the twins standing side by side, could not tell which of them was who.

The Olympic was a year older than its brother (so it would be more correct to call the Titanic a copy of it), and not much luckier. Probably, it was necessary to write something like “from the very beginning, evil fate hovered over each of the ships,” but more on that later: of course, the greatest maritime disaster could not but acquire mystical rumors.

Well, fate, not rock, but the fate of the "Olympic" was indeed full of trouble. His career began with the fact that during the launching the ship crashed into a dam. After that, minor and major accidents rained down on him one after another, and the ship did not even seem to have been insured. Rumor has it that after a series of accidents, the owners would be happy to insure their ship, but the insurance companies refused to deal with the failed liner. The most serious accident was a collision with the British military cruiser Hawk, which led the White Star Line company to tangible financial problems: expensive repairs were needed, and the company's financial situation was very sad. So the Olympic was put in the Belfast docks to await a decision on its future fate. And now - attention! Look at the photo on the left - this is almost the only existing picture that shows the Titanic and the Olympic, standing side by side. It was made in Belfast.

Final rigging of the Titanic at the shipyard in Belfast

Why not assume, some researchers said, that the White Star Line had decided to pull off a grand scheme. To patch up the old "Olympic" in a hurry and ... pass it off as the new "Titanic"! Technically, it would not be difficult at all: to swap the plates with the names of the ships, and even the interior items on which the monogram of the ships is applied - for example, cutlery (Olympic and Titanic, of course, had some design differences - well, yes who knows about them?). Then the Olympic, under the guise of a new, prestigious, widely publicized (and, of course, honor by honor insured) Titanic, will set off on a journey across the Atlantic, where it will collide (quite by accident, of course) with an iceberg (fortunately, the lack of them at that time there was no year). Of course, no one was going to sink the liner - and no one believed that some kind of iceberg was able to send the most reliable ship in the world to the bottom. It was planned to arrange a small collision, after which the ship will slowly reach New York, and its owners will receive a tidy sum insured, which will come in handy for the company.

This version is supported by the strange behavior of the ship's captain, Edward Smith. Why is such a seasoned, experienced seabass so careless about the safety of his vessel? Why did he stubbornly ignore reports of drifting icebergs coming from other ships, and even seem to steer the liner on a course where it is easiest to meet an icy mountain? What was he doing this for, if not to carry out the White Star plan? Personally, it seems to me that it was for this, that's just ... the plan was completely different. But more on that later.

John Pierpont Morgan

It turned out to be quite difficult to refute the conspiracy theory, especially since White Star went out of its way to save its reputation: it distorted information about the disaster in every possible way, bribed witnesses, and so on. Actually, convincing arguments were found only after the sunken liner itself was discovered (and this happened only seventy-three years later - the remains of the ship were discovered by the expedition of Robert Ballard in September 1985). So, the participants of one of the expeditions, descending to the wrecked ship, took photographs of the propeller, which clearly shows the minted serial number of the Titanic - 401 (his older brother had exactly 400). Conspiracy theorists claim, however, that the Olympic damaged its propeller after colliding with the Hawk, and White Star replaced it with a propeller from the then unfinished Titanic. But the number 401 is also found on other parts of the sunken ship, so the charge of a planned disaster with the White Star Line can be dropped. The following theory looks much more plausible - we will talk about it now.

One of the arguments in favor of the conspiracy theory was the fact that the industrialist John Morgan, one of the owners of the Titanic, was supposed to sail aboard his ship, but canceled the ticket a day before the ship left the port.

And they also say (here the mysticism began) that the tycoon was dissuaded from going by Nikola Tesla, endowed with the gift of foresight, the development of which was financed by Morgan.

A piece of the Titanic skin lifted from the bottom

Second version. Blue Ribbon Chase

It all started a long time ago, when regular sea traffic was established between England and America, and, therefore, competition between ship-owning companies began to flare up. The faster the ship crossed the Atlantic, the more popular it was. In 1840, the Cunard company invented a prize for ships that set a speed record: now the ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean faster than all its predecessors received the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic as an award.

Actually, there was no material prize. The winner did not receive a cash prize, the captain was not awarded a commemorative cup that can be put in a prominent place in the wardroom. But the ship acquired something more - an invaluable prestige that cannot be obtained by other means. In addition to honor in maritime circles (and, therefore, fame and popularity), the winner of the award received a contract for the transportation of mail (including diplomatic mail) between America and Europe, and this is a very profitable shipping item. And in general - see for yourself: if you are a rich businessman, maybe even a millionaire, on which ship would you prefer to travel? Isn't it on the most prestigious and fastest?

At the time of the Titanic's departure from Southampton, Blue Ribbon was owned by Mauritania, a ship owned by White Star's main competitor. Naturally, it was impossible to put up with this, and White Star decided to bet on its favorite. The conquest of the Blue Ribbon by the Titanic would be a triumph for this corporation, allowing it to correct its precarious position: the Cavalier of the All-Atlantic Ribbon usually had four times as many passengers as other similar ships.

Because of the threat of collision with floating ice The prescribed route of the Titanic (and indeed of any other ship following the same course) did not run in a straight line, but made a small detour, skirting the dangerous ocean area where most icebergs drift. Of course, this maneuver lengthens the road. That's why it might seem that Captain Smith was sailing his ship right into a cluster of icebergs - he just needed to take a short cut and get the Blue Ribbon by all means. That is why the Titanic went at full steam and did not slow down even after receiving several radiograms warning of ice danger from other ships. Let other ships worry - and the Titanic has nothing to fear. In the "crow's nest" - a special observation platform on the front mast - there are two lookouts who, in case of danger, will be able to report it to the captain's bridge in the blink of an eye using telephone communication: the Titanic is equipped with the latest technology. And if a collision does occur, well, it only means that the record will be set another time. Icebergs do not pose a danger to the ship - after all, it is known that the Titanic is completely unsinkable. Its hold is divided into sixteen watertight compartments, so that if suddenly it gets a hole (which, of course, cannot be), then only one of the compartments will be filled with water, and the ship will calmly continue its journey. That one - the liner will not sink, even if four compartments are filled! And a ship can only receive such damage in a war.

Well, not in vain pride is one of the deadly sins. She played a cruel joke with the Titanic: the iceberg damaged five compartments - one more than was permissible.

But how could the ice break through the steel of the ship's plating? In the mid-nineties, a piece of the Titanic's skin was lifted to the surface and subjected to a fragility test: a sheet of metal, fixed in clamps, had to withstand the impact of a thirty-kilogram pendulum. For comparison, a piece of steel used in shipbuilding today was also tested. Before the experiment, both samples were placed in an alcohol bath with a temperature of just over a degree - this is exactly what the ocean water was on that fateful night. Modern metal came out of the test with honor: under the blow of a hammer, it bent, but remained intact. Raised from the bottom, it split into two parts. Maybe he became so fragile after lying eighty years at the bottom of the ocean? The researchers managed to get at the Belfast shipyard, where the Titanic was built, a steel sample of those years. He endured the strength test no better than his brother. The experts' conclusion was that the steel used in the construction of the Titanic was of very poor quality, with a large admixture of sulfur, which made it brittle when low temperatures Oh. Alas, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the level of development of metallurgy was far from today. If the lining of the liner were made of high-quality steel, the hull would simply bend inward from the impact, and the tragedy could have been avoided.

One of the watertight bulkheads of the Titanic

Third version. Fire in the hold

On September 20, 1987, French television told the world sensational news: the cause of the death of the Titanic, it turns out, was a fire that broke out in the hold of the ill-fated liner, and not a collision with an iceberg at all. Apparently, the supporters of the new hypothesis assured, spontaneous combustion of coal occurred in one of the ship’s coal storage facilities (well, this is actually possible), the fire spread to the entire hold, reached the steam boilers, which exploded from this, which is why the ship went to the bottom. And as for the iceberg - it just happened to be nearby, so he was accused of crashing the liner.

Yes, indeed, there was a fire on the Titanic - and this is no longer guesswork, but an established fact. However, could he cause a disaster? Oh, hardly. How do you imagine a fire in a coal bunker? A roaring flame that throws ominous crimson reflections on the metal sheathing of the walls, sailors rushing about with a naked chest, someone pumps a pump, and a stream of water disappears into a raging wall of fire? I must disappoint you - in fact, everything is much more prosaic. In general, a fire in the coal bunker of steamships of that time was a fairly common thing. Coal in such a fire does not burn, does not burn, but quietly and peacefully smolders, sometimes for several days. Fought with such fires most in a simple way- out of turn, they burned smoldering coal in steamship furnaces. So a fire in a coal hold is, of course, an unpleasant phenomenon, but, as a rule, it does not promise any serious troubles to the ship. And certainly not under any circumstances not capable of producing such monstrous destruction, which supporters of the version of the death of the Titanic from the flames attribute to him. Moreover, the fire on the ship was extinguished even before it went on its last voyage. The bunker was emptied and inspected by specialists from the shipyard where the Titanic was docked. It seems that the most serious consequence of the fire was a slight deformation of one of the watertight bulkheads, which could not affect the fate of the liner.

But Shenan Meloni, nevertheless, believes that the iceberg is only one of the factors that ruined the ship. In the process of carefully studying photographs taken ten days before the Titanic left Southampton, the journalist found traces of soot on the inside of the skin. It was in the place that was subsequently damaged in the collision. The fire in the fuel storage, according to experts, started during high-speed tests at the dock in Belfast.

The owners of the ship knew that a fire was raging in the bowels of the Titanic, but they turned out to be so greedy that they decided not to cancel the flight. In order for the passengers not to suspect anything, the ship was turned around in the port of Southampton on the other side. The officers were ordered to keep their mouths shut.

The liner set sail, but a team of 12 people could not cope with the fire. Gradually, the skin heated up to a thousand degrees Celsius. Metallurgical experts consulted by Meloni stated that steel becomes brittle at this temperature, losing up to 75% of its strength. For this reason, when hitting an iceberg, six holes with a total length of about 90 meters formed at once in the bow compartments of the vessel. The ship's unsinkability system could not cope with such serious damage.

So Ray Boston, who studied the documents of this disaster for many years, found evidence. According to him, fireman Dilly, who survived the crash, testified to the fire, who said: “We could not put out the fire, and there were rumors that as soon as we disembarked passengers in the port of New York and unloaded coal bunkers, we would immediately call fireboats to help to put out the fire."

The iceberg ripped through the hull of the liner just under bunker number six, where the largest hole had formed, and no one had to put out the fire. And for unknown reasons, the commission investigating the death of the liner did not pay attention to the statement of the stoker.

Fourth version. German torpedo

1912 The First World War is two years away, and the prospect of an armed conflict between Germany and Great Britain is becoming more and more likely. Germany is the owner of several dozen submarines, which during the war will unleash a ruthless hunt for enemy ships trying to cross the ocean. For example, the reason for America's entry into the war will be that the U-20 submarine will sink the Lusitania in 1915 - the twin of the same Mauritania that set the speed record and won the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic - remember? We are very detailed.

Based on these facts, in the mid-nineties, some Western publications offered their own version of the death of the Titanic: a torpedo attack by a German submarine that secretly accompanied the liner. The purpose of the attack was to discredit the British fleet, famous for its power throughout the world. In accordance with this theory, the Titanic either did not collide with the iceberg at all, or received very minor damage in the collision and would have remained afloat if the Germans had not finished off the ship with a torpedo.

What speaks in favor of this version? Honestly, nothing.

Firstly, there was a collision with an iceberg - this is beyond doubt. The deck of the ship was even covered with snow and ice chips. Cheerful passengers started to play football with ice cubes - that the ship is doomed, it will become clear later. The collision itself was surprisingly quiet - almost none of the passengers felt it. A torpedo, you see, could hardly have exploded completely silently (especially since some claim that the submarine fired as many as six torpedoes at the ship!). Supporters of the theory of the German attack claim, however, that people in the boats heard a terrible roar just before the Titanic sank - well, that was two and a half hours later, when only the stern lifted up into the sky remained above the water and the death of the ship did not raise any doubts. It is unlikely that the Germans would have fired a torpedo at an almost sunken ship, would they? And the roar that the survivors heard was due to the fact that the stern of the Titanic rose almost vertically and huge steam boilers fell from their places. Also, do not forget that at about the same minutes the Titanic broke in half - the keel could not withstand the weight of the rising stern (although they only find out about this after finding the liner at the bottom: the break occurred below the water level), and this is also unlikely to have happened silently . And why would the Germans suddenly begin to sink a passenger liner two years before the start of the war? This seems, to put it mildly, doubtful. To put it bluntly, it's absurd.

The very first horror movie about a mummy

Fifth version. Curse of the Egyptian Mummy

In the eighties of the nineteenth century, a perfectly preserved mummy from the time of Amenhotep IV was discovered near Cairo, named either Amen-Otu, or Amen-Ra, or Amennofis (lovers of mysticism, as you know, do not bother with such trifles. Mummy, and mummy ). During her lifetime, the mummy worked as a famous soothsayer, and therefore, after her death, she was awarded a magnificent burial: with jewelry, figurines of gods, and, of course, magical amulets. Among them was the image of Osiris, adorned with the inscription: "Wake up from your swoon, and your look will crush everyone who gets in your way." Others, however, insisted that it was written "Arise from the dust, and only the look of your eyes will triumph over any intrigues against you", but what, in essence, is the difference? That's when the third timidly suggested that nothing of the kind was written on the mummy, then it was certainly clear that this was nonsense.

Ticket for the Titanic

Finally, our mummy was acquired in the British Museum by an American millionaire and sent to his American residence aboard a ship. Well, guess which liner was chosen for this purpose?

An ordinary box served as a sarcophagus on the way, either glass or wooden (not tin, at least, for sure), and it was kept just near the captain's bridge. Mystics of all stripes avidly assure that Captain Edward Smith, of course, could not resist the temptation and looked into this box with a mummy: their eyes met and ... no, they did not fall in love with each other; quite the contrary: a monstrous curse came true. Otherwise, judge for yourself, how to explain what went wrong in the captain’s head, and with his own intrepid hand he sent the Titanic straight to certain death?

And, in fact, why is it believed that the captain's head was clouded, and he sent the Titanic to certain death with his own hand? Well, how could he not get confused in his head if he met the eyes of a mummy? As you can see, there is nothing to object.

It's a shame that the mummy died a thousand years before the birth of Aristotle, so she had a hard time with logic. Otherwise, she would have realized that the immediate consequence of the fact that the ship rammed the iceberg would be the death of her, mummy, precious body - in ocean water it would hardly survive more than a few days. And the destruction of the body is the worst thing that can happen to a mummy: her soul will have nowhere to return to. So if the mummy really had magical powers, it would be in her interest to protect the Titanic like the apple of her magical eye. Or maybe she, too, bought into the advertising rhetoric about the unsinkable ship and did not pay attention to the dangerous icebergs?

Be that as it may, but the mummy died in the deep ocean, disappeared without a trace, and cannot stand up for its honest name; this is shamelessly used by the yellow press, which regularly publishes accusations against her under the monotonous headlines: “Sensation! The Titanic was destroyed by the curse of the pharaohs! Let's leave it to the conscience of journalists.

The mummy, by the way, was not the only historical relic that died aboard the Titanic. For art, the death of the original manuscript of Omar Khayyam "Rubaiyat" in the Atlantic Ocean is much more tragic - a relic that truly had no price.

Version six. Steering error and human factor

The recently published book by the granddaughter of the second mate of the captain of the Titanic, Ch. Lightoller, Lady Patten, “For its weight in gold” about the tragic fate of the Titanic, reveals new sensational aspects of the disaster. It turns out that the Titanic team discovered the iceberg in advance, which made it possible to avoid a collision. The cause of the collision was the panic of the helmsman, who performed the wrong maneuver.

The revelation, which was hidden for about 100 years by the family of one of the officers of the Titanic, is published in a new book. Second Officer Charles Lightoler, who escaped the disaster, hid the mistake from commissions on both sides of the Atlantic, for fear of bankruptcy of the shipowners and the loss of work of his colleagues. And even after his death, for fear of damaging his reputation, his relatives hid the truth.

But now his granddaughter, the writer Patten, has opened the curtain of mystery in a new novel. When first mate William Murdoch spotted an iceberg 2 miles away, his order "To starboard" was misinterpreted in the wheelhouse by Robert Hitchins. He first turned the ship to the right, and although he immediately corrected the course, but due to the high speed of the Titanic, its starboard side was torn open by an iceberg.

At first glance, it looks amazing that anyone - especially the person who stood at the helm during the first flight of the most expensive in the world ocean liner, - could make such a schoolboy mistake. However, explains Patten, this seemingly improbable mistake actually had a very specific technical reason.

“The Titanic was launched at a time when the world was moving from sailing ships to steam. Her grandfather, like the rest of the senior officers on the Titanic, started out on sailing ships. On sailboats, commands were given "on the tiller". If you need to turn the ship in one direction, then the tiller is turned in the other (say, if the ship needs to be turned to the left, then the tiller is turned to the right). Now it looks unnatural, but at one time it was customary to give commands in this way. The rudder commands used on steam ships are like driving a car - the ship is directed in the direction in which it should turn. The situation was further confused by the fact that, although the Titanic was a steamship, in the North Atlantic at that time "tiller" commands were used. Accordingly, Murdoch gave the command "to the tiller", but the panicked Hitchins automatically carried out the command "to the steering wheel", as he was taught. They only had four minutes to change course, and by the time Murdoch noticed Hitchins' mistake and tried to correct it, it was too late."

Grandpa Patten, who later set up his own ship repair business in Richmond upon Thames (where his small shipyard was now commemorated), shared with his wife, whose name was Sylvia, another, potentially even more deadly secret. If the helmsman Hitchins was simply wrong, then Bruce Ismay, also a survivor of the disaster, the head of the White Star Line company that owned the Titanic, gave a disastrous order.

“The iceberg hit the Titanic in its most vulnerable place,” continues Patten, “but, as my grandfather believed, the liner could remain afloat for a long time. However, Ismay came to the bridge. He did not want at all that the ship, in which huge investments were made, either slowly sank in the middle of the Atlantic, or was towed to port. Too bad advertising! Therefore, he ordered the captain to give small ahead. The Titanic was considered unsinkable!

Captain of the Titanic Edward Smith

To this we can add that shortly before this sad anniversary, a letter from a passenger from the Titanic who managed to survive was put up for auction in one of the UK auction houses. This letter has never appeared before. The passenger writes in her letter that on the day of the Titanic crash, she saw the captain of the ship drunk.

According to the woman, she also saw how the captain of the Titanic, having transferred control to someone from the crew, was sitting in a bar and absorbing whiskey. Thus, it may turn out that the Titanic sank not because of a fatal set of circumstances, but because of banal criminal negligence.

What versions did we miss besides the official one?

And a little more about the legendary ship: here you are

The sinking of the Titanic claimed the lives of 1,517 of the 2,229 passengers and crew (official figures vary slightly) in one of the worst maritime disasters in world history. 712 survivors were brought aboard the RMS Carpathia. After this disaster, a great resonance swept through the public affecting attitudes towards social injustice, radically changed the way passengers were transported along the North Atlantic Passage, the rules for the number of lifeboats carried on board passenger ships were changed and the International Ice Reconnaissance was created (where merchant ships crossing the North Atlantic are still, with the help of radio signals, they transmit accurate information about the location and concentration of ice). In 1985, a major discovery was made, the Titanic was discovered at the bottom of the ocean and became a turning point for the public and for the development of new areas of science and technology. April 15, 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the Titanic. It became one of the most famous ships in history, her image has remained in numerous books, films, exhibitions and monuments.

Crash of the Titanic in real time

duration - 2 hours 40 minutes!

The British passenger liner Titanic leaves Southampton, England on her maiden voyage on April 10, 1912. The Titanic was called to Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland, before heading west towards New York. Four days in transit, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm, 375 miles south of Newfoundland. Shortly before 2:20 am, the Titanic broke up and sank. More than a thousand people were on board at the time of the accident. Some died in the water within minutes from hypothermia in the waters of the North Antaltic Ocean. (Frank O. Braynard Collection)

The luxury liner Titanic, pictured in this 1912 photograph, left Queenstown for New York on her ill-fated last voyage. The passengers of this ship were included in the list of the richest people in the world, such as millionaires John Jacob Astor IV, Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidor Strauss, as well as more than a thousand emigrants from Ireland, Scandinavia and other countries seeking new life in America. The disaster was greeted around the world with shock and outrage over the huge loss of life and violation of the regulatory and operational parameters that led to this disaster. The investigation into the sinking of the Titanic began a few days later and led to a significant improvement in maritime safety. (United Press International)

A crowd of workers. Shipyard Harland and Wolf shipyard in Belfast, where the Titanic was built between 1909 and 1911. The ship was designed to be last word in comfort and luxury, and was the largest ship afloat on her maiden voyage. The ship is visible in the background of this 1911 photograph. (Photo Archive/Harland & Wolff/Cox Collection)

Photo taken in 1912. In the photo, a chic dining room aboard the Titanic. The ship has been designed to be the last word in comfort and luxury, with an onboard gym, swimming pool, libraries, upscale restaurants and luxurious cabins. (Photo archive The New York Times / American Press Association)

1912 photograph. Second class canteen on the Titanic. A disproportionate number of people - over 90% of those in second class - remained on board because of the "women and children first" protocols followed by lifeboat loading officers. (Photo archive of The New York Times / American Press Association)

Photo April 10, 1912, it shows the Titanic leaving Southampton, England. The tragic sinking of the Titanic took place a century ago, one of the causes of the death, according to some, of the weak rivets used by the ship's builders in some parts of this ill-fated liner. (Associated Press)

Captain Edward John Smith, commander of the Titanic. He commanded the largest ship at that time making its first voyage. The Titanic was a massive ship - 269 meters long, 28 meters wide and weighing 52,310 tons. 53 meters separated from the keel to the top, almost 10 meters of which were below the waterline. The Titanic was higher above the water than most city buildings of the time. (The New York Times Archive)

First Mate William McMaster Murdoch, who is regarded as a local hero in his hometown of Dalbeattie, Scotland, but in the movie Titanic was portrayed as a coward and a murderer. At the ceremony, on the 86th anniversary of the ship's sinking, Scott Neeson, executive vice president of film producers 20th Century Fox, presented a check for five thousand pounds (US$8,000) to Dalbeattie School as an apology for the painting to an officer's relative. (Associated Press)

It is believed that it was this iceberg that caused the accident of the Titanic on April 14-15, 1912. The picture was taken aboard the Western Union ship, Mackay Bennett, commanded by Captain DeCarteret. McKay Bennet was one of the first ships to reach the site where the Titanic sank. According to Captain DeCarteret, it was the only iceberg at the site of the sinking when it arrived. It is assumed, therefore, that he was responsible for this tragedy. A glimpse of a collision with an iceberg caused the Titanic's hull plates to buckle inward in a number of places on her board and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments into which water gushed in an instant. Over the next two and a half hours, the ship gradually filled with water and sank. (United States Coast Guard)

Passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partially filled. This photo of a lifeboat from the Titanic approaching the rescue ship Carpathia was taken by Carpathia passenger Louis M. Ogden and was on display in 2003, an exhibition of photographs that relate to the Titanic (bequeathed to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, by Walter Lord). (National Maritime Museum / London)

Seven hundred and twelve survivors were brought aboard from lifeboats on the RMS Carpathia. This photograph taken by Carpathia passenger Louis M. Ogden shows the Titanic lifeboat approaching the rescue ship, the Carpathians. The photograph was part of an exhibition in 2003 at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England named after Walter Lord. (National Maritime Museum / London)

Although the Titanic had advanced safety features such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, she lacked enough lifeboats to hold all those on board. Due to outdated maritime safety regulations, she carried only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people - a third of her total passenger and crew capacity. This sepia photograph depicting the recovery of the passengers of the Titanic is one of the memorabilia about to go under the hammer at Christies in London, May 2012. (Paul Tracy / EPA / PA)

Members of the press interview Titanic survivors coming off the rescue ship, Carpathians, May 17, 1912. (American Press Association)

Eva Hart is portrayed as seven years old in this photograph taken in 1912 with her father, Benjamin, and mother Esther. Eva and her mother survived the sinking of the British liner Titanic on April 14, 1912, but her father died in the crash. (Associated Press)

People stand on the street waiting for the arrival of Carpathia after the sinking of the Titanic. (The New York Times / Wide World Photo Archive)

A huge crowd gathered in front of Star Line's White Office on Lower Broadway in New York City to get the latest news about the sinking of the Titanic on April 14, 1912. (Associated Press)

The editors of The New York Times at the time of the sinking of the Titanic, April 15, 1912. (Photo archive of The New York Times)

(Photo archive of The New York Times)

Two messages were sent from America by insurers to Lloyds in London in the mistaken belief that other ships, including Virginia, were coming to the rescue when the Titanic sank. These two commemorative messages are due to go under the hammer at Christies in London in May 2012. (AFP/EPA/Press Association)

Laura Francatelli, and her employers Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon and Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, standing on the rescue ship, Carpathians (Associated Press / Henry Aldridge & Son / Ho)

This vintage seal shows the Titanic shortly before leaving for its maiden voyage in 1912. (New York Times Archive)

A photograph released by Henry Aldridge and Son/Ho auctioned in Wiltshire, England on April 18, 2008 shows an extremely rare Titanic passenger ticket. They were auction handling the complete collection of Miss Lilian Asplund's last American Titanic Survivor. The collection consists of a number of important objects including a pocket watch, one of the few remaining tickets for the Titanic's maiden voyage and the only example of a direct emigration order the Titanic thought to exist. Lillian Asplund was a very private person, and because of a terrible event, she became a witness that on a cold April night in 1912, she rarely spoke about the tragedy that claimed the lives of her father and three brothers. (Henry Aldridge)

(National Maritime Museum / London)

Breakfast menu aboard the Titanic, signed by survivors of the disaster. (National Maritime Museum / London)

The nose of the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean, 1999 (Institute of Oceanology)

The image shows one of the Titanic's propellers at the bottom of the ocean during an expedition to the site of the tragedy. Five thousand exhibits planned to be auctioned as a single collection on April 11, 2012, 100 years after the sinking of the ship (RMS Titanic, Inc, via The Associated Press)

Photo August 28, 2010, released for the premiere of the exhibition, Inc-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, shows the starboard side of the Titanic. (Premier Exhibitions, Inc. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)

Dr. Robert Ballard, the man who found the remains of the Titanic almost two decades ago, returned to the site and calculated the damage from visitors and hunters for the "souvenir" of the ship. (Institute of Oceanography and Archaeological Research Center / University of Rhode Island Grad. Schools of Oceanography)

The giant propeller of the sunken Titanic lies on the floor in the North Atlantic in this undated photograph. The propeller and other parts of the famous ship were seen by the first tourists to visit the wreck in September 1998.

(Ralph White/Associated Press)

The 17-ton part of the Titanic's hull rises to the surface during an expedition to the site of the tragedy in 1998. (RMS Titanic, Inc., via The Associated Press)

July 22, 2009, photo of the 17-ton part of the Titanic, which was raised and restored during an expedition to the site of the tragedy. (RMS Titanic, Inc., via The Associated Press)

A gold-plated American Waltham pocket watch, owned by Carl Asplund, in front of a contemporary watercolor painting of the Titanic by CJ Ashford at the Henry Aldridge & Son Auctions in Devizes, Wiltshire, England, April 3, 2008. The clock was recovered from the body of Karl Asplund who drowned on the Titanic, and is part of Lillian Asplund, the last American survivor of the disaster. (Kirsty Wigglesworth Associated Press)

The currency, part of the Titanic Collection, is photographed at a warehouse in Atlanta, August 2008. The owner of the largest trove of artifacts from the Titanic is offering a huge collection for auction in a single lot in 2012, on the 100th anniversary of the most famous shipwreck in the world. (Stanley Leary/Associated Press)

Photographs by Felix Asplund, Selma and Carl Asplund and Lillian Asplund, by Henry Aldridge and Son Auctions at Devizes, Wiltshire, England, April 3, 2008. The photographs were part of Lillian Asplund's collection of Titanic-related items. Asplund was 5 years old in April 1912 when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage from England to New York. Her father and three siblings were among the 1,514 dead. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press)

Exhibits at the "Titanic Artifact Exhibition" at the California Science Center: binoculars, comb, dishes and a broken incandescent light bulb, February 6, 2003. (Michel Boutefeu/Getty Images, Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times)

Glasses among the wreckage of the Titanic were among the choicest artifacts of the Titanic. (Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press)

Golden Spoon (Titanic Artifacts) (Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press)

A chronometer from the Titanic Bridge is on display at the Science Museum in London, May 15, 2003. The Chronometer, one of more than 200 items salvaged from the wreck of the Titanic, was on display at the launch of a new exhibit commemorating its ill-fated maiden voyage along with bottles of perfume. The exhibition took visitors on a chronological journey through the life of the Titanic, from its concept and construction, to life on board, and its plunge into the Atlantic Ocean in April 1912. (Alastair Grant/Associated Press)

Logo meter to measure the speed of the Titanic and a hinged lamp. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Titanic artifacts displayed in the media for preview purposes only, to announce the historical sale is complete. a collection of artifacts recovered from the wreck of the Titanic and showcasing highlights from the collection at sea by Intrepid, Air & SpaceMuseum January 2012. (Chang W. Lee / The New York Times)

Cups and pocket watches from the Titanic are displayed during a Guernsey auction press conference, January 5, 2012. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images, Brendan McDermid/Reuters Michel Boutefeu/Getty Images-2)

Spoons. RMS Titanic, Inc. is the only company authorized to remove elements from the ocean floor where the Titanic sank. (Douglas Healey/Associated Press)

Gold mesh purse. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The April 2012 edition of National Geographic magazine (on-line version available on iPad) sees new images and drawings from the Titanic wreck as it remains on the seafloor, gradually disintegrating at a depth of 12,415 feet (3,784 m). (National Geographic)

Two propeller blades peek out from the darkness of the sea. This optical mosaic is assembled from 300 high resolution images. (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

First full view of the legendary wreck. The photo mosaic consists of 1500 high resolution images using sonar data. (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

Side view of the Titanic. You can see how the hull sank to the bottom and where the iceberg's fatal impact points are. (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

(COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

Making sense of this tangle of metal presents endless challenges to professionals. One says: "If you interpret this material, you must love Picasso." (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

The Titanic's two engines lie in a gaping hole in the stern. Wrapped in "rusticles" - orange stalactites made of iron - that eat the bacteria of these massive four-story structures, the largest moving man-made objects on Earth at the time. (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

Many people have heard, many have read, but many still do not know the real and bitter truth about the death of the world's largest passenger liner with the mighty name "Titanic". It belonged to the British company White Star Line. In just two years, shipbuilders managed to construct the impossible, and already on May 31, 1911, the Titanic was launched. His first cruise flight turned into a huge tragedy, the news of which swept over the course of two days around the world. What happened? How did the Titanic sink? How could the most unsinkable ship in the world be at a depth of 4 km? The owners of the company declared that God himself could not sink the Titanic. Maybe he got mad at people?

But let's move on to more real facts. So, on April 10, 1912, the greatest ship of all times and peoples, the Titanic, sailed from the port of Southampton, on board of which at that moment were the most famous people Great Britain. These were businessmen, actors and actresses, scientists and writers, etc. The Titanic set off on a 7-day voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to New York, stopping along the way at small ports to deliver and receive cargo, as well as disembark and disembark passengers. The fifth day of the exciting journey was fatal for all the passengers of the liner. Crossing the Atlantic, at about 3:00 am, the starboard side of the ship was cut by a small iceberg, which was not immediately noticed by the looking sailor. As many as five lower compartments were flooded in a matter of minutes.

After 2.5 hours, the Titanic disappeared into the depths of the sea. Of the 2,200 people, only 715 were able to escape. Almost 1,500 people tragically died. And now the most intriguing question arises, who is to blame for this tragedy? God? Shipbuilders? or not the professionalism of the captain of the ship? But nevertheless, after numerous investigations, objective and subjective reasons for the death of the Titanic were still collected, but we will talk about them a little later. To begin with, one should delve into these facts and analyze the broader reasons that influenced the outcome of events and the death of innocent people.

Responsible for the sinking of the Titanic

shipbuilders

Let's start, perhaps, with shipbuilders, namely with the ship's plating itself. In 1994, a study was carried out with a piece of the skin of the sunken Titanic. The results were very deplorable, because. the plating was so thin that even the smallest piece of ice floe could inflict enormous damage on it, and if we take into account the huge Iceberg, then the damage was still not very big, thanks to the actions of the captain of the ship. The impact caused by the iceberg was tragic because the ship's hull plating included phosphorus in its composition, which, at low temperatures, caused this plating to break. The inability of shipbuilders to create high-quality steel at that time, as well as ship designs, makes them also guilty of this tragedy. It was also known that the construction design of the Titanic included the use of the necessary materials, but most of them were of poor quality or were not available at all. This is proven by the fact that some people made a lot of money on this and shipbuilders may not be guilty of this.

radio operators

Now about no less important employees of the ship - radio operators. In 1912, radio communication on the high seas was new, and not every ship could establish it. The bottom line is that radio operators, but not known reason they were not part of the ship's crew, but worked for the Marconi company, which was engaged in the transmission of paid messages in the form of Morse code. Currently, they can be compared with SMS messages on the phone.

Based on the surviving records, the radio operators managed to transmit more than 250 radiotelegrams on April 14, and the signals that came from other ships that also sailed across the Atlantic were simply ignored by the radio operators, because. they needed to make money. According to the records of radio operators, which were not taken into account by them, it became known that the Titanic had been alerted of the danger with the exact coordinates since 20-00 on the evening of April 14. There were even messages for the captain personally, in which it was written about nearby icebergs, but the radio operators were too lazy to deliver this information to the captain, and continued to send paid messages. But the entire crew of the ship was instructed in advance about possible glaciers, because. route passed through them.

Iceberg

Video - Titanic. The mysteries of the death of the liner

As you can see, the Titanic still managed to sink, and not only for the above reasons, there are several more. Perhaps the most important of them is the lack of binoculars from the looking sailor, who was on the ship, but was locked in a safe, and the second mate had the key. It was David Blair, who was removed from the flight for unknown reasons. He simply forgot to give this key to his reliever, so the looking sailor could not see the danger. With binoculars, trouble could be foreseen for 6 km., And without binoculars, the sailor could notice just 400 meters away. It was calm and the night was moonless. Even the weather conditions that night were against the ship, because the light of the moon in any case was able to reflect on the iceberg and give it away in advance.

It was also known that the iceberg was black, which means that it had turned upside down shortly before. It is possible that even under the moon the shine of the iceberg could not be noticeable, because. its white side was under water.

The fact that the first assistant did not notice the iceberg first is not clear. it is always more visible on the bridge than from the "eagle's nest" of a sailor.

About maneuver

It should be clarified that the captain of the ship was not on the bridge at the time of the crash, he was replaced by first assistant Murdoch. The results of the studies carried out indicate that the first officer gave the order "Left rudder" and immediately after that gave the order "Reverse". But the second command was carried out late and the reverse was made after a collision with an iceberg. It is believed that if Murdoch ordered, on the contrary, to increase speed, then the turn of the ship would not be smooth, but sharp. Perhaps the experience of the team failed in this situation as well. they did not participate in the testing of the ship after launching, and it is very difficult to create a maneuver of such a huge ship without preparation. Some believe that if the Titanic had not changed course, but had rammed an iceberg, it would have remained unscathed, because. the bow of the ship was protected and could only get a small dent at most.

Having considered the expanded picture of the circumstances of that night, we should return to the objective and subjective reasons for the sinking of the Titanic.

Subjective causes of the sinking of the Titanic

1. The rules of the British Merchant Shipping Code were outdated. They said that lifeboats were put on a ship depending on its tonnage, and not on the number of passengers. This means that there were not enough boats on the Titanic, so about 500 more people were not saved.

2. There is evidence that the helmsman, at the command "Take to the left", turned the steering wheel to the right.

3. The director of the company, J. Ismay, was sailing on board the ship, but he ordered the captain to sail on and not take any action so as not to incur losses. The captain followed his order, but water entered the compartments at a rate of 350 tons per minute.

4. To date, no one has survived after the crash. Those who escaped died a natural death. Last Passenger The Titanic died in 2009. It was a woman who was on the Titanic as a 5 year old child. Only she knew the true truth of the death of the ship, which her relatives told her, but the secret died with her.

Objective reasons for the sinking of the Titanic

1. Due to the fact that the iceberg turned over, because he was melting at that time, he was not visible from the ship.

2. The speed of the ship was very high. As a result, the blow was the most powerful. The fault here is solely the captain of the ship.

3. Radio operators, busy sending paid messages, did not convey important information about the danger to the captain. Considering that they were not part of the team, this does not relieve them of responsibility.

4. Titanic steel at the time was not the best quality. The pressure on her low temperatures led her to brittleness and brittleness. There is no fault of the shipbuilders here, because. they performed work with the raw materials that were purchased by the management of the shipbuilding company.

5. All compartments of the ship were protected by iron doors, but the pressure of the water was so strong that they simply shattered into small pieces. Thus, compartment after compartment was filled with water.

6. The lookout did not have binoculars, which reduced the radius of his view from the "eagle's nest".

7. The ship did not have red flares, the launch of which meant a signal of danger. As a result of this, white rockets were launched, which did not matter to neighboring ships.

This article did not consider the ships that came to the aid of the Titanic on that fateful night, but it is worth noting the fact that the closest ship that was near the Titanic was a ship with poachers who hunted seals that night, but saw the launch white rockets, they thought that this was a signal that they needed to stop and the captain of this ship ordered his crew to sail as quickly as possible in the opposite direction. Perhaps, thanks to these poachers, if they had not sailed away, many more people would have been saved, but there was no radio communication on their ship.

Thus, having analyzed the most truthful facts about how the Titanic sank, one can only guess which reason is still the most truthful.

The sinking of the Titanic scientific facts video

For the first time, the Titanic hit the headlines as the largest ship in the history of mankind, and its first voyage was to make a long journey across the Atlantic in April 1912. As everyone knows, instead of a triumphant voyage, the history of shipping was supplemented by the greatest catastrophe. On its fourth day of travel 105 years ago, 643 kilometers off the coast of Nova Scotia, the ship collided with an iceberg and sank within 2 hours and 40 minutes. On that terrible day, 1,500 passengers died, who mostly died not from injuries or asphyxia, but from hypothermia. Few managed to survive in the icy water of the Atlantic Ocean, the temperature of which in April 1912 dropped to -2 ° C. Don't be surprised, water may well remain liquid in this cold, given that in the ocean it is a solution of salt with other nutrients, and not pure H2O.

But if you study the history of the Titanic more deeply, you will also find stories about people who, during an unforeseen catastrophe, acted decisively, avoided death and helped other drowning people. Over 700 people survived the disaster, although for some of them it was a fluke. Here are 10 stories of survivors of the most tragic disaster in the Atlantic.

10. Frank Prentice - Crew Member (Warehouse Assistant)

Just before the Titanic finally sank, the ship's stern briefly rose into the air perpendicular to the water level. At the same time, team member Frank Prentice, one of the last people on the ship, along with 2 of his comrades, decided to jump off the sinking liner into cold water. One of his colleagues hit the Titanic propeller during the fall, but Prentice managed to fly 30 meters to the very water, where the lifeless body of a friend was already waiting for him. Fortunately, Frank was soon picked up by a lifeboat.

It is easy to verify Prentice's story, especially since his clock stopped at exactly 2:20, which is exact time final sinking of the Titanic in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Remarkably, Prentice survived another shipwreck a few years later while serving aboard the warship Oceanic during World War I.

9. Eight Chinese passengers from the third class

It may surprise you, but if you read the reports of the large-scale evacuation of the sinking Titanic, you will realize that at first it was a very civilized process. All the passengers obediently obeyed the orders of the crew of the ship, and many of them were glad to give their places in the lifeboats to women and children. They did it voluntarily and without coercion. Panic did not deprive people of prudence and honor. At least not all of them, and not all at once.

But if you want to know how passengers survived an early 20th century shipwreck with a more practical approach to testing, you might be interested in hearing about the 8 Chinese immigrants who boarded the legendary ship all on the same ticket. It was a group of people from Guangzhou who lost their jobs due to the coal crisis and sailed home to Hong Kong.

In various immigration reports, their names have changed, but today this is no longer important. When the iceberg struck, seven of them crept into the lifeboats before the lifeboats were directed to the landing pads. The Chinese hid in boats under blankets, and for a long time remained unnoticed. Five of them survived. The eighth Chinese also suffered a shipwreck - he was picked up by lifeboat number 14 (which also saved Harold Phillimore, whom we will talk about a little later). Saving 6 people from a group of 8 comrades is a good statistic, but it is difficult to call their behavior heroic.

8. Olaus Jorgensen Abelzeth - Second Class Passenger

Olaus Jorgensen Abelseth was a Norwegian shepherd who worked on a livestock farm in South Dakota(South Dakota). He was returning from a trip home after visiting relatives, and in April 1912 boarded the Titanic with five members of his family.

During the evacuation from the Titanic, people were seated in lifeboats for certain reasons. An adult male could only get on board a lifeboat if he had good experience in shipping, which would be useful for managing a swimming facility in the waters of the open ocean. There were only 20 lifeboats, and each of them had to be attended by at least one experienced sailor.

Abelset had six years of sailing experience, a former fisherman, and was offered a place on another boat, but the man refused. And all because some of his relatives could not swim, and Olaus Jorgensen decided to stay with them to take care of the survival of his family. When the Titanic completely sank, and Olaus' relatives were washed into the water, the man remained afloat in the cold ocean for 20 minutes until he was rescued. When Abelset was in the boat, he actively helped rescue other shipwreck victims, pumping out the frozen ones in the icy water.

7. Hugh Woolner and Maurits Bjornström-Steffanszoon - First Class Passengers

Hugh Woolner and Mauritz Björnström-Steffansson were sitting in the smoking room when they heard about the iceberg collision. The gentlemen escorted their girlfriend to the lifeboats and helped the crew of the Titanic to get the women and children onto the lifeboats. Hugh and Maurits were on the lower deck when they decided to jump into the last boat while it was descending. Their jump was made 15 minutes before the final sinking of the Titanic, so it was a now or never attempt.

Bjornström-Steffanszoon successfully jumped into the boat, but Woolner was less fortunate and missed. However, the man managed to grab onto the edge of the boat, and his friend managed to stop Hugh while he hung over the ocean. Ultimately, Woolner was helped into the boat. It was a rescue full of drama.

6. Charles Join - crew member (chief baker)

Most of the victims of the Titanic crash died of hypothermia (hypothermia) within 15 to 30 minutes in icy water, but Charles Joughin is real proof that there are exceptions to every rule. Join was drunk when the steamer hit an iceberg. Despite the extreme conditions and his drunken state, the baker greatly helped other drowning people, throwing deck chairs and chairs overboard the Titanic so that people had something to grab on to and not drown. After the liner finally submerged, Charles drifted in the area of ​​​​the crash site for more than two hours, until he was nailed to one of the rescue boats.

Survival experts attribute Joinin's success to the fact that the alcohol increased his body temperature, as well as the fact that, as the baker himself claimed, he tried not to submerge his head in ice water. Some critics doubt that the man was in the water for that long, but the fact remains that Join has witnesses from the lifeboat.

5. Richard Norris Williams - First Class Passenger

Richard Norris Williams was traveling with his father first class and together they sailed to a tennis tournament. After the iceberg collision happened, both of them kept their cool, demanding that the bar be opened, and spent some time at the gym. The Williamses even managed to help one passenger when they realized that it was not the time to chill.

As a result, Richard had a chance to watch how his father was covered by a chimney and swept into the sea by one of the waves, which washed away the Collapsible A model collapsible boat into the ocean. It was one of the last 2 boats aboard the sinking Titanic, and the crew did not physically have time to prepare both these life-saving appliances for boarding people and properly launching them into the water.

Later, on board the British steamship Carpathia, the first to come to the rescue of the victims of the Titanic, doctors advised the surviving Norris to amputate both frostbitten legs. The athlete opposed the recommendations of the doctors, and contrary to the initial forecasts of the doctors, not only did he not lose his legs, but also restored their functionality. Moreover, the man returned to the sport of tennis and won a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics. In addition, he was decorated for meritorious service in the First World War.

4 Rhoda "Rose" Abbott - Third Class Passenger

Everyone knows the “women and children first” maritime rule, but not everyone knows how strict it was. If a boy was over 13, he was no longer considered a child. This did not sit well with third-class passenger Rhoda Abbott, who was not going to give up her two sons, 13 and 16 years old. Abbott gave away a place on the boat so that she could stay with her children until the end. She was a woman of strong convictions, a member of the Christian humanitarian mission The Salvation Army and a single mother. Rhoda grabbed each child's hand and together they jumped over the side of the sinking ship.

Unfortunately, both of her sons drowned, and the mother-heroine surfaced without them. Like Richard Norris Williams, Rosa hopped aboard the capsized Collapsible A. Her legs suffered from hypothermia almost as badly as the legs of a tennis player. Abbott spent 2 weeks in the hospital, but that doesn't change the fact that she was the only woman alive after swimming in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean on the night of the Titanic crash.

3. Harold Charles Phillimore - crew member (steward)

The famous character of Rose Decatur, played by Kate Winslet in the James Cameron film, was fictional, but the prototype of this romantic story could be an example of the steward Harold Charles Phillimore (Harold Charles Phillimore).

The man was found clinging to floating debris amidst a sea of ​​corpses as the last lifeboat arrived at the crash site in search of survivors. Phillimore shared part of a drifting wooden beam with another passenger, which in Cameron's story Rosa Decatur did not do, allowing the love of her life to die of hypothermia. After a tragic shipwreck, Harold Phillimore continued his nautical career, achieved outstanding success and earned medals for his service in the Navy during the First World War.

2. Harold Bride - Representative of Marconi Wireless

Harold Bride was one of two telegraph operators of the British company Marconi Wireless, whose task was to provide communication between the ship's passengers and the mainland. Bride was also responsible for navigational messages and warnings from other ships. At the time of the crash, Harold and his colleague James Phillips were allowed to leave their post in order to be rescued as soon as possible, but both of them kept the Titanic in touch with the rest of the world until the last minutes of the legendary steamer.

The telegraph operators worked until the water began to fill their cabin. Then they realized that it was time to leave the ship. Colleagues boarded the last lifeboat, known as Collapsible B. Unfortunately, during the launch, she turned upside down, and all her passengers were in freezing water. Harold Bride got so bad in his legs that he struggled to climb a rescue ladder aboard the British steamship Carpathia when it arrived at the scene of the accident to help the surviving victims.

On the way to his rescue, Harold swam past a dead body, which turned out to be his comrade James Phillips, who died that terrible night from hypothermia. Subsequently, Bride did not enjoy talking in public about what happened because he was "deeply affected by the whole experience, especially the loss of his colleague and friend Jack Phyllis."

1. Charles Lightoller - Captain Second Rank

Charles Lightoller began his maritime career at the age of 13, and by the time he served on the Titanic as a captain second rank, he had seen a lot. Before entering into a contract with the British shipping company White Star, which owned a giant steamer, Lightoller had already survived a shipwreck in Australia, a cyclone in Indian Ocean, and hitchhiking all the way from western Canada all the way to England after participating in an unsuccessful gold prospecting in the Yukon.

When the Titanic hit the iceberg, Lightoller was one of the first to launch lifeboats into the water. At about 2:00 (20 minutes before the liner was completely flooded), his superiors ordered him to get into the boat and save himself, to which Charles bravely replied something like this: “no, I’m not damn likely to do it” (not damn likely).

In the end, he ended up in the water, swam to the overturned Collapsible B, which we already mentioned above, and helped maintain order and morale among the survivors. The officer made sure that the boat did not capsize again with all the passengers on board, and seated people so that no one was washed away into the icy ocean.

Captain Second Rank Charles Lightoller was the very last person to be rescued from the Titanic into the Atlantic Ocean, and he was taken aboard the Carpathia almost four hours after rescuers from other ships appeared. In addition, he was the most senior among all the surviving crew members, and, according to the charter, participated in the hearings of the US Congress on the tragic sinking of the Titanic.