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A TRIBUTE TO THE LIVES LOST ON THE TITANIC
By 7ony Stewart
Tragically more than 1,500 of the Titanic's 2,223 passengers died when the ship sank on her maiden voyage while in route to New York, in 1912, just two hours and 40 minutes after hitting an iceberg.
During her day the Titanic was the largest and most luxurious afloat. She was said to be unsinkable. It had a double-bottomed hull that was divided into 16 presumably watertight compartments. Shortly before midnight on April 14, the ship collided with an iceberg and five of its watertight compartments were ruptured, causing the ship to sink at 2:20 AM April 15.
It was determined later that the liner Californian, which was less than 20 miles away, and could have aided in saving many lives if the ships radio operator would had been on duty and received the Titanic's distress signals. The arrival of the steam liner Carpathia, 1 hour and 20 minutes after the Titanic went down prevented further loss of life in the icy waters.
As a result of the disaster, the first International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea was called in London in 1913. The convention drew up rules requiring that every ship have lifeboat space for each person embarked (the Titanic had only 1,178 boat spaces for the 2,224 persons aboard); that lifeboat drills be held during each voyage; and, because the Californian had not heard the distress signals of the Titanic, that ships maintain a 24-hour radio watch. The International Ice Patrol also was established to warn ships of icebergs in the North Atlantic shipping lanes.
FOR nearly 100 years, the blame for the sinking of the Titanic has been split between the iceberg and the man who sailed into it. The Titanic was built between 1909 and 1911, it was pulled together mainly with steel rivets, fitted by machinery. But the machine parts of the hull were fitted with old-fashioned iron rivets, which are easier to work by hand.National Geographic found experts in ship construction who were surprised at the damage caused by a glancing blow against an iceberg suggesting that the iron rivets holding the Titanic together would have torn too easily. I would have thought that running a liner into an iceberg at 27 knots would have been enough to do the damage.The White Star Line boasted in its promotional material by stating : "The science of shipbuilding… has now reached to a degree of perfection in its highest form which has put wind and water almost to defiance. It has not only robbed the sea of its terrors, but has imposed upon its unstable surface comforts and even luxuries of travel surpassing anything on land."
Because of this confidence, the Titanic had enough lifeboats for only half its passengers and crew.At the time the Titanic was not only considered the largest ship ever built, but she was also considered to be unsinkable by her makers. The Titanic wreck was discovered in 1985, two and one half miles beneath the Atlantic. Oct. 30, 2006 — New research suggests the Titanic's hull had opened up like a zipper upon impact, flooding and sinking the said to be unsinkable ship.
The life boats bounced around hitting the waves and frequently striking cakes of ice that were everywhere in the freezing waters. After four long hours of rowing life boats into the pitch dark icy cold Atlantic, survivors felt blessed to see the rescue ship Carpathia in the distance. Everyone was weak and on the verge of collapsing from the painfully suffering experience and loss of loved ones.
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After reading the tragic stories of survivors paints a picture of panic, despair, sadness and bravery. When the Titanic first hit the iceberg, there was complete order among the passengers and crew. No one really felt there was any danger. However, as the lifeboats became fewer and the great ship began to slowly slip into the Atlantic, a realization of fate began to emerge in the minds of those still on board.
One survivor, Miss Alice Farnan said: "The ship settled slowly, the lights going out deck after deck as the water reached them. The final plunge, however, was sudden and accompanied by explosions, the effect of which was a horrible sight. Victims standing on the upper deck toward the stern were hurled into the air and fell into the treacherous ice-covered sea. Some were rescued, but most of them perished. I cannot help recalling again and again.â€
Another survivor said by dawns first light she saw dead bodies of brave men float past the lifeboats and could hear the cries of women with a terrible reality of the disaster.
Mrs. John M. Brown described her experience on the Titanic as the "Most harrowing and terrible that any living soul could undergo. Oh, it was heart-rending to see those brave men die," she said.
Survivor Edwina MacKinzie said it was so dreadfully cold that night and very few people were getting on the lifeboats because they thought they would be rescued. MacKinzie was a second class passenger and by the time she reached the deck of the ship there was only one life boat left with only two seats available. She heard a older woman refusing to leave her husband so MacKinzie decided to give up her seat for the couple until an officer asked her to save someone’s baby.
Today's Titanic Survivors: As of August 14, 2006 there are only two living survivors who survived the RMS Titanic disaster, in which it sank on April 15, 1912 after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean. The survivors are Barbara Joyce West was born on May 24, 1911 in England. She was 10 weeks old when the ship sank and lost her father. And Eliza Gladys Dean, born February 2, 1912 of South Hampton. She was only 10 weeks old and also lost her father.
Regardless of the hopes and dreams of the 2,223 passengers aboard the Titanic, it all ended in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, as the largest moving object ever made by man, sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean her maiden voyage taking with her more than 1,500 souls with her. The men were the heroes, saving the women and children and went down with the Titanic. They were martyrs to their manhood. Because of the disaster it is a requirement that all ship carry enough life boats for the entire crew.The Grave of the Titanic
The story of the Titanic and the iceberg has grown into a legend of the sea. It took her discovery in 1985 to begin to find the truth behind the myth. One of the things that makes the Titanic so fascinating is that she represented the best of technology when she set sail on her ill-fated voyage in 1912, and it took the best of technology in the form of sonar, satellite tracking, and deep-dive technology to locate her grave 73 years later. In the early 1900's, waterborne transportation was the norm; today, satellites are taken for granted by our society. But we tend to forget the immense effort that these two technologies require to operate to their maximum potential. Until recently, the technology did not exist to locate, photograph, and explore this ship that rested two and a half miles down on the ocean floor.
On April 10, 1912, the RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York. At that time, she was the largest and most luxurious ship ever built. At 11:40 PM on April 14, 1912, she struck an iceberg about 400 miles off Newfoundland, Canada. Although her crew had been warned about icebergs several times that evening by other ships navigating through that region, she was traveling at near top speed of about 20.5 knots when one grazed her side.Less than three hours later, the Titanic plunged to the bottom of the sea, taking more than 1500 people with her. Only a fraction of her passengers were saved. The world was stunned to learn of the fate of the unsinkable Titanic. It carried some of the richest, most powerful industrialists of her day. Together, their personal fortunes were worth $600 million in 1912! In addition to wealthy and the middle class passengers, she carried poor emigrants from Europe and the Middle East seeking economic and social freedom in the New World.The remains of the Titanic were found in 1985 by Dr. Robert Ballard, an oceanographer and marine biologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. When he located the Titanic, he saw that, as some survivors reported, the ship had broken apart. He believed the weight of the water-filled bow raised the stern out of the water and snapped the ship in two just before it sank. Debris falling out of the ship was strewn over a 1/2 mile across the sea floor. The bow and the stern were found nearly 2000 ft. apart.
Keeping her location a secret, Bob Ballard used GPS to find the Titanic again when he returned the next year. He hoped to prevent treasure seekers from finding her and plundering the ship for booty such as coffee cups inscribed with RMS Titanic. On this second expedition, he visited the ship several times by submarine. On his last descent, he left a plaque honoring the 1500 victims and asking that subsequent explorers leave their grave undisturbed.
Find the Titanic again!
Eventually Bob Ballard released the coordinates of the Titanic's location. He recorded her coordinates as, stern section sits on ocean floor at 41o43'35" N, 49o56'54" W, boilers at 41o43'32" N, 49o56'49" W, bow at 41o43'57" N, 49o56'49" W. Find these coordinates and trace the outline of the sunken pieces of the Titanic on a chart of the North Atlantic.How far is it from its plotted course? At the time of the accident, the ship was reported to be at 41o46' N, 50o 14' W. (She was found 13½ miles southeast of the position given in her last distress call.) In 1912, navigation techniques of dead reckoning and celestial navigation could only give one an approximate location within several miles of one's true position.If the Titanic had had better navigational aids, could its passengers have all been saved? Could it even have avoided the iceberg? She started from Southampton, England, and stopped at Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland to pick up passengers. Her destination was New York. She sank 1000 miles due east of Boston, Massachusetts, and 375 miles southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland.Lifeboats
The Titanic was owned by the British White Star Line, flew the British flag, and thus was under the rules and regulations of the British government. Although she was originally designed to carry 42 lifeboats, the ship carried only 20 lifeboats (four more than were required at the time by British regulations) for the 2,228 passengers and crew. (That number could supposedly hold 1,178 people.) The original designer of theTitanic had proposed 50 lifeboats, but the British owners of the White Star Line had decided against it. (If it had been under US Government regulation at the time, 42 lifeboats, enough to accommodate 2,367 persons would have been required for a ship that size.) Only 705 people were rescued; 1523 drowned or froze to death in the icy water. Ironically, most of those who drowned were Americans. Each lifeboat could hold 65 people. Unfortunately, the 20 lifeboats on board were launched before they were filled to capacity, so the number of people rescued was far fewer than could have been saved. Only 705 of 2,227 people on board survived. What percentage is that?Women Men Total & Children
First class 94% 31% 60%Second class 81% 10% 44%
Steerage 47% 14% 25%
Crew 87% 22% 24%
Analyze these statistics. What do these figures tell you about the policy of saving women and children first, how social standing and wealth influenced who was rescued, and the tradition that the crew usually went down with the ship? Many of the poorest people were not aware of the seriousness of the damage to the Titanic until shortly before it sank.