The never ending story of Titanic (Part I)

SOUTHAMPTON, England – Just last May, before the Olave Baden Powell Girl Guide Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, our school principal Lumen Duran took me to England to visit her three sisters. Jenny and Carina are staff nurses in the teaching hospitals of Southampton, Hampshire in the United Kingdom, while Sonia is a staff nurse in the teaching hospital of Belfast, Northern Ireland. To my great delight, I found myself right in the two countries where the tragic history of the first luxurious passenger ship the Titanic began and ended. The shipyard of Harland and Wolff started construction of the 73,924 ton ship on March 31, 1909 in Belfast, Ireland, ready to load 3,547 passengers, the heaviest ship afloat at that time. It was launched on May 31, 1911 at Southampton.

The Titanic has had two lives. Its first life was as an ill-fated ship that floated for less than a year. Its second life began the moment the ship struck the iceberg and, almost 100 years later, shows no sign of ending. With countless films, books, musicals, songs, computer games, and websites to its name, the Titanic has become famous now more than ever. What remains of it may lie rusting at the bottom of the Atlantic, but interest in the ship – and the magical era it was a part of – lives on.

A night to remember

One of the few survivors of the Titanic to prosper from the tragedy was the actress Dorothy Gibson, who was travelling first-class and escaped in one of the lifeboats. One month after the ship sank, she co-wrote and starred in a silent movie, Saved from the Titanic, and went on to have a successful film career. The film was the first of many about the ship.

Within day of the disaster, newspapers were producing memorial editions packed with photographs and artistic reconstructions of the final tragic hours of the Titanic. Songwriters produced mournful songs, postcard companies printed memorial cards with pictures of the ship and its captain, and publishers produced hastily written books.

The publication, in 1995, of Walter Lord’s authoritative book A Night to Remember sparked renewed interest in the Titanic. Lord’s interviews with more than 60 survivors brought to life the final hours of those on board the liner. The book was televised in 1956 and, in 1958, was turned into a successful documentary-style film starring Kenneth More.

The sinking of the Titanic may seem an unlikely subject for a musical, but the larger-than-life character of Molly Brown provided the perfect excuse. US millionairess Molly Brown was one of 26 women on board lifeboat number 6. In charge was Quartermaster Hichens, who refused to order the women to row. So Molly Brown took command. She threatened to throw Hichens overboard, and rowed furiously towards the rescue ships. Mrs. Brown’s heroic determination earned her the title of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” The Unsinkable Molly Brown opened on Broadway, New York in 1960 and was a great success. Another musical, Titanic, staged in 1997 to mark the 85th anniversary of the disaster, highlighted the great divide between the wealthy passengers in first class and the poor emigrants in third class.

One of the less successful attempts to film the Titanic story was Raise the Titanic (1980). The film cost £35 million to produce and made so little money that the film’s producer, Lord Grade, remarked, “It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic.”

Interest in the Titanic reached huge proportions with the release of the film Titanic in 1997. Directed by James Cameron and starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, the film won 11 Oscars, including best picture and best director. Within two years, it had taken £1,141 million ($1,826 million) at the box office, making it one of the most successful films of all time.

Predicting the tragedy

There are many strange stories relating to the Titanic. Two authors came close to describing the events of that fateful night, some 20 years before they actually occurred. The English journalist and spiritualist William T. Stead wrote the novel From the Old World to the New in 1892. In it a ship strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sinks. Survivors are rescued by a ship captained by an E.J. Smith. Twenty years later, Stead sailed on the Titanic, captained by E.J. Smith, and lost his life. In 1898, a retired merchant navy officer, Morgan Robertson wrote a novel called Futility or The Wreck of the Titan. The book’s description of a ship attempting to cross the Atlantic in record time, hitting an iceberg, and sinking with the loss of almost all of its passengers due to a shortage of lifeboats, predicts the fate of the Titanic almost faultlessly.

On the night of 14 April 1912, a young Scottish girl, Jessie, was being comforted as she lay dying. In her delirious state Jessie had a vision of a ship sinking in the Atlantic. She saw many people drowning and “someone called Wally… playing a fiddle.” Within hours of her death the Titanic slowly sank as Wally Hartley and the rest of the band continued to play.

Lessons learned

Four days after the Titanic sank the first official inquiry into the disaster, chaired by Senator William Alden Smith, opened in New York and lasted for 17 days. The 82 witnesses called to the stand included: White Star chairman, Bruce Ismay; Guglielmo Marconi; lookout Frederick Fleet; and Captain Lord of the Californian. Two weeks later, the British inquiry began under the Lord Mersey, a former High Court judge.

So how many people lost their lives at the sinking of the Titanic? The US Senate investigation put the total losses at 1,517, while the British enquiry calculated 1,490. Some authorities put the losses as high as 1,635. Although both inquiries covered much the same ground, their main difference was motive: the US inquiry was conducted by politicians looking for someone to blame, while the British inquiry was conducted by lawyers and technical experts trying to established the facts to ensure there was no repetition of the disaster. Both inquiries made much the same recommendations, calling for ships to be safer and built to higher standards, to make effective use of radio, and to carry sufficient lifeboats for everyone on boat.

NORTH ATLANTIC ICE PATROL – One of the lasting results of the collision was the agreement, in 1914, by 16 North Atlantic nations to establish the International Ice Patrol to look out for icebergs in the North Atlantic shipping lanes. Nowadays, the patrol uses ships and airplanes, equipped with radar, underwater sonar equipment, and the latest forecasting technology to log all icebergs and report their existence to every ship in the area. Many lives have been saved as a result of this patrol.

MORE LIFEBOATS – The main recommendation of both inquiries was that every ship be fitted with enough lifeboats to accommodate every passenger and crew member, and that regular lifeboat drills be held. For existing ships, this meant placing more lifeboats on deck, reducing the space available for passengers to walk on the upper decks and restricting their view of the sea. Modern ships are designed to overcome these problems.

ON AIR, 24 HOURS RADIO CONTACT – Both inquiries recommended that every ship be fitted with a radio and that radio contact be maintained 24 hours a day. The inquiries also advised that ship radios should adhere to international regulations. Previously, a novelty enjoyed by wealthy passengers only, radio contact now became a major navigational and safety aid at sea.

THE FORGOTTEN CREW – Under the White Star Line’s conditions of service, the Titanic’s crew ceased to be paid at 2:20am on 15 April, the moment the ship sank. Those who appeared before the US inquiry received some expense, but most were shipped straight home by White Star, with little or no financial aid. Many of the surviving crew had to rely on charity or emergency shipwreck payments from the Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union until they could find another job. Today, the crew is covered by insurance.

The never ending mourning

The town most affected by the disaster was Southampton, England, where most of the crew lived. On 22 April 1914, a week after the disaster, a monument to the ship’s engineers was unveiled in the city’s East Park. More than 100,000 people attended the unveiling. A year later, a smaller memorial to the stewards was unveiled on Southampton Common; this memorial was later moved to a local church.

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(Part II – A Tale of Two Cities)