On the night of April 14, 1912, the largest and most luxurious liner in the history of mankind was rushing towards the shores at full speed. North America. Nothing foreshadowed the sinking of the Titanic. An orchestra was playing on the upper deck in a gourmet restaurant. The richest and most successful people drank champagne and enjoyed the beautiful weather.
There were no signs of trouble
A few minutes later the lookout spotted an iceberg. And a little later, the Titanic, a gigantic ship, will collide with a drifting iceberg, and after some time it will all be over. Thus begins the great mystery of the big ship. The next day, the sinking of the Titanic would become a legend, and its story would be the greatest mystery of the 20th century.
International sensation
The very next morning, the office of the Titanic owner's company was stormed by dozens of newspaper reporters. They wanted to know where the Titanic sank and demanded clarification. Relatives of passengers on the ocean liner were outraged. A short telegram from Cape Reis reported: “At 23 o’clock local time the most big ship"Titanic sent a distress signal." Company President Laster Whites reassured reporters: “The liner is unsinkable!” But the very next day, all the world's newspapers were full of sensational messages: “The safest Titanic (ship) in the world sank in the icy depths of the Atlantic Ocean. On the fifth day of its tragic voyage, the liner claimed 1,513 human lives.”
Disaster investigation
The sinking of the Titanic shocked both sides of the Atlantic. The question of why the Titanic ended up at the bottom haunts us to this day. From the very beginning, people wanted to know in detail what the cause of the sinking of the Titanic was. But the court’s decision read: “The liner hit an iceberg and sank.”
The Titanic (the size of the ship, by the way, was very impressive) died from a banal collision with an ice floating block. It seemed incredible.
Alleged versions of the tragic death
The end to the history of this disaster has not yet been set. Fresh versions of the death of the Titanic arise even today, a century later. There are several plausible assumptions. Each of them deserves close attention. The first version says that another sunken liner lies on the Atlantic bottom. It sounds like science fiction, but this version of the death of the Titanic has real grounds.
Some researchers argue that it is not the sunken ship Titanic that lies on the ocean floor at all, but its double, the Olympic liner. The version seems fantastic, but it is not without evidence.
Ocean Monster of Great Britain
On December 16, 1908, the firstborn was laid down in Belfast - the steamship Olympic, later the Titanic (the size of the ship reached almost 270 meters in length) with a displacement of 66 thousand tons.
Until now, representatives of the shipyard consider it the most perfect project that has ever been implemented. The ship was as tall as an eleven-story building and spanned four small city blocks. This ocean monster was equipped with two 4-cylinder steam engines and a steam turbine.
Its power was 50,000 horsepower, 10,000 light bulbs, 153 electric motors, four elevators, each designed for 12 people, were connected to the liner’s electrical network. large number phones. The ship was truly innovative for its time. Silent elevators, steam heating, winter garden, several darkrooms and even a hospital with an operating room.
Comfort and respectability
The interior was more reminiscent of a fashionable palace than a ship. Passengers dined in a luxurious Louis XVI-style restaurant and drank coffee on a sun-drenched veranda with climbing plants. Bridge games were played in spacious halls, and high-end cigars were smoked in soft smoking rooms.
The Titanic had a rich library, a gym and even a swimming pool. These days, a business class ticket on the Titanic would cost $55,000. The liner became the flagship of the White Star Line company.
The Olympic liner, which was almost the same in terms of comfort and technical characteristics, lost its championship without a fight. It was he who was to become the star of transatlantic flights. But frequent accidents made him an outsider, and endless fines, lawsuits and repair costs only added to the managers' headaches.
Unsolved version
The decision was obvious: to send instead of the battered Olympic, which did not have an insurance policy, a new insured Titanic. The history of the ship "Olympic" was very unrepresentable. However, just by changing the signs on the liners, which were as similar as two peas in a pod, several problems could be solved at once. The main thing is the payment of insurance in the amount of one million pounds, which could improve the financial affairs of the company.
Small accident, big money, job done. People shouldn't have been hurt, because the liner is unsinkable. In the event of an accident, the ship will drift, and ships passing by on the busy ocean route will pick up all the passengers.
Strange behavior of passengers
The main real evidence of this unprecedented scam is considered to be the refusal of travel by 55 first class passengers. Among those who remained ashore were:
- John Morgan, owner of the liner.
- Henry Frick, steel magnate and partner.
- Robert Breccon, US Ambassador to France.
- Famous rich man George Vanderbilt.
The mystery of the death of the Titanic has indirect confirmation of the insurance scam version, namely the strange behavior of Captain Edward Smith, who, by the way, was the captain of the Olympic during its first voyages.
The Last Captain
Edward Smith was considered one of the best commanders of his time. Working for the White Star Line, he earned around £1,200 a year. Other captains did not earn even half of this money. However, Smith's career was far from rosy. Many times the ships he managed got into all sorts of accidents, ran aground or burned.
It was Edward Smith who commanded the Olympic in 1911, when the uninsured ocean liner suffered several serious accidents. But Smith managed not only to avoid punishment, but even get a promotion.
He became the captain of the Titanic. Could the company's management, knowing about the captain's previous mistakes, assign him to the Titanic, and even just for one voyage? Could she use incriminating evidence on the captain in order to fire a man who brought huge losses to the company in case of disobedience with a scandal?
Perhaps the captain was choosing between a shameful write-off just before retirement and participation in a scam invented by his superiors. This was the last flight for Edward Smith.
What was the first mate thinking?
Another inexplicable mystery about the sinking of the Titanic is the strange behavior of William Murdoch, the first mate. Murdock was on watch the night of the accident. When he received a message about an approaching iceberg, he gave the order to steer the ship to the left and engage reverse, which is strictly prohibited.
Is it possible that the first mate made a mistake and this is the reason for the death of the Titanic? But Murdoch had already encountered a similar situation and always did the right thing, pointing the ship's nose at the obstacle. In all navigation textbooks, this maneuver is described as the only correct one in this situation.
On that last voyage for the Titanic, the chief mate acted differently. As a result, the main blow fell not on the bow, where the strongest part of the ship was, but on its side. Almost a hundred meters of the starboard side opened up like a tin can.
The Titanic, whose sinking story is told in less than ten seconds, was practically dead. This is exactly how long it took to pronounce the death sentence on the largest and most beautiful ship in the world. Why did Murdoch make a fatal mistake? If we assume that he, too, was in collusion, then the answer to the death of the Titanic is found by itself.
What were the ship's owners hiding?
Today it is impossible to prove the version of the insurance scam, the White Star Line company was closed, the Olympic ship was scrapped, and all documentation was destroyed. But even if we assume that the sinking of the Titanic was not rigged, then there was probably some human error involved.
Key to the Mystery Box
Many years have passed since the Titanic sank. The ship's story, however, continued in 1997, when the key was sold at a London auction for one hundred thousand pounds sterling. He opened only one box on the Titanic, but it was this key that was not on board the liner that fateful night. A chain of strange circumstances, a series of fatal coincidences and simply human negligence accompanied the superliner from the very beginning to the end of its first and last voyage.
Well, the item sold for fabulous money at a London auction was an ordinary key to an ordinary box. It contained the only equipment with which it was possible to recognize the danger threatening the ship - binoculars.
Forgetful first mate
The thing is that locators appeared only in the 30s of the last century. And at that time his functions were performed by human eye. From the highest point on the ship, the sailor continuously looked forward as the ship progressed. An airliner weighing 66 thousand tons, traveling at a speed of 45 km/h, has very low controllability, and the sooner the lookout notices the danger, the greater the chances of avoiding it. Ordinary binoculars were the only help.
For unknown reasons, Chief Mate Blair was removed from the ship at the last moment. Frustrated, he simply forgot to give his replacement the key to the box where the binoculars were kept.
Meeting with an unusual iceberg
Those looking ahead had to rely only on their own vigilance. They noticed the iceberg too late, when it was almost impossible to change the situation. In addition, this iceberg was different from the others; it was black.
During the drift, a huge block of ice melted and turned over. The iceberg, which had absorbed tons of water, became dark. It was incredibly difficult to notice him. If that fatal iceberg for the Titanic had been white, perhaps the watchmen would have seen it much earlier. Especially if they had binoculars.
"Titanic": the story of the sinking, the beginning of events
But the strangest thing is that the ship’s command could have learned about the possibility of a collision with an iceberg much earlier than the lookouts reported it.
Radio operators, the voice and ear of the Titanic, repeatedly received messages about ice floes drifting in the area. An hour before the lookout noticed the iceberg, the radio operator of the steamer California warned of possible danger. But on the Titanic the connection was rudely cut off.
Even earlier, a few hours before the collision, Captain Edward Smith personally read three telegrams warning about ice floes. But they were all ignored.
The chain of human miscalculations could be broken by Officer Murdock, who gave the fatal order: “Full back! Left hand drive." In the event of a head-on collision of the Titanic with an iceberg, there would have been much more time to evacuate passengers. Perhaps the ship could have stayed afloat.
Human negligence
Then the mistakes followed one after another. The evacuation order was given only 45 minutes after the collision. Passengers were asked to put on life belts and gather on the upper deck near the lifeboats. And then it suddenly became clear that the Titanic had only twenty lifeboats that could accommodate no more than 1,300 people, 48 lifebuoys and cork vests for each passenger and crew members.
However, the vests were useless for the northern regions of the Atlantic. A person who fell into cold water died from hypothermia within half an hour.
Prophetic predictions of a science fiction writer
Immediately after the disaster the whole world was shocked incredible coincidence. The date of sinking of the Titanic is April 15, 1912. And fourteen years before the tragedy, the unknown London journalist Morgan Robertson completed his new novel. The science fiction writer spoke about the voyage and death of the huge transatlantic liner Titan: “On a cold April night, at full speed, the ship ran into an iceberg and sank.” Moreover, the science fiction writer pinpointed the exact location of the sinking of the Titanic.
The novel turned out to be prophetic, and the science fiction writer was dubbed the Nostradamus of the 20th century. There really were a lot of coincidences in the book: the displacement of the ship, its maximum speed, and even the number of propellers and lifeboats.
Moreover, a few years later, the writer published his new novel, in which he predicted war in the USA and Japan.
Another coincidence: a copy of the book about the ship “Titan” was on the ship with one of the firemen. The sailor read it during the first days of the voyage, and he was so impressed by the plot that in one of the ports he simply ran away. And this was not the only crew member to escape from the Titanic.
It remains a mystery: either everyone who escaped had read the book before, or they had more compelling reasons.
Testimonies of eyewitnesses to the tragedy
Immediately after the sinking of the Titanic, special commissions were created in England and the United States to investigate its causes. Surviving passengers spoke of a loud bang that they heard after the collision with the iceberg. It was like an explosion. According to one version, a fire was raging in the liner's coal bunker.
Some researchers believe that it started even before the Titanic left port, while others are confident that the fire broke out during the voyage.
A little bit of history
Britain was being transformed by the technological revolution. Beginning in the 30s of the 19th century, steam-powered merchant ships began to cross the Atlantic. The technology proved promising, and the kingdom's admiralty concluded that steam would make the sailing fleet obsolete.
When reports appeared in London that tests of a steam engine were already underway in France, which had also entered the struggle for naval supremacy, the British had no choice but to accept the challenge. At first, large paddle wheels were used, which were installed on opposite sides of the sides.
The first replacement for the paddle wheel appeared about ten years later, in the 40s of the 19th century. Shipbuilders came to the conclusion that the propeller is much more efficient than wheels. It was only after its invention and placement under the bottom of the ship that steam propulsion became a decisive advantage.
But in most cases it remained experimental developments; sometimes the innovation was used on warships. Mass distribution steam engines were received only in the 20th century, and coal was the only fuel for a long time. In the future, the transition from coal to fuel oil will be a step to the next level of development.
But in the days of the Olympic class superliners, ships with an internal combustion engine were as rare as the steam engine of the first half of the 19th century century. Be that as it may, the fire on board should not have affected the life of the ship and its passengers. There could be no emergency incidents on the liner, this is the Titanic.
Further developments
Captain Smith ordered the bunker in which the fire was raging to be localized. Due to the lack of oxygen, the fire should have died out, the problem would have resolved itself. A fire on board is a good enough reason to drive the liner with all your might to the nearest port. But when the Titanic hit an iceberg, it ripped open the ship's hull, and oxygen entered the bunker. There was a powerful explosion.
Many years later, after an underwater study of the remains of the ship, this version gained additional arguments. A huge fault runs exactly where the coal compartments were located.
For the first time, a version of the fire appeared on the pages of American newspapers even before the surviving passengers and crew members of the Titanic were delivered to New York. Without factual material, but using only rumors, newspapermen invented the most incredible stories about the tragedy.
In any case, when the stokers were interrogated, they denied that there was a fire, although it would seem that after the disaster they had nothing to hide. On the other hand, according to some accounts, Captain Smith went down to the boiler room and ordered everyone to remain silent about the burning coal.
We don’t yet know what actually happened to the giant liner. The Titanic, the story of whose sinking has become the subject of documentaries and feature films, will always be of interest to future generations.
New version about the death of the liner
The nature of the Titanic's fault not only fuels the theory of a fire in the hold, but also allows some researchers to make an unexpected assumption.
The liner sank another ship. At the beginning of the 20th century, a new secret weapon was tested in the seas. Perhaps the Titanic was hit by a torpedo.
The version seems unusual, but the facts of the fracture and torn edges, which could have resulted from a torpedo attack, force us to take it seriously. If the Titanic was nevertheless torpedoed, one can only hope that someday researchers will get to that part of the ship, the study of which will help shed light on this version.
The date of sinking of the Titanic is April 15, 1912. On this day, but in different years, the following disasters occurred:
- 1989 - stampede at the English Hillsborough stadium.
- 2000 - a plane crash in the Philippines, killing 129 people.
- 2002 - a plane crash in Korea that claimed 129 lives.
What tragic events will life bring us next?
On April 14, 1912, the world was still well-fed, insolent and unsinkable. Humanity had mastered the power of steam and electricity—it no longer needed God. Therefore, by the end of Black Saturday on April 14, rock reminded itself. Heavy salty waves closed over the most ambitious dream of mankind after the Tower of Babel - the luxurious Titanic. No one was supposed to survive. It was an execution.
Studying the details of the shipwreck, researchers cannot get rid of a strange feeling: everything that happened was built into an endless stream of absurd, inexplicable and tragic misunderstandings. Thousands of small human mistakes merged into one monstrous absurdity, as if everyone around was consciously working to bury the giant liner in the black Atlantic depths.
Literally a week before the disaster, when the liner was sailing from Southampton to Sherba, all the watchmen had binoculars. And when the four-pipe ship rushed at full speed into the ice-clogged Atlantic, no one had binoculars except the captain, but he had no intention of being the lookout.
Second class passenger Miss Mary Young had opera glasses and saw the fatal iceberg half an hour before the collision, but did not tell anyone. A sailor in the observation “nest” on the mast noticed him two and a half minutes before the edge of the ice floe cut through the side of the Titanic and water rushed into the “watertight” compartments of the hold.
But even without binoculars, an experienced watchman is able to see much earlier - unless, of course, we are talking about a “black” iceberg. They are found extremely rarely, violating all the laws of physics, ice blocks for some reason turn over in the water, exposing to the surface not the white frosted crown of the iceberg, but a translucent dark green part. It is believed that the chance of encountering a “black iceberg” is approximately one in a thousand. Of course, Titanic got this chance.
Meanwhile, the black ice killer was spotted by one of the ships ahead of the Titanic on the busy route to New York. Usually, information about dangerous ice floes is immediately transmitted to the ships behind. But... it was on April 14 that the Titanic's ship's radio station went out of order. Radiotelegraphists Phillips and Bride spent seven hours straight fiddling with the Marconi apparatus and repaired it a few hours before the disaster.
However, in seven hours, 250 telegrams accumulated at once, which had to be sent to New York. They were paid for in advance by passengers rushing to tell their relatives that the Titanic had arrived at its destination a day ahead of schedule, setting a new record for the speed of crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Therefore, telegraph operators simply did not have time to receive warning messages coming from other ships.
A thousand absurdities! For some reason, out of 32 boats, only 20 were on the liner. But these 20, in turn, left the ship only half loaded, which is why 473 more people remained on the sinking ship. The third class passengers did not have life jackets. Moreover, none of the crew members were trained to use the vests until they left Queenstown for the ocean.
The ship's captain had no direct telephone connection to the radio room, although there were telephones in the 50 first-class passenger cabins. At the same time, in the tragedy of absurdities and mistakes there are several fatal scenes that cannot be explained from the point of view of human logic. Twelve miles from the sinking ship was the steamer Californian, frozen overnight, whose crew watched with interest as white flares flashed on the horizon above the unfamiliar ship.
"Shooting stars?" - suggested the Californian's watch officer. “No - crackers!” — the cabin boy answered with a smile. In vain, the fourth officer Boxhall, barely holding on to the tilting deck of the Titanic, fired his “crackers” into the starry sky eight times. After all, signal flares, meaning a call for help, are red. Everyone at sea knows this. And if the officer from the Titanic had fired a red rocket, the Californian would have managed to bring on board 1,400 people frozen in the icy water among the wreckage.
But he released white ones. Because on board the ship there were Turkish baths and swimming pools, palm trees and chapels, parrots in cages and boxes of first-class Burgundy, but there were no red flares. By whose will the radio operator of the Californian turned off his receiver and went to bed just a few minutes before the first help signal was broadcast from the nearby Titanic.
“CQD” - the then analogue of “SOS” - was heard even in... Egypt, in Port Said, 3000 miles from the site of the tragedy, but not on the Californian, in the line of sight. An impenetrable magical wall grew between the two ships that night - they were close, but forever far from each other. And therefore, on the sinking steamer, they did not even notice the signals that the Californian officer was giving with a lantern.
And he submitted them just in case, but did not receive an answer. Of the two thousand people rushing along the heaving deck of the liner, no one noticed the flashes of light on the horizon.
Bitter coincidences the very next day after the tragedy gave rise to persistent rumors about the mystical doom of the Titanic. They remembered the “bad sign” - in the very first minutes of the voyage, leaving the port of Southampton, the Titanic almost collided with the ship New York, which was standing at the neighboring pier.
The powerful propellers of the Titanic created underwater currents of such strength that the New York was uncontrollably pulled towards the giant liner - a collision was barely avoided. Then the surviving passengers began to talk about more and more mysterious signs that did not foretell anything good for the Titanic from the very first minutes of its voyage.
The ceremony of launching the Titanic on May 31, 1911 was organized with great pomp: thousands of guests and journalists were invited, special postcards and souvenirs were issued, 23 tons were used to lubricate the “sleigh” on which the monstrous carcass of the steamship slid from the slipway into the water locomotive oil and liquid soap. Rockets were launched into the sky, dozens of bottles of champagne were broken... For some reason, the organizers forgot only one thing - they did not consecrate the ship according to Christian maritime custom.
Maybe it all started when the ship was named? The Titans, children of the earth goddess Gaia, in Hellenic mythology personified the blind, uncontrollable and aggressive forces of nature. The Titans challenged the Olympian celestials, intending to seize power over the world, and each time they were defeated and driven back into the deep bowels of their mother earth.
The creators of the Titanic - the bosses of the transatlantic company White Star, Bruce Ismay and Lord James Pirrie - conceived their brainchild as a kind of ultra-modern challenge to nature, thrown at it by the scientific and technological revolution. Like the Eiffel Tower, the ship was designed to demonstrate the triumph of the daring human mind. It was a hundred feet longer than the previous Atlantic champion, the Lusitania, owned by rival Cunard, and 1,004 tons heavier than its younger brother, the Olympic.
An attack of gigantomania took hold of the creators so much that they built four chimneys on the Titanic, although in reality only three worked (that’s why the scenes from films where smoke pours out of all four chimneys of the Titanic make you smile). The fourth was ordered to be added by the owner of the holding, multimillionaire Pierson Morgan...
The maiden voyage of the Titanic was conceived as an event comparable in scale to the main super shows of the century. A first class ticket cost about $50,000 in today's money. Hundreds of people paid money not because they needed to go to New York. They bought tickets to the show. They got it.
All newspapers wrote about the “unsinkability” of the Titanic: a system was created that put an end to the centuries-old struggle of man with the elements. Even icebergs are no longer scary, because not for the first time, having encountered ice floes, steamships remained afloat - in 1879 this happened with the Arizona, in 1879 with the Concordia, in 1911 with the Columbia. All ships were hit below the waterline, but none of them sank. The Titanic was much better prepared for the iceberg than any of these ships.
It sank in an hour and a half. When the news of his death reached London, one of the warlock masters there calculated that the liner’s ship number - 390904 - after the operation of “transforming” the numbers into letters, reads like the short blasphemous phrase “No Pope”. This observation became another argument in the collection of “facts” and “prophecies” that, in the opinion of many, predetermined the fate of the Titanic.
Among the first, by the way, a version arose about a mysterious “cursed diamond” that was allegedly in the possession of one of the passengers (information about the diamond could not be verified, but it is known for certain that the pearl necklace of the safely escaped Mrs. Widener was then worth 16 million). They also talked about a certain “universal villain” who was on board the liner: as if providence, sending one and a half thousand people to the bottom, actually pursued the goal of killing only one of the passengers. The search for the villain is still ongoing.
List famous personalities very large - along with the Titanic, Colonel Archibald Butt, military adviser to US President Taft, and millionaire Gutenheim died, who, according to legend, managed to change into a tailcoat in order to meet his death like a gentleman in a flooded cabin. Another millionaire, 21-year-old Asley Widener, became a victim of the Titanic (his mother came to the port of New York to meet the Titanic on her own train of four Pullman cars).
The ocean floor became the grave of the Strauss, owners of the Macy's chain of stores that is still thriving in the United States. The death of these people is also inexplicable. If we think logically, anyone but millionaires and aristocrats would find places in the lifeboats first of all.
There were almost three times as many people of lower classes among the dead - statistics show. And the controversy still rages: is it true that third-class passengers were locked in the holds. This forces some scientists to put forward their version of the fatal doom of the ship. In their opinion, fatal destiny catastrophes - to cause an intensification of the class struggle in the Old and New Worlds.
Indeed, the total wealth of first class passengers on the Titanic exceeded $500 million. And more men from first class survived than women and children from third class. And this despite the strict maritime rules “Places in boats are for women and children!” “Using the example of the Titanic, the poor were convinced that if the world was dying, only the rich would survive,” said a surviving third-class passenger in an interview...
However, if you follow this logic, among the 705 survivors there must have been John Jacob Astor, one of the richest people of his Time. He was returning with his young wife (his second and already pregnant) from a trip to Egypt. A day after the death of the liner, the secular publication American published a 4-page article about the deceased Mr. Astor and only at the end mentioned the other victims of the disaster.
Astor’s wife escaped, but her husband’s disfigured body could only be identified by the monogram on his shirt—he was caught from the water a week later. Astor had to be saved, the amazed New York rich people repeated to each other in shock. Many things should not have happened that night, but providence had its own view of the Titanic. Isn’t every word dictated by pride in the book of the deceased John Jacob Astor, in which he tells how man in the year 2000 will live on Mars and Saturn, and giant steamships “will cross the Atlantic in four and a half days” and “will be as stable as a fortress?” "?
As the Titanic sank into the depths of the ocean, eight musicians on the mangled deck continued to play - they died, all eight, when the waves washed them overboard overnight. When the bow of the ship broke away and went deep into the depths, they played “Autumn.” And then they started last song. It was called "God is getting closer."
The dead carcass of the Titanic fell into the depths, and now the people in the lifeboats were slowly freezing to death. The Californian standing nearby, as if in the grip of an obsession, was still unable to notice them and come to their aid. The rest of the ships were terribly far away - the Russian steamer Burma heard the SOS and hurried to the rescue, but even at full speed it could only make it in the morning.
Mount Temple is 60 miles away, Baltic is 55 miles away, Olympic is 70 miles away... Salt water does not freeze at minus one degree Celsius. The crests of cold waves rolled over the low sides of the boats, which were mostly women and children, many of them in hysterics trying to jump overboard to share the fate of their loved ones.
In boat “A” people were sitting up to their waists in icy water, and after half an hour they had to throw the corpses of two women overboard - they froze right in the boat. Rescue boat number 12 was covered twice by waves - it was only a miracle that it did not sink. As doctors later calculated, any of the 705 surviving passengers had no chance of surviving more than 12 hours...
The small, underpowered ship Carpathia was 58 miles southeast of the disaster site when the ship's radio operator, Francis Cottam, heard a hysterical "CQD" from the sinking Titanic. He later recalled that he caught the signal at the very last moment, already taking off his headphones and getting ready to sleep. Cottam did not have a replacement. If he had fallen asleep five minutes earlier, the captain of the Carpathia would never have known that the Titanic was already sinking. The captain's name was Arthur Rostron. He never drank, smoked or cursed. Even in the age of steam and electricity, in the era of the most ambitious dreams of mankind, he did not forget how to pray.
Rostron was nicknamed “electric spark” by his subordinates for his ability to instantly make strong-willed decisions. The man's willpower was well known. At the age of 23, when Rostron joined the Cunard company, he once and for all banned himself from drinking alcohol. Two years later I stopped smoking. He swore extremely rarely—exactly once a month, as one of the officers counted—and every time then he loudly asked the Lord for forgiveness for the foul language that escaped his tongue.
Arthur Rostron first went to sea as a boy, at the age of 13, with his father. They say that it was during the “sea baptism” of the boy that a certain incident occurred that had strong impact on his psyche - since then Rostron prayed every day.
When radio operator Cottam, his face contorted with horror, burst onto the captain's bridge and confusedly muttered something about the sinking Titanic, Arthur Rostron, as usual, made a decision instantly. First, he turned to the crucifix hanging on the wall and whispered a few words. Then he turned to his subordinates. “We’re turning the ship around,” he said. This was a very risky decision - there were already eight hundred passengers on board the Carpathia.
Rushing to help the victims of the disaster, the captain directed the ship to a terrible area of iceberg accumulation, one of which turned out to be fatal for the Titanic. "Carpathia" with its only pipe developed a speed of only 14 knots - so Rostron ordered all additional resources of steam, hot water and electricity to be transferred to the boilers. At full speed, the small and unprepossessing ship flew into the kingdom of icebergs. Needless to say, the watchmen, alas, also did not have binoculars? Providence took a lot into account; it did not take into account the will of Arthur Rostron.
The owners of the Titanic were going to bring the liner to New York a day ahead of schedule so that there would be a record. The record was set by “Carpathia” - it arrived at the scene of the disaster almost an hour earlier than it could and than everyone expected. Captain Rostron won only an hour of time from fate, but an hour turned out to be more valuable than a whole day. They made it in time. 705 passengers were boarded.
“Carpathia” now really resembled an overcrowded Noah’s Ark: dining rooms and corridors were hastily converted into hospital wards, tables were turned into beds, and yet dozens of people only had room on the floor.. All doctors from among the passengers of “Carpathia” were mobilized for treatment the sick and wounded, everyone healthy women sent to the kitchen to cook hot broth and coffee...
When the overloaded Carpathia slowly and carefully entered the New York port and moored at Pier 41, when the crowd on the pier sobbed and the flashbulbs flashed, the second officer of the Carpathia recalled one detail in a conversation with journalists: throughout the four-hour raid to at the site of the sinking of the Titanic, Captain Rostron... prayed.
“His lips were moving,” the officer said, “this is quite understandable: at such speed, we also had almost no chance of noticing the iceberg in time.” A few days later, Rostron himself admitted to one of the journalists: “I still can’t get rid of a strange feeling.
When we walked among the ice, it seemed to me that someone else's hand was on the steering wheel. She was the one who steered the ship.” It is possible that it was precisely this feeling that made him give the order to carry out a short church service on board the Carpathia immediately after the last of the victims had been brought on board. Only after the end of the service did Rostron give the order to move on to New York.
Arthur Rostron overcame the will of providence. Or maybe it was just crowded. After all, the main thing has already been done: a terrible blow has been dealt to the pride of humanity. That's enough... And in honor of Arthur Rostron, a special medal of the US Congress was issued.
He was knighted by British royal decree. After some time, Sir Arthur headed the entire passenger fleet of the Cunard company. There are monuments to him in many cities in England, the USA, France and Ireland. On one of them, in the vicinity of Southampton, there is an inscription: “To Sir Arthur Rostron. Who transformed the “age of steam” into the “age of spirit.”
Noah's Ark, called "Carpathia", sank quietly and unnoticed by everyone on July 1, 1918. The old 13,600-ton ship was hit by three torpedoes fired by a German submarine. Of the 75 people, five died from the explosion, the remaining 70 safely reached the nearby British warship Snowdrop. "Carpathia" disappeared under water very quickly in just 15 minutes. However, she never claimed the title “unsinkable”.
And what happened to the other captain, Stanley Lord, who stole his Californian from under the very nose of trouble? Both the British and American commissions investigating the circumstances of the sinking of the Titanic found him indirectly guilty of this. He was removed from naval service and died in obscurity. Stanley Lord's son persistently tried to rehabilitate his father's name. In the 50s, he repeatedly appealed to both commissions with requests for a re-investigation. But it was all in vain. Stanley Lord fulfilled the will of providence. It no longer needed him and rewarded him with oblivion.
Titanic is a British steamship of the White Star Line, one of three twin ships of the Olympic class. The largest passenger airliner in the world at the time of its construction. During its maiden voyage on April 14, 1912, it collided with an iceberg and sank 2 hours and 40 minutes later. There were 1,316 passengers and 892 crew members on board, for a total of 2,208 people. Of these, 704 people survived, over 1,500 died. The Titanic disaster became legendary and was one of the largest shipwrecks in history. Several feature films have been shot based on its plot.
Statistics
General information:
- Home port - Liverpool.
- Board number - 401.
- Call sign - MGY.
- Ship dimensions:
- Length - 259.83 meters.
- Width - 28.19 meters.
- Weight - 46328 tons.
- Displacement - 52310 tons.
- The height from the waterline to the boat deck is 19 meters.
- From the keel to the top of the pipe - 55 meters.
- Draft - 10.54 meters.
Technical data:
- Steam boilers - 29.
- Waterproof compartments - 16.
- The maximum speed is 23 knots.
Rescue equipment:
- Standard boats - 14 (65 seats).
- Collapsible boats - 4 (47 seats).
Passengers:
- I class: 180 men and 145 women (including 6 children).
- Class II: 179 men and 106 women (including 24 children).
- III class: 510 men and 196 women (including 79 children).
Team members:
- Officers - 8 people (including the captain).
- Deck crew - 66 people.
- Engine room - 325 people.
- Obs. personnel - 494 people (including 23 women).
- In total there were 2201 people on board.
Officers
- Captain - Edward J. Smith
- Chief Mate - Henry F. Wilde
- First Mate - William M. Murdock
- Second Mate - Charles G. Lightoller
- Third Mate - Herbert J. Pitman
- Fourth Mate - Joseph G. Boxhall
- Fifth Mate - Harold P. Lowe
- Sixth Mate - James P. Moody
Laid down on March 31, 1909 at the shipyards of the Harland and Wolf shipbuilding company in Queens Island (Belfast, Northern Ireland), launched on May 31, 1911, and underwent sea trials on April 2, 1912.
Specifications
height from the keel to the tops of the pipes - 53.3 m;
engine room - 29 boilers, 159 coal fireboxes;
The ship's unsinkability was ensured by 15 watertight bulkheads in the hold, creating 16 conditionally “watertight” compartments; the space between the bottom and the second bottom flooring was divided by transverse and longitudinal partitions into 46 waterproof compartments.
Bulkheads
Watertight bulkheads, designated from stem to stern by the letters "A" to "P", rose from the second bottom and passed through 4 or 5 decks: the first two and last five reached the "D" deck, eight 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 they were breached.
The Titanic was built so that it could remain afloat if any two of its 16 watertight compartments, any three of its first five compartments, or all of its first four compartments were flooded.
The first two bulkheads in the bow and the last one in the stern were solid; all the rest had sealed doors that allowed the crew and passengers to move between compartments. On the flooring of the second bottom, in bulkhead “K,” there were only doors that led to the refrigerator compartment. On decks “F” and “E”, almost all bulkheads had hermetic doors connecting the rooms used by passengers; all of them could be sealed either remotely or manually, using a device located directly on the door and from the deck to which it reached bulkhead. To bolt such doors on passenger decks, a special key was required, which was available only to the chief stewards. But on G deck there were no doors in the bulkheads.
In the 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 by an electric drive from the navigation bridge. In case of danger or accident, or when the captain or watch officer considered it necessary, electromagnets, upon a signal from the bridge, released the latches and all 12 doors were lowered under the influence of their own gravity and the space behind them was hermetically sealed. If the doors were closed by an electric signal from the bridge, then they could only be opened after removing the voltage from the electric drive.
There was an emergency hatch in the ceiling of each compartment, usually leading to the boat deck. Those who did not manage to leave the premises before the doors closed could climb up its iron ladder.
Lifeboats
In formal compliance with the current requirements of the British Merchant Shipping Code, the ship had 20 lifeboats, which were sufficient to board 1,178 people, that is, for 50% of the people on board at that moment and 30% of the planned load. This was taken into account with the expectation of increasing the walking space on the deck for the ship's passengers.
Decks
The Titanic had 8 steel decks, located one above the other at a distance of 2.5-3.2 m. The topmost one was the boat deck, below it there were seven others, designated from top to bottom with letters from “A” to “G”. Only decks "C", "D", "E" and "F" extended along the entire length of the ship. 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 part of the liner - from the boiler rooms to the bow and in the stern - from the engine room to the stern. There were 20 lifeboats on the open boat deck, and there were promenade decks along the sides.
Deck “A”, 150 m long, was almost entirely intended for first class passengers. Deck "B" was interrupted at the bow, forming an open space above deck "C", and then continued in the form of a 37-meter bow superstructure with equipment for handling anchors and mooring gear. At the front of Deck C were the anchor winches for the two main side anchors, and there was also a galley and mess hall 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 cabins for first and second class passengers, as well as cabins for stewards and mechanics. In the first part of deck “F” there were 64 cabins for second class passengers and the main living quarters for third class passengers, stretching 45 m and occupying the entire width of the liner.
There were two large salons, a dining room for third-class passengers, ship laundries, a swimming pool and Turkish baths. Deck "G" covered only the bow and stern, between which the boiler rooms were located. The bow part of the deck, 58 m long, was 2 m above the waterline; towards the center of the liner it gradually lowered and at the opposite end was already at the waterline level. There were 26 cabins for 106 third-class passengers, the rest of the area was occupied by a luggage compartment for first-class passengers, a ship's mailroom and a ballroom. Behind the bow of the deck there were bunkers with coal, which occupied 6 waterproof compartments around the chimneys, followed by 2 compartments with steam lines for piston steam engines and a turbine compartment. Next came the aft deck, 64 m long, with warehouses, storerooms and 60 cabins for 186 third-class passengers, which was already below the waterline.
Masts
One was at the stern, the other on the forecastle, each was steel with top part from teak. On the front, at an altitude of 29 m from the waterline, there was a top platform (“crow’s nest”), which could be reached via an internal metal ladder.
Office premises
In the front part of the boat deck there was a navigation bridge, 58 m away from the bow. On the bridge there was a pilothouse 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 charthouse, the captain's cabin and part of the officers' cabins, to the left were the remaining officers' cabins. Behind them, behind the forward funnel, was the radiotelegraph cabin and the radio operator's cabin. At the 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 go to work and return without passing by cabins or passenger lounges. At the front of E deck were living quarters for 72 stevedores and 44 sailors. In the first part of deck “F” there were quarters of 53 stokers of the third shift. On deck "G" there were quarters for 45 stokers and oilers.
Comparison of the sizes of the Titanic with the modern cruise ship Queen Mary 2, the A-380 aircraft, a bus, a car and a person
Second bottom
The second bottom was located approximately one and a half meters above the keel and occupied 9/10 of the length of the vessel, excluding only small areas in the bow and stern. On the second bottom, boilers, reciprocating steam engines, a steam turbine and electric generators were installed, all of which were firmly mounted 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 point
The registered power of steam engines and turbines was 50 thousand liters. With. (actually 55 thousand hp). The turbine was located in the fifth waterproof compartment in the aft part 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 engines, 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, producing a current of 100 volts. Next to them were two more 30-kilowatt generators.
Pipes
The liner had 4 pipes. The diameter of each was 7.3 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, and a chimney for the ship's kitchens was connected to it. A longitudinal section of the ship is presented on its model, exhibited at the German Museum in Munich, where it is clearly visible that the last pipe was not connected to the fireboxes. There is an opinion that when designing the vessel, the widespread opinion of the public was taken into account that the solidity and reliability of a vessel directly depends on the number of its pipes. It also follows from the literature that in last moments of the ship going into the water almost vertically, its false pipe broke from its place and, falling into the water, killed a large number of passengers and crew members in the water.
Electricity supply
10 thousand light bulbs, 562 electric heaters, mainly in first class cabins, 153 electric motors, including electric drives for eight cranes with a total lifting capacity of 18 tons, 4 cargo winches with a lifting capacity of 750 kg, 4 elevators, each for 12 people, were connected to the distribution network, And huge amount phones. In addition, electricity was consumed by fans in the boiler and engine rooms, apparatus in the gymnasium, and dozens of machines and appliances in the kitchens, including refrigerators.
Connection
The telephone switch served 50 lines. The radio equipment on the liner was the most modern, the power of the main transmitter was 5 kilowatts, power came from an electric generator. The second, an emergency transmitter, was battery-powered. 4 antennas were stretched between the two masts, some up to 75 m high. 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.
The radio equipment arrived on board on April 2 from the Marconi company, which by that time monopolized the radio industry in Italy and England. Two young radio officers spent the entire day assembling and installing the station, and test communications were immediately carried out with the coast station at Malin Head, on the north coast of Ireland, and with Liverpool. On April 3, the radio equipment worked like clockwork; on this day, communication 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 the radio call sign "MUC", then they were replaced by "MGY", which previously belonged to 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 its location and the home country of the ship on which it was installed.
Collision
The iceberg that the Titanic is believed to have collided with
Recognizing an iceberg in the light haze, the lookout Fleet warned “there is ice in front of us” and rang the bell three times, which meant an obstacle straight ahead, after which he rushed to the telephone that connected the “crow’s nest” to the bridge. Sixth Officer Moody, who was on the bridge, responded almost instantly and heard a cry of “ice right ahead.” After politely thanking him, Moody turned to the officer of the watch, Murdoch, and repeated the warning. He rushed to the telegraph, put its handle on “stop” and shouted “right rudder”, at the same time transmitting the order “full back” to the engine room. In 1912 terminology, “right rudder” meant turning the stern of the ship to the right and the bow to the left. Helmsman Robert Hitchens put his weight on the handle of the steering wheel and quickly turned it counterclockwise as far as it would go, after which Murdoch was told “steer to starboard, sir.” At that moment, the helmsman on duty, Alfred Oliver, and Boxhall, who was in the chart room, came running to the bridge when the bell rang out in the crow’s nest. Murdoch pressed the lever that closed the watertight doors in the bulkheads of the boiler room and engine room, and immediately gave the order “left rudder!”
Lifeboats
There were 2,208 people on board the Titanic, but the total capacity of the lifeboats was only 1,178. The reason was that, according to the rules in force at that time, 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 46,328 tons.
But these boats were only partially filled. Captain Smith gave the order or instruction "women and children first." Officers interpreted this order in different ways. Second Mate Lightoller, who commanded the launch of the boats on the port side, allowed men to occupy places in the boats only if oarsmen were needed and under no other circumstances. First Officer Murdoch, who commanded the lowering of the boats on the starboard side, allowed men to go down if there were no women or children. Thus, in boat number 1, only 12 of the 40 seats were occupied. In addition, at first many passengers did not want to take seats in the boats, because the Titanic, which had no external damage, seemed safer to them. The last boats were filled better, because it was already obvious to the passengers that the Titanic would sink. In the very last boat, 44 of the 47 places were occupied. But in the sixteenth boat that departed from the side there were many free seats, 1st class passengers were saved in it.
As a result of the analysis of the operation to rescue people from the Titanic, it is concluded that with adequate actions of the crew there would have been at least 553 fewer victims. The reason for the low survival rate of passengers on the ship is said to be the attitude given by the captain to save primarily women and children, and not all passengers; the crew's interest in this order of boarding the boats. By preventing male passengers from accessing the boats, men from the crew were able to take seats in half-empty boats themselves, covering their interests with “noble motives” of caring for women and children. If all the passengers, men and women, took seats in the boats, the men from the crew would not get into them and their chances of salvation would be zero, and the crew could not help but understand this. Men from the crew occupied part of the seats in almost all boats during the evacuation from the ship, on average 10 crew members per boat. 24% of the crew were saved, approximately the same number as 3rd class passengers were saved (25%). The crew had no reason to consider their duty fulfilled - most of the passengers remained on the ship without hope of salvation, even the order to save women and children first was not carried out (several dozen children, and more than a hundred women never boarded the boats).
The British commission's report on the results of the investigation into the sinking of the Titanic states that "if the boats had been delayed a little longer before launching, or if the passage doors had been opened for passengers, larger number some of them could get onto the boats.” The reason for the low survival rate of 3rd class passengers can most likely be considered as obstacles caused by the crew to allow passengers to get onto the deck and the closing of passage doors. A comparison of the results of the evacuation from the Titanic with the results of the evacuation from the Lusitania (1915) shows that the evacuation operation on ships like the Titanic and Lusitania can be organized without a disproportion in the percentage of survivors depending on the gender or class of passengers.
People in boats, as a rule, did not save those in the water. On the contrary, they tried to sail as far as possible from the site of the wreck, fearing that their boats in the water would capsize or that they would be sucked into the crater of the sinking ship. Only 6 people were picked up alive from the water.
| Category | Percentage saved | Percentage of fatalities | Number of rescued | Death toll | How many were |
| Children, first grade | 100.0 | 00.0 | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| Children, second grade | 100.0 | 00.0 | 24 | 0 | 24 |
| Women, first class | 97.22 | 02.78 | 140 | 4 | 144 |
| Women, crew | 86.96 | 13.04 | 20 | 3 | 23 |
| Women, second class | 86.02 | 13.98 | 80 | 13 | 93 |
| Women, third class | 46.06 | 53.94 | 76 | 89 | 165 |
| Children, third grade | 34.18 | 65.82 | 27 | 52 | 79 |
| Men, first class | 32.57 | 67.43 | 57 | 118 | 175 |
| Men, crew | 21.69 | 78.31 | 192 | 693 | 885 |
| Men, third class | 16.23 | 83.77 | 75 | 387 | 462 |
| Men, second class | 8.33 | 91.67 | 14 | 154 | 168 |
| Total | 31.97 | 68.03 | 711 | 1513 | 2224 |
The route of the Titanic and the place of its wreck.
Chronology
The route of the Titanic and the place of its wreck.
April 10, 1912
- 12:00 - The Titanic departs from the quay wall of the port of Southampton and narrowly avoids a collision with the American liner New York.
-19:00 - stop in Cherbourg (France) to take passengers and mail on board.
-21:00 — The Titanic left Cherbourg and headed to Queenstown (Ireland).
April 11, 1912
-12:30 - stop in Queenstown to take passengers and mail on board; one crew member deserts the Titanic.
-14:00 - Titanic departs Queenstown with 1,316 passengers and 891 crew on board.
April 14, 1912
-09:00 - "Caronia" reports ice in the area of 42° north latitude, 49-51° west longitude.
-13:42 — Baltic reports the presence of ice in the area of 41°51′ north latitude, 49°52′ west longitude.
-13:45 — “America” reports ice in the area of 41°27′ north latitude, 50°8′ west longitude.
-19:00 - air temperature 43° Fahrenheit (6 °C).
-19:30 - air temperature 39° Fahrenheit (3.9 °C).
-19:30 — Californian reports ice in the area of 42°3′ north latitude, 49°9′ west longitude.
-21:00 - air temperature 33° Fahrenheit (0.6 °C).
-21:30 - Second Mate Lightoller warns the ship's carpenter and those on watch in the engine room that it is necessary to monitor the fresh water system - the water in the pipelines may freeze; he tells the lookout to watch for the appearance of ice.
-21:40 — “Mesaba” reports ice in the area of 42°—41°25′ north latitude, 49°—50°30′ west longitude.
-22:00 - air temperature 32° Fahrenheit (0 °C).
-22:30 - sea water temperature dropped to 31° Fahrenheit (−0.56 °C).
-23:00 — The Californian warns of the presence of ice, but the Titanic’s radio operator interrupts the radio exchange before the Californian manages to report the coordinates of the area.
-23:40 — At a point with coordinates 41°46′ north latitude, 50°14′ west longitude (later it turned out that these coordinates were calculated incorrectly) at a distance of about 450 meters, an iceberg was spotted straight ahead. Despite the maneuver, after 39 seconds the underwater part of the vessel touched down, and the hull of the vessel received numerous small holes over a length of about 100 meters. Of the ship's 16 watertight compartments, 6 were cut through (the leak in the sixth was extremely insignificant).
April 15, 1912
-00:05 - the order was given to uncover the lifeboats and call the crew members 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.
-01:15 - 3rd class passengers are allowed on deck.
-01:40 - the last flare is fired.
-02:05 - the last lifeboat is lowered.
-02:10 - the last radiotelegraph signals were transmitted.
-02:17 — the electric lighting goes out.
-02:18 — Titanic breaks into three parts
-02:20 — The Titanic sank.
-03:30 - flares fired from the Carpathia are noticed in the lifeboats.
-04:10 — “Carpathia” picked up the first boat from the “Titanic” (boat No. 2).
Titanic lifeboat, photographed by one of the passengers of the Carpathia
-08:30 — “Carpathia” picked up the last (No. 12) boat from the “Titanic”.
-08:50 — Carpathia, having taken on board 704 people who escaped from the Titanic, sets course for New York.
About the terrible death of a luxury liner Titanic in the waters Atlantic Ocean everyone knows. Hundreds of people distraught with fear, heart-rending women's screams and children's crying. 3rd class passengers buried alive at the bottom of the ocean are on the lower deck and millionaires choosing best places in half-empty lifeboats - on the upper, prestigious deck of the ship. But only a select few knew that the sinking of the Titanic was planned, and the death of hundreds of women and children became another fact in a cynical political game.
April 10, 1912 Southampton port, England. Thousands of people gathered at the port of Southampton to see off the liner Titanic, with 2,000 lucky people on board, set off on a romantic trip across the Atlantic. The cream of society gathered on the passenger deck - mining magnate Benjamin Guggenheim, millionaire John Astor, actress Dorothy Gibson. Not everyone could afford to buy a first class ticket, $3,300 at the prices of that time, or $60,000 at the prices of today. 3rd class passengers paid only $35 ($650 in our money), so they lived on the third deck, not having the right to go upstairs, where the millionaires were located.
Tragedy Titanic still remains the largest peacetime maritime disaster. The circumstances surrounding the deaths of 1,500 people are still shrouded in mystery.
The archives of the British Navy confirm that for some reason there were half as many boats on the Titanic as needed, and the captain knew even before the collision that there were not enough seats for all the passengers.
The ship's crew ordered to rescue the 1st class passengers first. Bruce Ismay was one of the first to board the lifeboat - general manager company " White Star Line", which belonged to Titanic. The boat in which Ismay was sitting was designed for 40 people, but it set sail with only twelve.
The lower deck, where 1,500 people were located, was ordered to be locked so that third-class passengers would not rush upstairs to the boats. Panic began below. People saw how water began to flow into the cabins, but the captain had an order - to save the rich passengers. The order - only women and children - came much later, and according to experts, the sailors were primarily interested in this, since in this case they became rowers on the boats and they had a chance of salvation.
Many second and third class passengers, without waiting for the boats, threw themselves overboard in life jackets. In a panic, few people understood that it was almost impossible to survive in icy water.
sinking of the Titanic
The list of third class passengers, which only recently became public, includes the name Winni Goutts (Winnie Coutts), a modest Englishwoman with two sons. In New York, the woman was waiting for her husband, who had gotten a job in America a few months earlier. It may seem incredible, but 88 years later, on February 3, 1990, Icelandic fishermen picked up a woman with that name on the shore. Wet, frozen in tattered clothes, she cried and screamed that she was a passenger Titanic and her name is Winnie Couts. The woman was taken to a psychiatric hospital and was mistaken for a crazy woman for a long time, until one of the journalists found her name in the handwritten passenger lists of the Titanic. She described the chronology of events in detail and was never confused. Mystics immediately put forward their version - they fell into the so-called space-time trap.
After the declassification of the archives " Investigation into the death of 1,500 passengers on the Titanic“On July 20, 2008, the Senate investigative commission learned that on the night of the disaster, almost 200 passengers managed to board lifeboats and sail away from the sinking ship. Some of them describe a strange phenomenon. At about one o'clock in the morning, passengers saw a large luminous object near the liner. The men thought that these were the lights of another ship." RMS Carpathia", which can save them. About 10 boats sailed towards this light, but after half an hour the lights went out. It turned out that there was no ship nearby, and the liner " RMS Carpathia“Arrived only after 1 hour. Many eyewitnesses described strange lights observed near the site Titanic wreck. These testimonies were kept secret.
Abnormal events around sinking of the Titanic were carefully hidden for a long time. It is known that no one was able to officially confirm the identity of Winnie Couts.
In the ranking of the largest maritime disasters of the 20th century published popular Internet publication Titanic does not take at all last place. However, in the column “Cause of death - collision with an iceberg”, it appears in this list only once. First and last case in the history of navigation, when a ship sank due to a collision with an iceberg. Moreover, the consequences of the collision are comparable to the results of a major military operation. What is this?
The official version of the disaster is that Titanic collided with a black iceberg that had recently capsized in the water and was therefore invisible against the night sky. No one ever wondered why the iceberg was black. The lookout on duty, Frederick Fleet, saw some huge dark mass a few seconds before the collision and heard a strange, very loud grinding sound coming from under the water, not like the sound of contact with an iceberg.
80 years later, Russian researchers went down to the Titanic for the first time and confirmed that the hull of the steamship was indeed cut. Why didn't the lookouts notice anything in advance? It’s surprising, but they didn’t have binoculars, that is, technically they were in the safe, but the key to it mysteriously disappeared. And one more strange detail - Titanic the most advanced of the early 20th century was not equipped with spotlights. Such carelessness looks, at least, strange, because Titanic Telegrams arrived all day warning about icebergs cruising in the area.
Having weighed all the events and facts, it seems that the Titanic disaster was prepared on purpose, but who benefited from the death Titanic and why hundreds of innocent people were drowned. It was clear to the people behind the biggest disaster of the century that not everyone would believe in a collision with an iceberg. Until now, we are offered many versions to choose from, who will like what.
For example, in order to receive an insurance payment, they did not flood Titanic, and the same type of passenger ship Olympic, which had been in operation for a long time and by 1912 had become quite dilapidated. But in 1995, Russian scientists refuted this assumption with the help of remote-controlled modules inserted inside the sunken ship. It has been proven that it is not Olympic that lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Then a version was put into print that Titanic sank while chasing the prestigious Atlantic Blue Riband award. Allegedly, the captain wanted to arrive at the port of New York a day ahead of schedule in order to receive the prize. Because of this, the ship was sailing in a dangerous area at maximum speed. The authors of this version completely lost sight of the fact that Titanic I simply technically could not reach the speed of 26 knots, at which the previous record was set.
They also talked about the mistake of the helmsman, who misunderstood the captain’s order and, being in a stressful situation, turned the steering wheel in the wrong direction.
Maybe Titanic was hit by a torpedo from a German submarine and this disaster actually became the first episode of the First World War. Numerous underwater studies subsequently did not find even indirect signs of a possible torpedo hit, so the most plausible version The sinking of the Titanic resulted in a fire.
On the eve of departure, a fire broke out in the hold of the liner where coal was stored. They tried to put it out, but were unsuccessful. Already gathered at the pier richest people of that time, cinema stars, the press, and an orchestra played. The flight could not be cancelled. The owner of the ship, Bruce Ismay, decided to go to New York and try to put out the fire along the way. That is why the captain drove at full speed, fearing with all his might that the ship was about to explode and ignored the message about icebergs.
Another oddity is the owner of the company “ White Star Line", which belonged to Titanic multimillionaire John Pierpont Morgan Jr. canceled his ticket 24 hours before departure and removed from the flight the famous collection of paintings that he was going to take to New York. In addition to Morgan, 55 more first-class passengers, mostly partners and acquaintances of the millionaire - John Rockefeller, Henry Frick, and the US Ambassador to France Alfred Vandelfeld, refused to travel on the Titanic in just one day. Previously, practically no significance was attached to this fact, but only very recently scientists compared certain facts and came to the conclusion that the Titanic was the first major disaster aimed at establishing world domination.
Billionaires rule the world, whose goal is unlimited power. Accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, collapse Soviet Union, attack on the Twin Towers of the World shopping center- links of one chain. The sinking of the Titanic not the first and not the last planned disaster. But why did the world government decide to flood Titanic. The answer should be sought in the events of the early 20th century. It was during these years that it began sharp rise industry - the gasoline engine, the incredible development of aviation, industrialization, the use of electricity in all industries, the experiments of Nikola Tesla and so on. The world's financial leaders understood that scientific and technological progress could soon explode the world order on planet Earth. John Rockefeller, John Pierpont Morgan, Carl Mayer Rothschild, Henry Ford, who are the world government, understood that following the rapid growth of industry, countries would begin to develop, which in their world concept were assigned the role of only raw material appendages, and then the redistribution of property on the planet would begin, and control over the processes taking place in the world will be lost.
Every year, socialists became more and more visible, trade unions gained strength, and crowds of protesters demanded freedom and independence. And then it was decided to remind humanity who is the boss of the world.
In the mid-90s, Russian scientists dived to the Titanic and took metal samples, which were then analyzed by specialists from an American institute. The results were truly stunning - based on the sulfur content, it was established that it was an ordinary metal. And later studies showed that the metal was not just the same as on other ships, it was of much worse quality, and in icy water it generally turned into a very brittle material. In the fall of 1993, an event occurred that put an end to the study of the causes of death Titanic. At the New York conference of American shipbuilding experts, the results of an independent analysis of the causes of the disaster were announced. Experts said they did not understand why such low quality steel was used for the hull of the world's most expensive ship. IN cold water The hull of the Titanic cracked at the first impact on a minor obstacle, while high-quality steel only becomes deformed.
Experts believed that in this way the owners of the shipbuilding company were trying to save money, but no one thought to ask why the billionaire owners of the ship were cutting costs, jeopardizing their own safety. And everything is quite logical; it was a real sabotage. Brittle metal, cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean and a dangerous route. All that remained was to wait for the SOS signal from the shipwrecked Titanic. During the investigation of the circumstances of the disaster, the US judicial commission proved that the northern route that the Titanic took was chosen on the orders of Bruce Ismay. He was on board the ship, but was one of the first to be evacuated and safely awaited the arrival of " RMS Carpathia", which also belonged to the company " White Star Line"and was specially located nearby to save rich passengers. But " RMS Carpathia“The order was given, it is not too close, because the disaster was supposed to be a terrifying event for the whole world.
Now we can say with confidence sinking of the Titanic it was a carefully thought-out propaganda campaign. Millions of people around the world were shocked by the fate of third class passengers buried alive; they remained walled up in their cabins.
In the eyes of the world government, third class passengers are you and me - Russia, China, Ukraine and the Middle East, and in December 2012 they are preparing a new act of intimidation for us, but what exactly? All that remains is to wait, and not for long.
watch National Geographic's reconstruction of the sinking of the Titanic
a" Frederick Fleet noticed an iceberg directly ahead, approximately 650 m from the liner. Having struck the bell three times, he reported to the bridge. The first mate ordered the helmsman: “Left aboard!” - and moved the machine telegraph handles to the “Full back” position. A little later, so that the liner would not hit the iceberg with its stern, he commanded: “Right on board!” However, the Titanic was too large to maneuver quickly, and continued to coast for another 25-30 seconds until its bow began to slowly veer to the left.
At 23:40, the Titanic tangentially collided with an iceberg. On the upper decks, people felt a weak shock and a slight trembling of the hull; on the lower decks the blow was more noticeable. As a result of the collision, six holes with a total length of about 90 meters were formed in the starboard side skin. At 0:05, Captain Smith ordered the crew to prepare the lifeboats for launch, then went into the radio room and ordered the radio operators to broadcast a distress signal.
At about 0:20, children and women were put into the boats. At 1:20 am, water began to flood the forecastle. At this time, the first signs of panic appeared. The evacuation went faster. After 1:30, panic began on board. At about 2:00 the last boat was lowered, and at 2:05 water began to flood the boat deck and captain's bridge. The 1,500 people remaining on board rushed towards the stern. The trim began to grow before our eyes, and at 2:15 the first chimney collapsed. At 2:16 the power went out. At 2:18, with a bow trim of about 23°, the liner broke apart. The bow part, having fallen off, immediately sank to the bottom, and the stern filled with water and sank in two minutes.
At 2:20, the Titanic completely disappeared under water. Hundreds of people swam to the surface, but almost all of them died from hypothermia. About 45 people were saved on two folding boats that did not have time to be lowered from the liner. Eight more were rescued by two boats that returned to the wreck site (No. 4 and No. 14). An hour and a half after the Titanic was completely submerged, the steamship Carpathia arrived at the disaster site and picked up 712 survivors of the wreck.
Causes of the crash
After the tragedy, commissions were held to investigate the causes of this incident, and, according to official documents, the cause was a collision with an iceberg, and not the presence of defects in the design of the ship. The commission based its conclusion on how the ship sank. As some survivors noted, the ship sank to the bottom as a whole, and not in parts.
As the commission concluded, all the blame for the tragic disaster lay with the ship's captain. In 1985, oceanographer Robert Ballard, who had been searching for the sunken ship for many years, was lucky. It was this happy event that helped shed light on the causes of the disaster. Scientists have determined that the Titanic split in half on the surface of the ocean before sinking. This fact again attracted media attention to the reasons for the sinking of the Titanic. New hypotheses arose, and one of the assumptions was based on the fact that low-grade steel was used in the construction of the ship, since it is a well-known fact that the Titanic was built in a short time.
As a result of lengthy studies of the wreckage raised from the bottom, experts came to the conclusion that the cause of the disaster was poor quality rivets - the most important metal pins that tied together the steel plates of the ship's hull. Also, the studied wreckage showed that there were mistakes in the design of the ship, and this is evidenced by the nature of the ship's sinking. It was finally established that the stern of the ship did not rise high into the air, as previously thought, and the ship broke into pieces and sank. This indicates obvious flaws in the design of the ship. However, after the disaster, this data was hidden. And only with the help of modern technologies it was established that it was these circumstances that led to one of the most terrible tragedies humanity.