Facts about the Titanic and the Titanic tragedy. Page 2

A dim light in the distance - All hope vanished

The Californian incident

"In 1912, as history recalls it, Captain Stanley Lord commander and the crew of the Californian stood idle by while the Titanic went down with more than 1500 men, women and children. Two commissions investi- gated the incident and both (The US and British Inquiries) ruled Lord was negligent".

At 12.45 am, it is said that passengers and officers on the Titanic observed a dim light coming from un unknown or mysterious ship in the distance. 4th Officer J.G.Boxhall began firing distress rockets to attract the attention of this mysterious ship. Instead of responding to the Titanic's distress rockets, the light went further away until it dissapeared and with it the Titanic's passengers last glimmer of hope.

Was the dim light in the distance coming from the Californian? Or was it the Samson, a Norwegian boat illegally hunting seals on the night of April 14? Or was it the SS Mount Temple, a Canadian cargo ship. Rumors that Mount Temple under Capt Moore ignored Titanics distress rockets, abounded at the time and persist to this day. And then there was a ship known as the Hellig Olav. The Olav docked at New York April 17 and is reported to have encountered an iceberg near where the Titanic sank. It has been suggested that the Olav may have been the ship whose lights 4th officer Boxhall saw which he ineffectually tried to signal with distress signals.Official investigations into the Titanic disaster indicated that it was the Californian

At 2.10 am, the Titanic's stern continued to rise from the water revealing the ship's three huge propellers. The hull is unable to withstand the enormous strain and snaps between the third and fourth funnels. Everything loose (furniture and such) was falling including people. All the machinery dropped out of it. The Titanic made a terrifying noise probably of the escaping steam while it was going down very slowly. People were screaming for help. The ship went down gradually by the bow.

There have been many conflicting statements as to whether the ship broke in two, but the preponderance of evidence is to the effect that she assumed an almost end-on position and sank intact. United States Senate Inquiry. Survivors gave details of how they saw the great hulk of the Titanic break in two, the after part sinking first amid a series of explosions, followed by the sinking of the forward part.

The bulkhead system, though probably working, prevailed only to delay the ship's sinking. The position of the ship's wound on the starboard quarter admitted ice water which caused the boilers to explode, and these explosions broke the ship in two.

Dr. Washington Dodge who was on the Titanic was confident that the Titanic broke into two, and that was why she sank.

Over 700 passengers escaping in lifeboats watched in horror as family and loved ones still clung onto the doomed vessel, many jumping from the deck and others screaming and yelling for help. They saw bodies in the water in all directions. They could not have lived long, for the water was terribly cold. Towering high above the shattered bow of the great steamship were the glistening pinnacles of the monster iceberg against which the Titanic hurled itself with the force of a hundred express trains. Then came the shudder of the riven hulk of the once magnificent steamship as it slid back from the shelving ice upon which it had driven and its bow settled deeply into the water.

"When we began to hear signs of the breaking up of the ship ...the lights of the ship were still on....then there was an explo- sion, and another. The lights then went out and then those dreadful cries. It frightfully affected all the women in our boats. At first it was horrible to listen to. But the sounds grew fainter and fainter."

The loss of the Titanic made the Olympic the largest and the most luxurious ship ever launched.

At 2.20 am the Titanic dissapeared beneath the water. Latitude 41.46N. Longitude 50.14W. This point is about 450 miles south of Cape Race, the most westerly point of Newfoundland and 1150 miles due east of New York.Then hundreds of desperate voices of those that did'nt go down with the ship started echoing above ocean's surface. They were screaming and yelling and wanted to get on the lifeboats.

45 minutes after the Titanic had vanished the screams for help stopped. Silence filled the air.

Eventually, he picked up in all 13 lifeboats, two emergency boats and two collapsible boats, all of which were taken on board the Carpathia. The other boats being abandoned as damaged or useless. The boats were scattered over an area of 4 to 5 miles, and it was 8 am. before they had all been picked up.

6 Chinese who were hidden beneath the seats of the Titanic's lifeboats before they were lowered, were among the survivors. They were undedected until the lifeboats had been taken aboard the Carpathia. Two of their companions were crashed under the weight of survivors sitting above them.

Of the 30 dogs aboard the Titanic, about half of them had been saved. They were cared for and fed by the ship's butcher and when the crash came he let them loose to shift for themselves.

The lifeboats had a hard time keeping afloat in the field of ice and many women were rendered temporarily insane by har- rowing experience. And many of them were dressed in their evening gowns, which afforded but scant protection from the freezing cold, the chill winds and water. A number of bodies were seen floating about in the ice field. They were evidently those who had sought refuge on the floating cakes of ice or in clinging to the pieces of wreckage. The cold overcame them and they perished while the Carpathia and a number of other liners were rushing to their aid. No attempt was made to recover the bodies.

The Carpathia's operator was able to tell that practically all the survivors, with the exception of the crew, were in serious condition. Many of the women were hysterical and some in a state of mental collapse.

The Carpathia rescued more than 700 persons and they were taken to New York. Arrived in New York and docked at the Cunard Pier (Pier 54) three days later at 9.30 pm on 18 April. Thomas Cottam was the wireless operator of the Carpathia. Once in New York the Carpathia first sailed to Pier 59, the White Star Line Pier, to drop off the lifeboats and then sailed back to Pier 54, the Cunard Line Pier, with the more than 700 Titanic survivors. Why the Cunard Line Pier 54? The Carpathia was a Cunard Liner. The White Star Pier 59 is where the Titanic was supposed to have docked. The Titanic was a White Star Liner. The original Chelsea deepwater piers ran from Pier 54 to Pier 62--along the West Side of Manhattan from about West 12th Street to West 20th Street on the Hudson River.

When the steamer Virginian first reported catching the urgent distress signals she said she was not likely to be able to reach the Titanic before 10 o'clock that morning. That would have been nearly 8 hours after the Titanic sank. It was equally doubtful that the Parisian could have reached the scene in time. These two ships were among the first to answer the Titanic's call for help.

The Olympic was over 500 miles away from the Titanic. The Californian arrived at the scene about 8 o'clock in the morning, the time when all of the passengers had been rescued from the boats by the Carpathia. Captain Lord said he received a wire- less message from the Virginian at 5.30 am, monday telling of the Titanic disaster. The Californian was then 30 miles north of the scene. Intervening were great masses of ice, including large icebergs. And it was such difficult maneuvering that it took three hours to reach the wreckage. The Californian remained 3 hours in the vicinity. Another ship searching for bodies in the vicinity was the SS Mount Temple.

Commander of the Olympic was Captain Herbert James Haddock. He was the first commander of the Titanic. And Ernest James Moore Wireless operator for the Marconi Co. on the steamship Olympic.

The number of casualties of the sinking is in fact unclear

The number of dead probably never will be exactly determined, inasmuch as the complete passenger list went down with the vessel. The number of survivors is fixed at 705 by the report of Captain Rostron of the Carpathia. The White Star Line officials have the death list totaled approximately 1,635

After being recovered the bodies were hoisted on board. They were then searched, the contents of the pockets and their valuebles were placed in canvas bags. They had tree burial services at sea - one tuesday night, one wednesday night and one at noon on thursday. The bodies were sent over the side three at a time. Canon K.O. Hind conducted the services. All valuables were turned over to the United States consul, who communicated with the state department at Washington and forwarded with the department's sanction all packages of valuables to the White Star Line in New York.

Only 328 bodies of Titanic victims were recovered eventually. 119 of them were buried at sea. Of the remaining 209, 150 were buried in cemetries in Halifax, Nova Scotia - 121 at Fiarview cemetry, 19 at Mount Olivet and 10 at Baron de Hirsch. 59 were shipped to their familes.