On the 10th April, 1912, RMS Titanic set out on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New
York. On the night of 14th April, the ship struck an iceberg in the Atlantic ocean. Two
and a half hours later, the world’s newest and greatest ocean liner sank below the waves.
Over 1,500 people died in the freezing waters.
Since the day of the disaster, legend has overtaken fact and there are many questions
surrounding the sinking. Was the voyage doomed from the start? Could the accident have been
avoided? Who benefited financially? Was it even the Titanic that actually sank? Theories
have encircled this tragedy for over a century, and we’re about to set the record straight.
I’m Stu and this is Debunked, where we sort the truths from the myths and the facts from
the misconceptions!
It’s a classic case of dramatic irony. Movies and novels love to point out that the owners
of the Titanic boasted that it was “unsinkable”. But was this ever said?
Well, yes and no. White Star Line, the company that owned Titanic sold the ocean liner on
its luxury rather than its indestructibility. And luxury is what the passengers were interested
in. After all, if you spent the equivalent of $50,000 in today’s money on a top-class
Titanic ticket, you’d be more interested in the swimming pool, the walk-in wardrobes
and the 10-course dinners than the height of the bulkheads. Still, Titanic was the most
advanced ship ever built at the time, and a brochure published in 1910 does say...
“...AS FAR AS IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO SO, [THIS] WONDERFUL VESSEL [IS] DESIGNED TO BE UNSINKABLE.”
However, the moment that popularised the “unsinkable” boast didn’t happen until after the Titanic
hit the iceberg. In New York, a man called Philip Franklin was in charge of White Star
Line’s office on the night of April 15th, 1912. When the first news came through over
the radio that Titanic was in distress, he tried to reassure the passengers’ worried
relatives and reporters by telling them...
“THERE IS NO DANGER THAT TITANIC WILL SINK. THE BOAT IS UNSINKABLE, AND NOTHING BUT INCONVENIENCE
WILL BE SUFFERED BY THE PASSENGERS.”
After this, the words “Titanic” and “unsinkable” became inseparable - but only ironically.
Franklin would go on to grace the cover of TIME magazine in 1926 for his business success
as a shipping executive.
Legend has it that Catholic workers in Titanic’s shipyard refused to work because its hull
number, 390904, written backwards spells “NO POPE”.
For one thing, the number 390904 was never assigned to Titanic in any way.
On the other hand, it’s true that Catholic yard workers didn’t work on Titanic - because
they weren’t hired to. The company that built Titanic, Harland & Wolff, prided itself
on the fact that it only hired Protestants.
However, another story purportedly proves Titanic was doomed. As you know, whether you’re
going to sea or outer space, it’s tradition to christen a ship by breaking a bottle of
champagne over its bow. But when it came to christening the Titanic, the bottle refused
to break. Although it’s true that no champagne bottle ever smashed against Titanic, this
is because it’s a purely optional tradition that White Star Line didn’t follow. Instead,
they kept all 12,000 bottles of wine intact for the passengers to drink. Most of those
bottles are still with the shipwreck - and might be drinkable even today.
“BOTTLES KEPT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA ARE BETTER KEPT THAN IN THE FINEST WINE CELLARS.”
Another myth says Titanic suffered the curse of an Egyptian mummy in its hold.
Unfortunately for fans of horror/disaster movie mashups, the cargo manifests prove there
was no mummy on board Titanic. This story almost certainly comes from The Washington
Post.
Less than a month after Titanic sank, the Post ran an article about WILLIAM T. STEAD,
a journalist who drowned when Titanic went down. Hebelieved strongly in the curse of
a mummy that was brought to the British Museum in 1889.
Except, it’s not really a mummy - it’s just the painted lid of a wooden coffin. In
fact, the whole curse was invented by Stead himself just for fun, and he told it to his
fellow passengers on board Titanic. When survivors recounted this, The Washington Post put the
disaster and the mummy together. Presto - curse concocted.
Weirdly, in 1886 William Stead wrote a short story about a steam ship that sinks and doesn’t
have enough lifeboats aboard, resulting in unnecessarily high casualties. Which brings
us onto the next common misconception about Titanic.
One of the most tragic facts about the Titanic is that there weren’t enough lifeboats for
all the people on board. This is often attributed to corporate greed and a callous disregard
for human life - at least, for humans who hadn’t bought a first class ticket.
The idea that class prejudice led to many unnecessary deaths is often backed up by the
claim that third class passengers were locked below decks while the ship sank. It’s absolutely
true that there were lockable gates on Titanic’s lower decks, because U.S. immigration control
required it - and these gates were locked at night. But as soon as the order to lower
the lifeboats was given, the gates were opened too. The bigger problem third class passengers
faced was the sheer distance between their quarters and the lifeboats on the top deck.
It’s not a huge surprise that 60% of first class passengers survived compared to just
25% of third class passengers, when poorer passengers had farther to go to reach the
limited spaces on the lifeboats.
But while it is true that Titanic didn’t have enough lifeboats to save everyone, the
shipbuilders actually provided more lifeboats than were required by law.
Regulations were based on the size of a ship and not on the number of people on board.
In 1912, the Board of Trade required British vessels that weighed over 10,000 tons to carry
16 lifeboats with capacity for just 50% of passengers and crew. Titanic had 20 lifeboats,
enough for 52% of the people on board. So in fact, Titanic exceeded requirements of
the time.
118 STICK FIGURES SPREAD OUT FROM THE TITANIC. 71 OF THEM GET UNEVENLY DISTRIBUTED ONTO LIFEBOATS.
THE MOST FULL LIFE BOAT HAS 8 IN (TEXT: 88% CAPACITY) AND THE LEAST FULL LIFEBOAT HAS
3 IN (TEXT: 33% CAPACITY) *THE REST CAN BE DISTRIBUTED BETWEEN 3 AND 8 PEOPLE PER LIFEBOAT.
THE REMAINING 47 STICK FIGURES SLOWLY FADE AWAY IN THE SEA.
Sadly the tragedy was exacerbated by the fact that the lifeboats were not used to their
full capacity. The boats could carry 1,176 people, but in the end only 706 people were
saved. Records show that the most loaded lifeboat was at 88% capacity. The least full lifeboat
held only a third of the people it was designed to carry.
This may partly be a result of the famous order to evacuate women and children first
- a command that really was given by Captain Edward Smith. This gave rise to a story that
one man snuck onto a lifeboat by disguising himself in women’s clothing.
VThis is false. For one thing, four different men were accused of being the cowardly cross-dresser.
The extensive inquiries into the sinking prove that all four of these men got on lifeboats
in perfectly permissible, pantalooned or bepanted fashion. In the case of William T. Sloper,
the accusation came from a reporter who was annoyed that he was refusing to talk to the
press. And J. Bruce Ismay fell afoul of the rumour because he was the chairman of White
Star Line, and many people felt he should have gone down with his ship.
Only one male survivor was encountered wearing an item of women's clothing - third-class
passenger Daniel Buckley. He was already in a lifeboat when a female passenger threw her
shawl over him to hide him from crewmembers who were forcing men out of their lifeboat.
He kept the shawl on when the lifeboat set out onto the cold waters of the Atlantic.
This is the only case of a man escaping Titanic thanks to women’s clothing. But his story
didn’t emerge until after newspapers had already made the claim about other men.
However, even the order to evacuate women and children first wasn’t strictly obeyed
by First Officer William McMaster Murdoch. He was happy to let men on the boats when
he couldn’t find any women and children to put on.
You may remember Murdoch from the James Cameron movie. He’s the Scottish officer who shoots
himself after shooting some male passengers trying to force their way onto a lifeboat.
This never happened. As I said, Murdoch did let men onto his lifeboats, and there are
no reported incidents of crewmembers killing passengers.
It’s a commonly held belief that Captain Smith and his crew were trying to set the
transAtlantic speed record and win the Blue Riband accolade, and as such ignored multiple
warnings about dangerous ice on the route.
It is true that Titanic was going at full speed when it hit the iceberg, but it wasn’t
because Captain Smith was trying to set records. Titanic was built for comfort, not speed - it
was about 5 knots [5.7 miles, 9 kilometres] slower than the fastest liners of the day.
Besides that, the route Smith followed was 200 miles longer than the fastest shipping
lane across the Atlantic. Ironically, he chose this route to avoid dangerous ice further
north…
In reality, the story that Smith was trying to set a speed record comes from American
newspapers. In particular, from the newspapers owned by WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST.
Hearst was angry with J. Bruce Ismay for not cooperating with the press. So, in addition
to printing the rumours about Ismay dressing as a woman to survive Titanic, Hearst made
up a story that Ismay ordered Captain Smith to make the crossing in record time, regardless
of passenger safety.
However, it is true that on the day it sank, Titanic received six warnings of dangerous
ice ahead. At least three of these were reported directly to Captain Smith. The official U.S.
Senate inquiry concluded that...
“NO [OFFICERS’] CONFERENCE WAS CALLED TO CONSIDER THESE WARNINGS; NO HEED WAS GIVEN
TO THEM.”
So the U.S. government clearly felt Captain Smith acted badly. But remember, Smith was
never able to speak in his defence, and the same Senate report didn’t trust witness
statements that the ship broke in two - which we now know is exactly what happened.
So why was Smith travelling at full speed through icy waters? Well, the answer may lie
in a fire in one of Titanic’s coal bunkers. Coal frequently caught fire on steamships
thanks to spontaneous combustion, and this happened on Titanic. In 2004, engineer ROBERT
ESSENHIGH FROM OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY pointed out that a common method of controlling fires
like these was to shovel the burning coal into the boiler. Obviously, this meant the
boiler was constantly generating steam, which means the ship would have to keep cruising
at high speed. Although, Essenhigh admitted he was just speculating.
Another myth surrounding Captain Smith is that he was drunk when Titanic hit the iceberg.
In truth, he was in his cabin, getting his normal night’s rest after attending a first-class
dinner party. So he probably wasn’t in the best frame of mind to steer the ship clear
of icebergs - but he didn’t have to. Instead, Smith had put First Officer Murdoch in charge,
and it was he who had to make the urgent decisions when the lookouts in the crow’s nest spotted
the iceberg.
Witnesses said that Murdoch ordered the engines to reverse and the helm to steer hard astarboard
- away from the iceberg. This was part of a standard maneuver to sail around obstacles
in the water. It might have worked except that the crew lookouts didn’t see the iceberg
until it was too late. This is partly because the binoculars in the crow’s nest were in
a locked case, and no-one had the key. In fact, SECOND OFFICER CHARLES LIGHTOLLER had
promised to buy new binoculars for the lookouts once the ship arrived in New York. Unlike
Captain Smith and First Officer Murdoch, Lightoller survived.
However, Charles Lightoller’s granddaughter, Louise Patten says Lightoller told her that
Murdoch’s order to turn hard a starboard was misunderstood by the helmsman. This is
because the helmsman was trained to steer modern steamships, which issued orders based
on the direction of the bow and rudder. In contrast, officers like Murdoch trained to
use the old-fashioned orders for sailing ships, which were based on the direction of the tiller
rudder, which is always opposite to the direction you want the bow to go.
So when Murdoch ordered the helmsman to turn hard a starboard - or right - he actually
wanted the helmsman to put the tiller as far right as possible to starboard and turn the
bow to the left. Instead, the helmsman turned the wheel right, as he had learned in training.
Interestingly Lightoller’s granddaughter revealed this to promote a book she wrote
in 2010; Lightoller himself never said a word of this to the authorities investigating the
tragedy. Supposedly he wanted to protect the reputation of the crew and the company, White
Star Line. But were these allegations to be true, then the Second Watch Officer who supervised
the Helmsman's actions would have also missed the error, meaning all 3 experienced crew
members would have got it wrong.
That’s right, there’s a theory about insurance fraud that meant the Titanic ship itself never
sank! Instead, some believe its sister ship, the RMS Olympic, was the boat that sank on
that fateful night.
Originally put forward by theorist Robin Gardiner in 1998, the theory goes like this. In 1911,
the Olympic collided with a Royal Navy warship. The accident damaged its hull and central
turbines. But the ship’s insurers refused to pay the $800,000 for repairs. Since the
Olympic was being fixed in the same dockyard that the Titanic was being built in, and since
Titanic followed the same design as Olympic, the owners decided to swap the ships, sink
the “Titanic” and collect the insurance to pay for repairs. The “Olympic” would
continue to sail the seas until it was retired in 1935 - but in reality, it was Titanic.
The tragic loss of life occurred because the plan to rescue everyone was completely botched.
According to Gardiner, the swap would have been relatively easy to achieve, because the
ship’s name was only put on removable objects like lifeboats and the ship’s bell.
Even though photographs clearly show that the ships’ names were put on their bows,
this theory seems quite plausible. Until you really think about it.
Maritime author Mark Chirnside pointed out that it cost $7.5 million to build Titanic,
but White Star Line insured it for just $5 million. This means the loss they made on
Titanic was greater than the cost of repairs on the Olympic. Furthermore, the shipwreck
has the number 401 stamped all over it - this was Titanic’s hull number, not Olympics.
Nevertheless, some people still believe it was a scam - and that the scam was the brainchild
of the owner of White Star Line, J. P. Morgan.
The theories involving J.P. Morgan don’t stop there either. He was one of the most
powerful bankers of the time, and if the financier didn’t sink Titanic as part of an insurance
fraud, he orchestrated it to kill his rivals who opposed the creation of the Federal Reserve.
But the titanic weight of evidence against this theory being true might explain why there’s
another version of it floating on the Internet, that says the Rothschilds planned it. But
there’s even less proof for this than the Morgan theory.
So I’m afraid for all the conspiracy enthusiasts out there, the story of Titanic is simply
a tragic example of a maritime disaster.