Titanic

The RMS Titanic

The Titanic was a British passenger steamer, operated by White Star Line, formally Cunard. She was the largest ship in the world at the time, and also the heaviest, weighing 45,000 tons. She set sail from Southampton, England on April 10, 1912. Her first stop after departing from Southampton was Cherbourg, France. Titanic arrived in Cherbourg at 8 in the morning the next day. Titanic then set sail for Queenstown, Ireland (Now Cobh). She picked up more passengers and headed into the Atlantic ocean, bound for New York.

At Sea

The Titanic steamed along smoothly at 26 MPH for a few days. On April 14, the weather took a turn for the worst. Titanic received a few ice warnings by a new invention called the "wireless" for sending telegrams in morse code. Titanic's captain, Edward Smith, ignored the ice warnings and kept on going. Then he told the officers in charge to slow down only if it became hazy. Then he went off to dine with first class passengers. More ice warnings came. Wireless operator Jack Phillips received one and went to the bridge. Smith was still eating with the passengers. He never got the message. One last warning came in around 11:00 at night, from the Leyland liner Californian saying: We are stopped and surrounded in ice. Phillips wrote down the message, then fired back: Get of the frequency! I'm working Cape Race! This was a reference to Cape Race, Newfoundland. No one but Phillips got the message.

Collision

At 11:40 PM, Frederick Fleet, a lookout in the crow's nest saw an iceberg floating gently in the Titanic's path. He rung the bell 3 times, then picked up the phone to the bridge. The officer in charge ordered the crew at the wheel to steer the ship sharply to the left. It looked like Titanic might miss the iceberg completely, but there was a loud crunching sound. Titanic had struck the iceberg.

Sinking the Unsinkable

Almost no one in First Class had felt a bump. Smith did feel the bump, then rushed to the bridge. "What have we struck?" he asked, nervously. "An iceberg, sir," a crew member said. Smith soon got bad news from the ship's carpenter. The mail room and several boilers were flooded. Smith got Thomas Andrews, who was working to improve the ship in his cabin. When Smith told him, they rushed to the lower decks and discovered six watertight compartments were filling with water. The Titanic could only stay afloat with four flooded compartments, not six. Andrews told Smith the terrible truth: The Titanic would sink to the bottom of the ocean within two hours.

Smith rushed to the bridge and told stewards to start waking passengers, putting on life jackets, and make them come up to the deck. Most came, but some refused. One said, "It will take more than an iceberg to get ME out of bed." The passengers on deck mostly were clapping and dancing. Few wore life jackets. Only when crew members started swinging lifeboats over the side that passengers realized they might be in danger. More wanted a place in the boats. Meanwhile, Phillps started sending out the distress signal in morse code CQD. Although CQD was out of date, Phillips continued to send CQD until Captain Smith told him not to. Then Phillips started sending the new distress signal--SOS. SOS looks like this: ---...--- Phillips was one of the first people to use SOS (the SOS signal had been in use for a few years at this time). Many ships were in range, but only one-- The Carpathia. She was 60 miles away. Even traveling at top speed, it would take the Carpathia over 3 hours to reach Titanic. By then, it would be too late.

Into the lifeboats

Crew members started loading life boats with women and children. Men had to stay until there was no more women and children to board. At 2:00 AM, all the lifeboats had left the ship. There were still over 1500 people on board. In the end, only 706 had been saved.

Rescued

At 3 AM, the Carpathia reached Titanic's last radioed position. Crew members started to swing ladders over the side of Carpathia and allowed survivors to board. Then the Carpathia set sail again at 4 AM for New York.

New York

The Carpathia reached New York at 10 PM on April 18. Survivors and Carpathia passengers started walking down the gangway. When the last survivors left the Carpathia, all those that were there to pick up ones lost in the disaster realized they would never see their loved ones again.

Finding Titanic

1n 1985, Dr. Robert Ballard found the two broken pieces of Titanic.He found things including a chandelier, and broken deck furniture. After 70 years, the Titanic had been found.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia has an article about Titanic