The Tragedy of Titanic
Created | Updated Jan 23, 2006
The Tragedy of Titanic
TITANIC set sail from her dock in Belfast on Tuesday, April 2nd 1912 to begin her sea trails. By 5th April, dressed in flags and banners, she arrived at the first pick up point - Southampton in Southern England.
Thousands of on-lookers took it upon themselves to come and see the magnificent, 'unsinkable' ship.
The following day, crew hiring began at the White Star and Union Halls. Hundreds of people jammed into these halls after a coal strike hit. (Which in fact ended the same day).
By the end of Monday 8th, after a day of rest for Easter, the crew had finished loading the 4,427 tons of coal into Titanic's coalbunkers and 75,000lbs of meat and 1,750 litres of ice cream were loaded into the refrigerated storerooms on deck G.
Wednesday 10th April, the first train arrived at Waterloo Station containing first, second and third class passengers, who made their way down to Southampton docks.
The mighty blast of Titanic's siren sounded at 11:45am to signal her departure, and tugboats towed her out of the docks.
The movement of Titanic's huge mass in the harbour caused all six mooring ropes of the liner New York to snap. This made the liner swing towards Titanic and catch the bow, narrowly avoiding a collision.
After some delay, Titanic was finally towed from the harbour to begin the 24-mile crossing of the English Channel.
At 5:30pm, she arrived at Cherbourg in France with her lights blazed. More first, second and third class passengers began boarding.
Early the next morning, Titanic lowered her anchor in Queenstown Harbour, Ireland, to pick up more excited passengers and mail. By 1:30pm her starboard anchor was raised for the last time, and she set sail for New York.
Friday 12th April, she was well on her way out to the North Atlantic, running at a steady twenty-one knots (Nautical terms for miles per hour).
She had covered 386 miles on her first day at sea. During the afternoon, Titanic received many wireless messages of congratulations; most of them included warnings of ice. Some of the passengers noted that the winds were very cold and they preferred to stay inside.
Into the late evening, Titanic's Marconi Wireless Radio failed, and Wireless Officers Jack Phillips and Harold Bride worked through the night to repair it.
Sunday 14th April, Titanic continued a healthy course into the heart of the North Atlantic Ocean, but still, the warnings of ice came through on the wireless, this time from Caronia and a Dutch liner, called Noordam.
Early that afternoon, The Baltic reported 'large quantities of ice' 250 miles ahead of Titanic. Capt. E.J. Smith later discussed that message to Bruce Ismay at lunch; they also spoke about making it to New York a day early to grab headlines.
Another iceberg warning was sent from Amerika, but this message was not forwarded to Capt. Smith.
The liner, Californian, sent titanic their third message warning of ice, which was in the direct path of the massive liner, 50 miles away.
During the evening, Second Officer Lightoller and Captain Smith discussed on deck, how unusually calm the seas were and how clear the air was. Capt. Smith retired to his room, leaving Officer Lightoller to caution the lookouts to be careful of ice until morning. Titanic had, by then, increased her speed to twenty-two knots.
Yet another message was received, this time from Masaba. Wireless Officers Phillips and Bride ignored this and continued sending personal messages from the passengers.
At 10:00pm, First Officer Murdock relieved Second Officer Lightoller. Titanic then received another report from Californian, saying that they had been stopped by ice, which was twenty miles north of her. Wireless Officer Phillips told them 'Keep out! You're jammimg my signal.' With that, the Californian shut down their set for the night.
Lookouts Fleet and Lee noticed a slight haze appearing ahead at 11:30pm. Titanic was now travelling at twenty-four knots (twenty-six miles per hour).
At 11:40pm, Fleet rang the bridge by telephone and yelled 'Iceberg right ahead!' Then he rang the crowsnest bell three times. Sixth Officer Moody acknowledged this warning and relayed the message to Murdock, who ordered 'Hard-a-starboard' and telegraphed the engine room 'Full Stop' followed by 'Full Astern'.
Titanic began to turn slowly to port but it struck an underwater ridge from the iceberg on the starboard side, twelve feet back from the bow. The one-inch thick plates of steel were scrapped three hundred feet along Titanic's side, ten feet below the waterline, tearing a hole in compartment one; two holes in compartment two; another in compartment three; across bulkhead four, and five between boilers five and six.
Water pressure from outside pumped in at the rate of seven tons per minute (almost two thousand gallons). Captain Smith took to the wireless room and ordered a distress call CQD (Come Quick! Distress).
First Officer Murdock ordered the watertight compartment doors to be closed, which made the post office on G-deck flood, and trapped the workers, leaving them to drown.
The squash court on D-deck was flooded by 12:05am and Titanic was only fifteen feet above the twenty-eight degree water. The engine crew had started shutting down the boilers. Capt. Smith ordered the lifeboats to be uncovered and life belts were distributed.
Twenty-five minutes after the collision, one hundred and forty tons of freezing water had filled the forward compartments, and begun to overflow bulkhead six.
A liner named Carpathia responded to Titanic's distress calls saying that she was fifty-eight miles away and they would take four hours to arrive.
At 12:25am, Captain Smith ordered the lifeboats to be filled with women and children. Lifeboat seven was launched from the starboard side with only twenty-seven people on board - it could hold sixty-five.
Quartermaster George Rowe fired the distress rockets from the bridge railing in the boat deck, under the direction of Officer Boxhall.
Lifeboats one, three, five, six, and eight were launched by 1:10am, all with half or less of its capacity used. Once this was found out, Captain Smith tried to recall the lifeboats, but none returned.
Titanic's name, that was painted on the bow, was at the waterline and water began to flow over the top of the bulkhead eight at Deck -E.
Panic started to settle in from the passengers as lifeboats ten and fourteen were launched. Officer Lowe decided to fire three shots in the air from his pistol to keep passengers on the lower deck from jumping onto the lifeboats.
More and more of the lifeboats were being launched, but still not to their full capacity.
By 2:00am, the water had risen to ten feet below the promenade deck and the bow railings were under water. About this time, Captain Smith was last seen standing on the flooding bridge.
Passengers were panicking and rushing about, trying to save themselves, Murdock became more and more unstable and started shooting at the petrified people, hitting at least one of them, then turned the gun on himself.
There were still fifteen hundred people still aboard Titanic as water poured over the forward section of A-deck. The remaining passengers climbed to the aft section, (towards the back) which had started to rise out of the water.
Collapsible boats A and B were freed from their tie downs, but the rising water swept them off the deck.
Passengers were seen jumping from the aft Steerage Loading door into the freezing water one hundred feet below. Loud crashes were heard as objects in the interior of the ship slid towards the bow (the front end). Then the lights went out as the electricity generator failed.
Titanic's hull split from the deck to the keel (lengthwise along the bottom), between third and fourth funnels. The stern section (rearmost end) fell back into the water then rose again as the bow broke off and began it's decent. The stern section flooded and went down, two and a half hours after the collision. Over fifteen hundred remaining passengers plunged into the icy water.
About twenty people in the water climbed into the partially submerged Collapsible A lifeboat and another thirty climbed on top of the overturned Collapsible B. the hundreds of people in the twenty-eight degree water were now suffering from shock and hypothermia.
The stern of Titanic imploded two hundred feet down due to the external pressure outside the liner and nowhere for the trapped air to go inside.
A majority of people in the freezing water experienced a number of horrifying symptoms, these included: shortness of breath, tunnel vision and absolute terror. About that time, the bow crashed to the bottom, 12,600 feet below the surface, it landed intact and upright and sunk twenty feet into the mud. It was flooded when it sank, so the bow did not implode on the way down as the stern did.
At 2:30am, after ten minutes in the water, people were shivering uncontrollably, unable to speak coherently and unable to process any information. They were running on pure instinct, trying to survive at any cost. They climbed on top of one another to get out of the water. Children at that point had lost consciousness. By 2:35am, most of the adults had given up swimming; they just stayed afloat with their lifebelts on. Fifteen minutes after that, people were either dead or unconscious having surrendered to hypothermia.
Some Survivors in the lifeboats were huddled together; others were rowing to keep themselves warm.
At 3:00am, three hours and twenty minutes after hitting the iceberg, Carpathia's rockets were sighted and, after rescuing six barely alive people from the water and fourteen people from the collapsible A, the lifeboats made their way to their saviour. Collapsible B was never found.
At 8:50am, when all the lifeboats had arrived, Carpathia made her way to New York, with its flag flown at half-mast.
TITANIC set sail from her dock in Belfast on Tuesday, April 2nd 1912 to begin her sea trails. By 5th April, dressed in flags and banners, she arrived at the first pick up point - Southampton in Southern England.
Thousands of on-lookers took it upon themselves to come and see the magnificent, 'unsinkable' ship.
The following day, crew hiring began at the White Star and Union Halls. Hundreds of people jammed into these halls after a coal strike hit. (Which in fact ended the same day).
By the end of Monday 8th, after a day of rest for Easter, the crew had finished loading the 4,427 tons of coal into Titanic's coalbunkers and 75,000lbs of meat and 1,750 litres of ice cream were loaded into the refrigerated storerooms on deck G.
Wednesday 10th April, the first train arrived at Waterloo Station containing first, second and third class passengers, who made their way down to Southampton docks.
The mighty blast of Titanic's siren sounded at 11:45am to signal her departure, and tugboats towed her out of the docks.
The movement of Titanic's huge mass in the harbour caused all six mooring ropes of the liner New York to snap. This made the liner swing towards Titanic and catch the bow, narrowly avoiding a collision.
After some delay, Titanic was finally towed from the harbour to begin the 24-mile crossing of the English Channel.
At 5:30pm, she arrived at Cherbourg in France with her lights blazed. More first, second and third class passengers began boarding.
Early the next morning, Titanic lowered her anchor in Queenstown Harbour, Ireland, to pick up more excited passengers and mail. By 1:30pm her starboard anchor was raised for the last time, and she set sail for New York.
Friday 12th April, she was well on her way out to the North Atlantic, running at a steady twenty-one knots (Nautical terms for miles per hour).
She had covered 386 miles on her first day at sea. During the afternoon, Titanic received many wireless messages of congratulations; most of them included warnings of ice. Some of the passengers noted that the winds were very cold and they preferred to stay inside.
Into the late evening, Titanic's Marconi Wireless Radio failed, and Wireless Officers Jack Phillips and Harold Bride worked through the night to repair it.
Sunday 14th April, Titanic continued a healthy course into the heart of the North Atlantic Ocean, but still, the warnings of ice came through on the wireless, this time from Caronia and a Dutch liner, called Noordam.
Early that afternoon, The Baltic reported 'large quantities of ice' 250 miles ahead of Titanic. Capt. E.J. Smith later discussed that message to Bruce Ismay at lunch; they also spoke about making it to New York a day early to grab headlines.
Another iceberg warning was sent from Amerika, but this message was not forwarded to Capt. Smith.
The liner, Californian, sent titanic their third message warning of ice, which was in the direct path of the massive liner, 50 miles away.
During the evening, Second Officer Lightoller and Captain Smith discussed on deck, how unusually calm the seas were and how clear the air was. Capt. Smith retired to his room, leaving Officer Lightoller to caution the lookouts to be careful of ice until morning. Titanic had, by then, increased her speed to twenty-two knots.
Yet another message was received, this time from Masaba. Wireless Officers Phillips and Bride ignored this and continued sending personal messages from the passengers.
At 10:00pm, First Officer Murdock relieved Second Officer Lightoller. Titanic then received another report from Californian, saying that they had been stopped by ice, which was twenty miles north of her. Wireless Officer Phillips told them 'Keep out! You're jammimg my signal.' With that, the Californian shut down their set for the night.
Lookouts Fleet and Lee noticed a slight haze appearing ahead at 11:30pm. Titanic was now travelling at twenty-four knots (twenty-six miles per hour).
At 11:40pm, Fleet rang the bridge by telephone and yelled 'Iceberg right ahead!' Then he rang the crowsnest bell three times. Sixth Officer Moody acknowledged this warning and relayed the message to Murdock, who ordered 'Hard-a-starboard' and telegraphed the engine room 'Full Stop' followed by 'Full Astern'.
Titanic began to turn slowly to port but it struck an underwater ridge from the iceberg on the starboard side, twelve feet back from the bow. The one-inch thick plates of steel were scrapped three hundred feet along Titanic's side, ten feet below the waterline, tearing a hole in compartment one; two holes in compartment two; another in compartment three; across bulkhead four, and five between boilers five and six.
Water pressure from outside pumped in at the rate of seven tons per minute (almost two thousand gallons). Captain Smith took to the wireless room and ordered a distress call CQD (Come Quick! Distress).
First Officer Murdock ordered the watertight compartment doors to be closed, which made the post office on G-deck flood, and trapped the workers, leaving them to drown.
The squash court on D-deck was flooded by 12:05am and Titanic was only fifteen feet above the twenty-eight degree water. The engine crew had started shutting down the boilers. Capt. Smith ordered the lifeboats to be uncovered and life belts were distributed.
Twenty-five minutes after the collision, one hundred and forty tons of freezing water had filled the forward compartments, and begun to overflow bulkhead six.
A liner named Carpathia responded to Titanic's distress calls saying that she was fifty-eight miles away and they would take four hours to arrive.
At 12:25am, Captain Smith ordered the lifeboats to be filled with women and children. Lifeboat seven was launched from the starboard side with only twenty-seven people on board - it could hold sixty-five.
Quartermaster George Rowe fired the distress rockets from the bridge railing in the boat deck, under the direction of Officer Boxhall.
Lifeboats one, three, five, six, and eight were launched by 1:10am, all with half or less of its capacity used. Once this was found out, Captain Smith tried to recall the lifeboats, but none returned.
Titanic's name, that was painted on the bow, was at the waterline and water began to flow over the top of the bulkhead eight at Deck -E.
Panic started to settle in from the passengers as lifeboats ten and fourteen were launched. Officer Lowe decided to fire three shots in the air from his pistol to keep passengers on the lower deck from jumping onto the lifeboats.
More and more of the lifeboats were being launched, but still not to their full capacity.
By 2:00am, the water had risen to ten feet below the promenade deck and the bow railings were under water. About this time, Captain Smith was last seen standing on the flooding bridge.
Passengers were panicking and rushing about, trying to save themselves, Murdock became more and more unstable and started shooting at the petrified people, hitting at least one of them, then turned the gun on himself.
There were still fifteen hundred people still aboard Titanic as water poured over the forward section of A-deck. The remaining passengers climbed to the aft section, (towards the back) which had started to rise out of the water.
Collapsible boats A and B were freed from their tie downs, but the rising water swept them off the deck.
Passengers were seen jumping from the aft Steerage Loading door into the freezing water one hundred feet below. Loud crashes were heard as objects in the interior of the ship slid towards the bow (the front end). Then the lights went out as the electricity generator failed.
Titanic's hull split from the deck to the keel (lengthwise along the bottom), between third and fourth funnels. The stern section (rearmost end) fell back into the water then rose again as the bow broke off and began it's decent. The stern section flooded and went down, two and a half hours after the collision. Over fifteen hundred remaining passengers plunged into the icy water.
About twenty people in the water climbed into the partially submerged Collapsible A lifeboat and another thirty climbed on top of the overturned Collapsible B. the hundreds of people in the twenty-eight degree water were now suffering from shock and hypothermia.
The stern of Titanic imploded two hundred feet down due to the external pressure outside the liner and nowhere for the trapped air to go inside.
A majority of people in the freezing water experienced a number of horrifying symptoms, these included: shortness of breath, tunnel vision and absolute terror. About that time, the bow crashed to the bottom, 12,600 feet below the surface, it landed intact and upright and sunk twenty feet into the mud. It was flooded when it sank, so the bow did not implode on the way down as the stern did.
At 2:30am, after ten minutes in the water, people were shivering uncontrollably, unable to speak coherently and unable to process any information. They were running on pure instinct, trying to survive at any cost. They climbed on top of one another to get out of the water. Children at that point had lost consciousness. By 2:35am, most of the adults had given up swimming; they just stayed afloat with their lifebelts on. Fifteen minutes after that, people were either dead or unconscious having surrendered to hypothermia.
Some Survivors in the lifeboats were huddled together; others were rowing to keep themselves warm.
At 3:00am, three hours and twenty minutes after hitting the iceberg, Carpathia's rockets were sighted and, after rescuing six barely alive people from the water and fourteen people from the collapsible A, the lifeboats made their way to their saviour. Collapsible B was never found.
At 8:50am, when all the lifeboats had arrived, Carpathia made her way to New York, with its flag flown at half-mast.
