Breaking Titanic E-Book

Eugene Nesmeyanov

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 552

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

At 11.40 p.m. on 14 April 1912, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg. She sank less than three hours later, taking around 1,500 people down with her. Devastated survivors provided conflicting information about her final hours – did she slip gracefully below the waves in one piece, or did she violently break apart? The answer would not be confirmed for seventy-three years. Breaking Titanic is the first comprehensive study of the break-up of Titanic's hull. Using eyewitness accounts, underwater archaeology reports and data from computer simulations, Eugene Nesmeyanov presents a critical analysis of the most significant theories and models of the break-up, drawing his own conclusions based on the available body of evidence.

Leseprobe

Front and back main images:

© 2021 HFX Studios. Courtesy of Tom Lynskey

Back cover wreck photos:

© 2004 University of Rhode Island/Institute for Exploration (courtesy of Fathi Abdelsalam)

© 2005 Nik Halik

First published 2025

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

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www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Eugene Nesmeyanov, 2025

The right of Eugene Nesmeyanov to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 796 4

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Foreword by Robert F. Roddy

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Prologue – The Loss of SS Pacific (1875)

1 The Break-Up of Titanic in the Evidence of the American Inquiry

2 The Break-Up of Titanic in the Evidence of the British Inquiry

3 A Look at the Break-Up of Titanic After the Completion of Official Inquiries and up to the Early 1980s

4Titanic Expeditions with the Participation of Robert Ballard and his View of the Break-Up in 1985–

5 The Break-Up as Described in Titanic: An Illustrated History by Lynch and Marschall (1992)

6 The Break-Up of Titanic According to W. Garzke et al. (1996), ‘The Titanic and Lusitania: A Final Forensic Analysis’

7 ‘The Sinking of S.S. Titanic: Investigated by Modern Techniques’ by Hackett and Bedford (1996)

8 The Break-Up of Titanic According to W. Garzke et al. (1997), ‘Titanic, The Anatomy of a Disaster’

9 Roy Mengot’s Bottom-Up Break Theory

10 The Break-Up in James Cameron’s Titanic (1997)

11 The Break-Up of Titanic According to Mengot and Woytowich (2009)

12 The 2010 Expedition to Titanic: A New Look at the Break-Up and the Debris Field

13 ‘Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron.’ The Break-Up According to Stettler and Thomas (2012)

14 The Break-Up of Titanic According to W. Lange, Drain the Titanic (2015)

15 The Break-Up of Titanic According to R. Roddy and SNAME (2021)

16 ‘She’s broken.’ Evidence of the Break-Up of Titanic from the Press, Literature and Personal Sources

17 New Paradigm of the Break-Up of Titanic (2022)

Conclusion

Instead of an Epilogue

Appendix I: The Full Narrative of Thomas Patrick Dillon

Appendix II: A Summary of the Titanic Expeditions (Primarily Scientific) from 1985 to 2023

Notes

List of Main Sources

Foreword

Like many others, I became interested in Titanic at an early age. Then, as a graduate of the Vanderbilt University and a naval architect at the Navy’s David Taylor Model Basin (DTMB – now named Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division), I became even more interested in this story after the wreck was discovered in 1985, and read every article I was able to find. From reading these articles/papers, I came to know the name Bill Garzke. In 1998, when the Titanic bow model was being tested where I worked, I went over to the test facility to see what was going on. By sheer chance, I happened to meet Bill and asked him if he would be willing to speak to the employees here. He agreed and came to the largest auditorium at the Naval Surface Warfare Center with Tim Foecke and a few small pieces of Titanic for people to see and handle. By the time the presentation started, the place was filled to the brim with standing room only. As the Chairman of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) Marine Forensics Committee since its inception in 1995, Garzke also touched upon the break-up of Titanic, which was one of the principal topics of study.

In 2012, we discussed with him the upcoming SNAME Forensics Conference at which James Cameron was supposed to speak. (Not long after this conference Bill asked me to become a member of the SNAME Marine Forensics Committee and I immediately joined. Then in early 2014, I became the Secretary of the Committee and still hold this position.)

In 2021, Eugene Nesmeyanov, who had also known the name of Garzke since the late 1990s, got in touch with us asking for help with his ongoing research of the breaking up of Titanic. The fruits of this research, along with a detailed overview of SNAME MFC’s activities in the field, are presented herein.

This volume provides an excellent history of the evidence surrounding the Titanic sinking starting with the American inquiry that began only four days after the ship sank and progressing up until the present. Each of the chapters in the book are well written, developing the understanding of the different theories of the Titanic break-up over the one hundred plus years since the vessel met its end. The early chapters clearly indicate the lack of knowledge the hearing examiners had and how this contributed to erroneous conclusions. Then we see how those erroneous conclusions manifested themselves for over seventy years until the remains of the ship were found.

With this discovery, the world learned that the ship broke up during the sinking process and did not go down intact as concluded by the hearing examiners of both the American and British hearings. From this point until the present one of the principal efforts surrounding Titanic has been ‘just how did the ship’s hull fail’. The author of this book carefully examines the different break-up theories starting with the first issued by Dr Robert Ballard and then goes through each of the significant theories that have been put forward. Finally, the author offers his own theory as to the break-up and does this very well without the presumptive statements issued by some of the earlier authors claiming that their theory is 100 per cent correct and there is no need for further research in the area.

Anyone who is interested in learning Titanic’s changing history since the remains of the ship were discovered should read this book.

Robert F. Roddy,Secretary of the SNAME Marine Forensics Committee and Chairman of the Historic Merchant Shipwreck Panel

Introduction

This is the first book about the break-up of Titanic. Within the vast spectrum of Titanic-related subtopics, the question of the breaking up of Titanic’s hull is perhaps the most thrilling and attracting the most public attention; and the second in provoking most heated debates after the so-called ‘Californian issue’. But if entire volumes are devoted to Californian, there has not yet been a generalising work on the Titanic’s break-up (we are talking specifically about studies in monographic format, not articles). Which is surprising since Titanic, for all the solemnity and drama of its slow, more than two-hour immersion into the icy depths of the ocean, is especially famous for its break-up that occurred literally in the last minutes of the disaster and became its dreadful culmination. Due to such a transience and complexity of the process, as well as due to low lighting, smoke pollution and a number of other factors, both objective and subjective, the break-up went unnoticed by many of the surviving passengers and crew members. And yet, about a hundred people were its direct eyewitnesses, and dozens more at least heard the grinding and rumbling, to explain the nature of which very dubious and implausible assumptions were put forward; today we can confidently attribute these noises to the sounds of the break-up.

Rich food for thought can be found in the materials of the official inquiry into the loss of Titanic, especially in the part of the materials where the issue of the break-up was considered. It can be stated that deafness to eyewitness testimony and its gross disregard, coupled with erroneous/tendentious interpretation of data in favour of corporate interests, were the main source of the formation of a fallacious view of the Titanic’s breakage. Moreover, the snowballing of erroneous belief in the absence of a break continued for many decades after the completion of official investigations. If it were not for the aggressive pressure of interested or conscientiously mistaken witnesses, the heads of investigative commissions and the experts they selected, the people would probably have known for sure back in 1912 that Titanic had broken apart – and how, in general terms, it happened.

The sinking of Titanic was considered by some authors and survivors to be an event of epoch-making significance, a terrible symbol and marker of the end of the Edwardian era. In a similar fashion, the years 1985 and 1986 became the eye-opening turning points within the history of the study of the ship itself; a long-standing myth, carefully cultivated in literature, fine art and cinema, the myth called ‘Titanic majestically sinking intact’, had finally fallen and dissipated like smoke. One might say that a whole era of imaginary prosperity, illusory beauty and confidence had sunk into the past. James Cameron put it this way: ‘We didn’t want the Titanic to have broken up like this … We wanted her to have gone down in some kind of ghostly perfection.’1

In fact, the discovery of the old steamer’s hull at depth, brutally torn to pieces, marked only the beginning of a difficult and long journey. One big myth was debunked, but in its place, like the heads of the Lernaean hydra, a number of others blossomed: a new mythology was now sophisticated in guessing exactly how the fracture occurred, where it began and where it ended.

The history of the study of the Titanic’s break-up and a series of attempts to reconstruct it, including visually, is, without exaggeration, a real scientific detective novel with its heroes and outsiders, the mistakes of influential authorities who have misled the public for years, with falsifications, manipulations and myths, misdirections and a painful wade to the truth through the thorns of personal ambitions and commercial interests, incorrect interpretation of data or simply the absence of such, as well as objective difficulties of a technical and cognitive nature. A popular maxim says: ‘We will never know the truth; it rests at the bottom of the ocean.’ To some extent – not without bitterness – we have to agree with this, because it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to reconstruct all the details of such a large-scale destructive process that unfolded in several stages.2 You will see how complete our understanding of the course of this process is at the current level of knowledge by reading this book to the end – again, in accordance with the laws of the detective genre.

This work contains a coherent and complete presentation of the history of the issue, starting with the first official mentions of the break-up voiced as part of witness testimony. The way those appointed to investigate the circumstances of the disaster treated this and much other evidence in favour of the break-up can be considered a textbook anti-example of a biased attitude towards a historical event and the people who happened to become its direct eyewitnesses. Unfortunately, some prominent representatives of the next generations of Titanic researchers and authors kept performing in basically the same vein.

Further, the reader will see how much labour it took to obtain grains of knowledge on the break-up of Titanic over the course of twenty-five years (1985–2010) of intensive underwater archaeological survey of sections of its broken hull lying at a depth of about 3,800m, as well as of adjacent debris fields. In this part of the narrative, some materials from my book The Titanic Expeditions: Diving to the Queen of the Deep: 1985–2021 (2nd edition, revised and expanded) are used, with additional information obtained through personal correspondence with leading theorists and key participants of those expeditions. Among other things, books and papers (both scientific and popular ones) dealing, at least partially, with the subject are reviewed, and data from computer simulations using the finite element method carried out in different years using various software are analysed.

From theoretical constructions and the results of computer modelling, we again return to the living human word in a large section devoted to the direct speech of dozens of eyewitnesses of the break. This time, a broader panorama of the body of their evidence, published in the press and literature of different years, and sometimes in letters and personal notes not intended for publication, is given.

In the finale, the circle is closed with the introduction of a new paradigm of the break-up developed on the basis of the 1986, 2012, 2015 and 2022 models with a number of additions and adjustments made to them. This hybrid model synthesises the advantages of previous models coupled with the results of the latest research and takes into account the entire set of knowledge available to us today: eyewitness testimony, data from underwater archaeology and related sciences.

The proposed paradigm can be viewed as a baseline or prototype for further research and elaboration.

Acknowledgements

The book you are holding in your hands was written (for the most part) and first published in another language and in a different international setting, and I’m deeply thankful to The History Press (and Amy Rigg and Jezz Palmer personally) for giving me a unique opportunity to convey this work to English-speaking readers, especially now, which is extremely important to me.

Working on this edition allowed me to significantly refine and improve the initial version of the book – for this I’m grateful primarily to Robert F. Roddy and the whole of the Marine Forensics Committee of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME).1 Despite some friendly disagreement between us on certain aspects of the break-up of Titanic (namely, its underwater stage), Roddy has thoroughly proofread, edited and commented on the manuscript from his professional perspective, and then composed a wonderful foreword.

Similarly, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Dr James P. Delgado; having his name among scientific reviewers is a true honour and a quality mark.

A great many thanks to Roy Mengot (eternal memory to him), to Dr Jeffrey W. Stettler; Günter Bäbler, Brigitte Saar and the Swiss Titanic Society; Tad Fitch, Thomas Lynskey and George Behe; Charles A. Haas, Michael Poirier and Kalman Tanito from the Titanic International Society; Paul-Henri Nargeolet (RIP); Richie Kohler; Michael Dessner; Kyle Bingham of OceanGate Expeditions (now defunct); Andrew Aldridge of Henry Aldridge & Son; Sue Recks of RR Auction; Lay’s Auctioneers; Charles Pellegrino; Jonathan Smith; Nik Halik; Robert Goldsmith, Stephen Low and Per-Inge Schei; Kirk Wolfinger, Adam Costa, Matthew Fletcher and their colleagues at Lone Wolf Media; Cian O’Reilly; Spencer Graham Davis; Dr Lydia Frenzel; Christopher A. Mulholland; William Barney; Sven Sattelberger; Sauli Palokangas; and Cam Houseman.

Special thanks to the following scientific institutions, their staff and management: Jayne Doucette of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; David N. McKnight of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries; John Hallberg of the Institute for Regional Studies, North Dakota State University; Laura MacNewman of the Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research; Johana Schein of the Gilman School’s Archives; Graham Naylor of Plymouth City Council; James McLean of the Scottish Maritime Museum; Fathi Abdelsalam of the University of Rhode Island; Janis D. Jorgensen of the United States Naval Institute; and the Royal Institution of Naval Architects.

Additional thanks go to Quincy Williams, Tony Strublic (www.strublicmaritimedrawings.com) and Tom Casey of Home Run Pictures.

And of course, thanks to my father and Dmitry Brykov for their support in difficult times.

Prologue

The Loss of SS Pacific (1875)

None of the witnesses and perpetrators of the collision of two American vessels – the steam-powered paddle ship Pacific1 and the sailing ship Orpheus – on the stormy evening of 4 November 1875 at first thought that it could lead to any serious consequences.

Owned by the Goodall, Nelson & Perkins company, Pacific made a regular voyage along the Pacific coast of North America between California and British Columbia, heading for San Francisco with a variety of commodity and food cargo in its hold, including oats and potatoes, barrels of cranberries and even six trained horses, as well as $79,220 in gold in the form of sand and ingots. It was already a rather old and worn-out double-decker with a gross tonnage of under 900 tons, length of 223ft (6m) and just over 33ft (10m) wide with an oak hull on copper and iron nails. A 500hp steam engine, powered by two boilers, drove the side paddle wheels.

The paddle-wheel steamer Pacific. (Drawing by an unknown artist from the book Lewis & Dryden’s Marine History of the Pacific Northwest/ed. by E.W. Wright. (The Lewis & Dryden Printing Company, Portland, Oregon, 1895), p. 224)

Built in 1850 at the William H. Brown shipyard in New York,2Pacific was immediately sent to the West Coast after extensive gold deposits were discovered in the Sacramento River Valley in Northern California and mass mining began, known as the California Gold Rush. Over two decades of active operation, the ship changed several owners and was fairly battered by storms; in July 1861, as a result of hitting submerged rocks, it ran aground on the Columbia River, from where it was removed a couple of weeks later and, with the water pumped out, was towed to a dock for repairs. In August 1873, Pacific underwent a major overhaul in San Francisco, where a new, more powerful steam engine was installed in it. According to some authors, the repairs were purely cosmetic in nature, and in fact the ship was in a condition far from satisfactory, despite the certificate of suitability for further seafaring activities issued by the shipping inspectorate.3

The stern view of Pacific taken from Fort Tongass, Tongass Island, US Military District of Alaska (newly acquired by the US from the Russian Empire), 1868. In the foreground is an M-1841 mountain howitzer. Photographer Eadweard Muybridge. (Public domain)

Canadian publicist and writer, editor and owner of the British Colonist magazine David W. Higgins devoted a chapter to the loss of Pacific in his book of memoirs, The Mystic Spring, and Other Tales of Western Life (1904); in particular, it contains the following eloquent lines:

She was innately rotten, but the paint and putty thickly daubed on covered much of the rottenness, as paint and powder hide the wrinkles and crow’s feet of a society belle, and scarcely anyone was aware of the ship’s real condition, although she was regarded as unsafe.4

In May 1875, in connection with the outbreak of a new phase of the gold rush in the Cassiar Mountains in British Columbia and the Yukon, the steamer was assigned to serve the Victoria–Puget Sound–San Francisco line. On 4 November at 9.30 a.m. (with a slight delay), Pacific left Victoria harbour under the command of 34-year-old Captain Jefferson Davis Howell, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, a Civil War veteran and already quite an experienced skipper. According to the testimony of see-off people from the wharf, the upper deck was black from the crowds of people who had gathered on it; a considerable proportion of them were gold miners who were leaving Cassiar before the harsh Canadian winter came. The official data says there were 275 passengers and crew members on board, but, as in the case of SS Admiral Nakhimov in 1986, this figure was most likely underestimated, and significantly. It is known that more than twenty passengers were taken on board by the purser right on the sailing day, but their names have never been established. The second-class passenger manifest simply listed forty-one ‘Chinamen’, again without names. Higgins believed that the real number of people could have been up to 500.5

Jefferson Davis Howell, the master of Pacific. (Lewis & Dryden’s Marine History …, p. 223)

Yet, the Pacific’s main lifesaving equipment consisted of only five standard lifeboats with a total capacity of 160 people.

It left the port waters with a noticeable list to starboard, apparently due to overload or due to a shift of coal in the bunkers. The captain decided to correct the list in a novel way, by ordering the pumping of water into the port-side lifeboats.

It can be said that the weather upon leaving Victoria was ‘normally bad’ for this region and season (as weather conditions were described when the cruise ferry Estonia cast off in September 1994). Pacific steamed safely down the Strait of Juan de Fuca and passed Cape Flattery, in north-west Washington, at 4 p.m.

Meanwhile, the 1,067-ton Boston clipper Orpheus was sailing from San Francisco on an intersecting course to load coal in Nanaimo. It was drizzling, and a fresh south wind in the stern helped the sailboat develop a speed of up to 12 knots. At 9.30 p.m., the Orpheus’ captain, Charles Sawyer, left the bridge in the charge of his second mate, James G. Allen, and went below to his cabin to work on the chart. Around 10 p.m. he:

heard the second mate tell the man at the wheel to starboard his helm. I looked up at the compass over my head and saw that the ship’s head was rapidly coming up toward the north-west. I immediately went on deck and asked the officer what was the matter, and he said there was a light on the port bow.6

This approaching light turned out to be Pacific. A warning whistle was sounded from it, indicating that the ship’s bridge crew was also aware of the danger of a collision. The next moment, according to Captain Sawyer’s recollections, it:

struck us on the starboard side in the wake of the main hatch. The blow was a light one. She had evidently stopped her engines and was backing and gave us a glancing blow, for she bounded off and again struck us at the main topmast back stays, breaking the chain plates. She then bounded off and struck us at the mizzen topmast chain plates, carrying away the back stays and bumpkin, main and main topsail braces, leaving me comparatively a wreck on the starboard side.7

For the next ten to fifteen minutes, as the captain of Orpheus stated at the investigation, he was completely absorbed in finding out the extent of the damage to his ship and organising initial repairs; all hands were called up on deck. ‘When, after I found I was not seriously damaged [moreover, a fragment of the Pacific’s bow was later discovered entangled in the Orpheus’ rigging – Author], I looked for the steamer, I just saw a light on our starboard quarter, and when I looked again it was gone.’8

It can be speculated that neither Sawyer nor his officers imagined that the situation on board the ocean liner as a result of this accident would take any threatening turn (besides, it was Pacific that crashed into them, not they into it). But it is unlikely that the two ships could have moved a significant distance away from each other in the specified period of time – and it is hard to believe that no one on Orpheus saw or heard the madness happening on the deck of Pacific and the change in the position of its hull in the water.

However, everything indeed seemed calm for the first couple of minutes. First-class passenger Henry F. Jelly, a 22-year-old civil engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway from Ontario, was awakened by a slight jar and heard the engine telegraphs on the bridge ringing ‘Stop’ and ‘Full Astern’ orders. When he stepped out on deck, Pacific was under way again. Jelly learned about the collision with an unknown vessel and even saw its lights on the starboard quarter. The passengers were told – as is customary – that everything was fine and there was no cause for alarm.

The young man returned to his stateroom and was getting back into bed when he felt the ship giving a sudden lurch and then heard an ominous sound of water ingress. Having run on to the deck for the second time, he no longer had any doubt: the ship was sinking. He saw Captain Howell and asked him, ‘Where do you keep your blue lights?’ The answer was: ‘In the pilot house.’ Rushing there, Jelly discovered that there was no one at the helm, while the engines were still working. In his words, he burned from four to six emergency lights, or rockets; if this is true, they should have been seen on the receding Orpheus.

Jelly then aided a group of men who tried to lower the boats, but this turned out to be an almost impossible task: some of the life (death?) boats were filled with water, others were missing oars, and discipline was deteriorating rapidly as the situation became tense.9

In his interviews, Jelly mentioned the unfortunate Chinese huddled on the deck under the funnel, and also talked about an attempt by a gang of several crew members to seize one of the lifeboats. Higgins met with a survivor and also interviewed him, as a result of which the following passage appeared in his book:

They [the Chinese] were among the first to get into the boats, and laid themselves down on the bottom. They were pulled out and thrown screaming into the sea to make room for white [sic!] passengers. There was no order, no discipline, no one to give directions. It was every man for himself. All seemed to have gone stark mad in the face of the great danger that beset them.10

In the meantime, the list to port continued to grow, and the ship was settling deeper and deeper into the water. The edge of the deck, along with the port boat and the people struggling around it, touched the water. Someone cut the falls but the boat was overloaded and capsized. Only Jelly and four other men managed to clamber on to its bottom; women, in their long and heavy, multi-layered dresses that quickly absorbed moisture, disappeared into the waves.

The sinking of Pacific. Drawing by John Innes. (From Higgins, David W., The Mystic Spring, and Other Tales of Western Life. (Broadway Publishing Co., New York, 1908), p. 250)

The water flooded the boilers and the lights went out. The list had reached critical values. Unable to withstand the tilt, the only smokestack collapsed and struck the drifting lifeboat in its fall.

Higgins continues from Jelly’s words, ‘Presently the ship lurched and every beam seemed to crack. A cry of despair ascended from the doomed company as the decks opened before the combined pressure of air and water with a great roar, as though a thousand boilers had burst simultaneously.’11

From Jelly’s descriptions it becomes clear that the Pacific’s hull broke in two places – fore and aft, thus splitting into three sections, or perhaps even more; the largest of them sank immediately like a stone. In some interviews, without going into detail, he simply stated that the ship broke in two.

The Daily British Colonist described the ‘heartrending scenes’ after the liner went down carrying with it ‘at least 150 persons, who were standing on the decks at the time’:

The surface of the water was presently covered with wreckage from the lost steamer, to some of which men and women clung with the tenacity which only a feeling of despair can impart. The shrieks and cries at this moment were dreadful. The wind and sea were rising, and the poor people adrift on ‘Old Ocean’s melancholy waste’12 were washed by every wave that broke.13

Jelly left the overturned boat (it was most likely damaged by the falling funnel) and swam to a rather large fragment of the pilot house that was floating on the water; a heavyset man with black sideburns and a moustache was sitting on top of it. In the morning they came across a cluster of life preservers floating by, and with the help of their straps Jelly tied himself and his companion to a piece of wood that served them as a life raft. In the light of day, they saw three more similar rafts in the distance, with fellow sufferers sitting on them.

On Friday, 5 November the sea was rough all day. Fortunately, the currents and winds were carrying them back to land and not into the open ocean. In the afternoon they passed the lighthouse on Tatoosh Island at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Alas, this glimmer of hope did not help Jelly’s companion (some researchers suggest that it could be John ‘Jack’ McCormack, one of the successful Cassiar gold miners), and he soon gave up the ghost. His body was untied and abandoned to the sea.

Alone, Jelly spent another restless and exhausting night on the piece of the floating debris, balancing with difficulty and with his knees bleeding. It was not until about 10 a.m. on Saturday, 6 November, that he was picked up by the passing American bark Messenger a couple of miles off Vancouver Island.

Jelly’s story about the collision of Pacific with another vessel and the break-up of the first were received rather sceptically by the ‘marine experts’ of the time. On the afternoon of 8 November, the fourth day after the shipwreck, another survivor emerged, 21-year-old Neil Henly, the quartermaster. For more than seventy hours he drifted on an improvised raft made of the section of the Pacific’s hurricane deck on which was the wheelhouse. The quartermaster’s testimony confirmed all the key points of the account of the passenger, who was already hastened to be accused of excessive dramatisation, of hallucinating, and of belonging to ignorant ‘landsmen’.14

On 11 November, the ‘mysterious ship’, as a result of a collision with which the steamer went down, was finally identified. Orpheus was found crashed (intentionally?) on coastal rocks in Barkley Sound off Vancouver Island. None of the crew were injured, but the sailing vessel was declared beyond repair and sold for scrap.

Of the Pacific’s crew, the only survivor was the above-named quartermaster. Of the passengers, only Henry Jelly managed to survive. The exact number of people on board the steamship has not been established, and it is unlikely that it will ever be. For this reason, the number of victims specified in different sources varies from 273 to 300 (and, as already mentioned, perhaps even more). With complete and sad certainty, we can only state that every woman and every child fell victim to this disaster. This makes the loss of Pacific the worst maritime tragedy in the Pacific Northwest.

Two investigations were held, Canadian and American. The verdict of the Coroner’s Jury at Victoria, published on 23 November, blamed the collision on Orpheus and its poor manoeuvring, at the same time noting that if Pacific had been ‘a sound and substantial vessel’ such a slight contact should not have caused it significant harm. The insufficient lookout and the indiscipline of the Pacific’s crew when lowering lifeboats were criticised. The captain of Orpheus was scolded for fleeing the scene of the accident and laying on his previous course without making sure that the steamer had no serious damage. The second investigation was conducted by the US Steamboat Inspection Service behind closed doors in San Francisco and was admittedly a whitewash. The inspectors also considered the Orpheus’ manoeuvre to violate the rules for preventing collisions at sea, but Pacific, in their opinion, sank not because of its undue physical condition, but because the impact fell on the supposedly most vulnerable part of its hull, the insufficiently strengthened stem. The blame for the panic and disorganisation during the launching of lifeboats was shifted from the crew to the passengers themselves.15

Neither the shipowners of Pacific nor the officers of Orpheus suffered any real punishment. There is no information about the payment of any monetary compensation to the families and relatives of the victims.

‘Some people will persist in attributing disaster and sickness and ill-fortune to the Divine will, but if the whole world were to cry out that the Pacific was lost because God willed it, I should say that the vessel went down because the most ordinary precautions for safety were violated by her officers,’16 Higgins wrote heatedly, and this poignant quotation seems somewhat applicable to the situation with Titanic as well.17

Similarities between the Pacific and Titanic disasters include the presence of a list (both before and after the collision), the capsizing of one of the lifeboats, the collapse of the funnel and, of course, the breaking of the hull into several sections.

Again, as in the case of Titanic, parts of the hull of what is believed to be its smaller paddle-wheeled predecessor have been located using sonar technology (just a few years ago).18 The area where Pacific foundered is notorious to mariners as the Graveyard of the Pacific. Attempts to narrow and specify the search area have been controversial. In literature and other publications, a point of 20–40 miles south-west of Cape Flattery is most often repeated. The Automated Wreck and Obstruction Information System (AWOIS) developed by NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey places the wreck much closer to the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, about 12 miles off the north-west coast of the State of Washington.19 This position appears to be legitimate given the fact that the bodies of the victims and floating debris (along with the two survivors) were ‘pulled’ back into the strait.

For several more weeks, waves continued to wash up small pieces of wreckage from Pacific, along with rare bodies, on the rocky beaches of the south-eastern coast of Vancouver Island. Six weeks later, among the mournful gifts of the sea, a wooden plank was found on the beach below Beacon Hill. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a section of a stateroom stanchion or a door frame abstract. On the white paint layer, ‘in a bold business hand’, the words were inscribed with a pencil: ‘S.P. Moody All Lost’ (now in the collection of the Vancouver Maritime Museum).20 Sewell Prescott Moody, the principal owner of the Moodyville Sawmill Company, was a first-class passenger on Pacific.

1

The Break-Up of Titanic in the Evidence of the American Inquiry

The American investigation into the causes leading to the shipwreck of Titanic and circumstances of its sinking, being chronologically first in order, and also being foreign in the venue, could not help but feel the special responsibility that lay on it before its fellow citizens as well as before the subjects of the British crown and the entire world community, in view of the unprecedented scale of the disaster and the public resonance it evoked. The area of responsibility also included bringing clarity to the picture of the ship’s sinking, up to the last minutes of its life.1

William Alden Smith’s Final Report ordered to be printed on 28 May 1912, in the section titled ‘Ship sinking’, reads as follows: ‘The ship went down gradually by the bow, assuming an almost perpendicular position just before sinking at 12.47 a.m., New York time, 15 April. There have been many conflicting statements as to whether the ship broke in two, but the preponderance [sic!] of evidence is to the effect that she assumed an almost end-on position and sank intact.’2

A subcommittee of the Commerce Committee of the United States Senate operated from 19 April to 25 May 1912, during which time eighty-two witnesses were questioned. Three of them declared with confidence, in some cases reaching the point of being categorical, that Titanic sank intact. Thirty-six people did not give a definite answer. Eight persons spoke directly about the break-up or were inclined to think that it did happen.3

The first witness to testify on the first day of the senatorial hearings was none other than J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line. Here is an excerpt from his testimony, which touches on the topic of interest to us:

William Alden Smith (1859–1932), a US Senator from the state of Michigan and chairman of the Senate subcommittee investigating the causes of the sinking of Titanic. (Harris & Ewing, Inc./US Library of Congress)

Senator Smith. Mr Ismay, what can you say about the sinking and disappearance of the ship? Can you describe the manner in which she went down?

M. Ismay. I did not see her go down.

S. S. You did not see her go down?

Mr I. No, sir.

S. S. How far were you from the ship?

Mr I. I do not know how far we were away. I was sitting with my back to the ship. I was rowing all the time I was in the boat. We were pulling away.

S. S. You were rowing?

Mr I. Yes; I did not wish to see her go down.

S. S. You did not care to see her go down?

Mr I. No. I am glad I did not.

S. S. When you last saw her, were there indications that she had broken in two?

Mr I. No, sir.4

J. Bruce Ismay giving evidence to the US Senate inquiry in the Waldorf Astoria, New York, on 19 April 1912. (Günter Bäbler Collection)

The reluctance to see the going down of the Company’s newest flagship is quite understandable from a human perspective (given that Ismay, additionally, was one of the authors of the concept of the Olympic-class liners). How convenient and effective it is to work with oars while sitting with your back to the ship, and whether this is possible at all – we will better leave it to rowing specialists to judge.5

Another key witness questioned on the same day, 19 April, was Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller, the most senior surviving officer of Titanic, and the holder of an Extra Master’s certificate (since 1902). His judgements on issues related to navigation, speed, and ship’s behaviour during the sinking enjoyed high influence and were often taken for granted completely uncritically. In response to Senator Smith’s question, ‘Was the vessel broken in two in any manner, or intact?’ he gave a definitive answer without any shadow of a doubt:

‘Absolutely intact.’

Senator Smith. On the decks?

Mr Lightoller. Intact, sir.6

Charles Herbert Lightoller (1874–1952), the Second Officer on Titanic. Photo c. 1900. (Illustrated London News Ltd/Günter Bäbler Collection)

Herbert John Pitman (1877–1961), the Third Officer of Titanic (on the left), in New York at the end of April 1912. The gentleman with a pipe in his teeth, standing on the right, is often (but most likely erroneously) identified as Second Officer Lightoller. (Wikimedia Commons)

The next in seniority bridge officer, Third Mate Herbert John Pitman, also a certified Master of a foreign-going ship (since 1906), predictably supported his colleague while testifying on the fourth day of the Senate inquiry, 23 April:

Senator Smith. Did you see the Titanic go down?

Mr Pitman. Yes, sir.

S. S. Describe, if you can, how she sank?

Mr P. Judging by what I could see from a distance,7 she gradually disappeared until the forecastle head was submerged to the bridge. Then she turned right on end and went down perpendicularly.

S. S. Did she seem to be broken in two.

Mr P. Oh, no.8

Taking Pitman’s testimony, Senator Smith did not limit himself to a quick blitz question about the break-up, as was the case with Lightoller. Clarifying questions followed, and the Third Officer revealed that after the ship went straight down, he heard four underwater explosions that ‘sounded like the reports of a big gun in the distance’:

Senator Smith. What did you assume they were?

Mr Pitman. I assumed it was bulkheads going, myself.

S. S. Did you hear anything like boiler explosions?

Mr P. Yes; I heard a lot of people say that; but I have my doubts about that. I do not see why the boilers should burst because there was no steam there. They should have been stopped about two hours and a half.9 The fires had not been fed, so there was very little steam there.

S. S. Are we to understand that you do not believe that boilers exploded?

Mr P. I do not believe it.10

Fourth Officer Joseph Groves Boxhall, who had testified the previous day, on 22 April, estimated the distance to which lifeboat No. 2 had gone under his command to be approximately three quarters of a mile (more than 1.3km). He did not mention the break-up – and perhaps he was more honest in this case:

Senator Smith. Did you see the Titanic sink?

Mr Boxhall. No; I cannot say that I saw her sink. I saw the lights go out, and I looked two or three minutes afterward and it was 25 minutes past 2. So I took it that when she sank would be about 20 minutes after 2.11

Finally, Fifth Officer Harold Godfrey Lowe, the last officer to survive, mentioned, like Pitman, some explosions, also in the number of four. But he was not asked in detail about the break-up, despite the fact that he confirmed that he had watched the steamer sinking:

Senator Smith. How did the Titanic go down?

Mr Lowe. She went down head first and inclined at an angle. That is, when she took her final plunge she was inclined at an angle of about 75° [sic].

S. S. Almost perpendicular?

Mr L. Pretty well. On an angle about like that [indicating].

S. S. Were you close enough to see whether there were any people on the afterdecks at that time?

Mr L. No, sir. It was pretty well dark, and we could not see them.12

Junior wireless operator Harold Sydney Bride, just like Lightoller, survived on the bottom of the overturned collapsible lifeboat B, which served them and several other men as a kind of a life raft. The collapsible boat was devoid of full oar driving, it moved predominantly at the behest of the waves (including the wave that hit it after the falling of the first funnel) and currents, so it is logical to suggest it could not float significantly far away from Titanic. Bride estimated the distance that he swam from the side of the ship at 150ft (about 45m); the collapsible B could actually have been less than 20m away at that time. Both Lightoller and Bride should have, if not seen the break-up, then at least clearly heard the rumble and crackle that accompanied it. And yet the first emphatically denied that the ship broke up, and the second simply did not mention a word about it in his testimony. Senator Smith, again, did not delve into questioning on this topic.13

The first person to openly admit on the pages of the minutes of the Senate hearings the possibility of the Titanic breaking up – or at least the likelihood of some large-scale destruction in its hull before the final submergence – was first-class passenger Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, a businessman, yachtsman and a major in the Canadian militia. He also became the only male passenger whom Lightoller personally allowed to enter the lifeboat (No. 6) that night. Soon afterwards, Peuchen made a number of harsh statements in the press, especially against the captain and J. Bruce Ismay.

The four surviving officers of Titanic (from left to right): Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, Second Officer Charles Lightoller, Third Officer Herbert Pitman (seated) and Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall, in 1912. A studio photograph most probably taken during the British Inquiry in London. (Lafayette Ltd/Wikimedia Commons)

On the fourth day of the American inquiry, while describing how lifeboat No. 6 rowed approximately five eighths of a mile (a little more than 1km) from Titanic, the major dropped the following phrase: ‘We commenced to hear signs of the breaking up of the boat.’

Arthur Godfrey Peuchen (1859–1929), a Toronto businessman and first-class passenger. (The Yakima Herald, 1 May 1912)

Senator Smith. Of the Titanic?

Maj. Peuchen. Of the Titanic. At first I kept my eyes watching the lights, as long as possible.

S. S. From your position in the boat, did you face it?

Maj. P. I was facing it at this time. I was rowing this way [indicating], and afterwards I changed to the other way. … We heard a sort of a rumbling sound and the lights were still on at the rumbling sound, as far as my memory serves me; then a sort of an explosion, then another. It seemed to be one, two, or three rumbling sounds, then the lights went out. Then the dreadful calls and cries.

…

S. S. And when the boat went down, were you looking toward it?

Maj. P. I was looking toward the boat; yes.

S. S. Did you see it?

Maj. P. I saw it when the lights went out. You could not tell very much after the lights went out. … I could only see the outline of the boat, you might say.

S. S. Do you know how she went down?

Maj. P. While the lights were burning, I saw her bow pointing down and the stern up; not in a perpendicular position, but considerable.

S. S. About what angle?

Maj. P. I should think an angle of not as much as 45° [emphasis supplied].

S. S. From what you saw, do you think the boat was intact, or had it broken in two?

Maj. P. It was intact at that time. I feel sure that an explosion had taken place in the boat, because in passing the wreck the next morning – we steamed past it – I just happened to think of this, which may be of some assistance to this inquiry – I was standing forward, looking to see if I could see any dead bodies, or any of my friends, and to my surprise I saw the barber’s pole floating. The barber’s pole was on the C deck [just off the aft grand staircase to the port side, between funnels 3 and 4, – Author], my recollection is – the barber shop – and that must have been a tremendous explosion to allow this pole to have broken from its fastenings and drift with the wood.

S. S. Did you hear the explosions?

Maj. P. Yes, sir; I heard the explosions.

S. S. How loud were they?

Maj. P. Oh, a sort of a rumbling sound. It was not a sharp sound – more of a rumbling kind of a sound, but still sharp at the same time. It would not be as loud as a clap of thunder, or anything that way, or like a boiler explosion, I should not think.

S. S. Were these explosions evidently from under the water?

Maj. P. I should think they were from above. I imagined that the decks had blown up with the pressure, pulling the boat down, bow on, this heavyweight, and the air between the decks; that is my theory of the explosion. I do not know whether it is correct or not, but I do not think it was the boilers. I think it was the pressure, that heavy weight shoving that down, the water rushing up, and the air coming between the decks; something had to go.

S. S. How many explosions did you hear?

Maj. P. I am not absolutely certain of this, because there was a good deal of excitement at the time, but I imagine there were three, one following the other very quickly.14

A hardly determinable noise akin to some sort of an explosion or rumbling – at least one – was also reported by Quartermaster George Thomas Rowe, who was in charge of the collapsible C in which Ismay sat as an oarsman:

Senator Burton. Did you hear any explosions?

Mr Rowe. I heard one, sir, after we left the ship. It was not an explosion; a sort of a rumbling.

S. B. What do you think it was?

Mr R. I have no idea what it was.

S. B. Do you think it was boilers exploding?

Mr R. It was not an ordinary explosion, you understand; more like distant thunder.

S. B. Was that before or after the ship sank?

Mr R. Before she sank, sir.

S. B. Were there more than one of those explosions?

Mr R. I only heard the one, sir.

S. B. How far from the ship were you when she went down?

Mr R. About three-quarters of a mile, sir.

S. B. Did you see her go down?

Mr R. I saw her stern disappear at the finish, sir.

S. B. It was while she was still floating that you heard the explosions?

Mr R. Heard this rumbling sound, sir.

S. B. You are quite sure of that, are you?

Mr R. Positive, sir.15

Rowe’s colleague, Quartermaster Alfred John Olliver, mentioned not only the noises, but also what he ‘fancied’ to be the break. According to his estimate, the distance between lifeboat No. 5, in which he was sitting, and the ship was about 300 yards at that moment – this sounds more like the truth than Pitman’s 100 yards:

Senator Burton. Did you see the boat sink?

Mr Olliver. I cannot say that I saw it right plain; but to my imagination I did, because the lights went out before she went down.

S. B. How did she sink?

Mr O. She was well down at the head at first, when we got away from her at first, and to my idea she broke forward, and the afterpart righted itself and made another plunge and went right down. I fancied I saw her black form. It was dark, and I fancied I saw her black form going that way.

S. B. Did she careen over, tip over sideways, or did she go ahead?

Mr O. She went ahead, like that [indicating].

S. B. Did you hear explosions?

Mr O. I heard several little explosions, but it was not such explosions as I expected to hear.

S. B. Were these before or after she sank?

Mr O. Before she sank and while she was sinking.

S. B. What did you think those explosions were?

Mr O. Myself, I thought they were like bulkheads giving in.16

Another Quartermaster, Arthur John Bright, when the ship broke apart, was in the last lifeboat lowered from it in the normal way (that is, with the use of davits and tackles), literally a few minutes before the bridge went under water; it was the collapsible D, and it managed to move to a distance of ‘50 to 100 yards’ away from the vessel.

Bright testified:

She broke in two. All at once she seemed to go up on end, you know, and come down about halfway, and then the afterpart righted itself again and the forepart had disappeared. A few seconds the after part did the same thing and went down. I could distinctly see the propellers – everything – out of the water.

…

Senator Bourne. Did you hear any explosion after you left the ship?

Mr Bright. I heard something, but I would not call it an explosion. It was like a rattling of chain, more than an anything else.

S. B. You did not hear any explosion? You do not think the boilers blew up?

Mr B. No; it was not like that; it was not such a sound as we would hear if the boilers exploded. It was like a rattling of chains.

S. B. The ship went down by her bow first and you could see the stern, and see the keel on the stern, could you?

Mr B. Yes, sir. Then that righted itself again, got on an even keel again after that.

S. B. That is, the stern?

Mr B. It settled down in the water on an even keel.

S. B. But the bow had disappeared?

Mr B. Yes, sir.

S. B. Hence, you assumed that she broke in two. The bow lights were extinguished, were they?

Mr B. You could not see anything of them after that.

S. B. Did you see any lights on the stern after she settled?

Mr B. Yes, sir; until she finally disappeared underneath the water.

S. B. Until the stern disappeared, after the break?

Mr B. Yes, sir.17

Senator Duncan Fletcher of Florida seemingly got interested in the mention of the break-up and asked the witness for some more details: ‘Where did she break? Tell us about where she broke in two.’ Bright’s reply was: ‘Well, it was as near the middle as anything, I should say; but it was dark.’18

While quartermasters Olliver and Bright spoke of ‘several little explosions’ or a sound that was more like ‘a rattling of chain’, first-class passenger Ella B. White (Holmes) (rescued in lifeboat No. 8) stated she ‘heard four distinct explosions, which we supposed were the boilers [let’s remember Pitman’s and Lowe’s four explosions – Author]. Of course, we did not know anything about it.’

Senator Smith. How loud were those explosions?

Mrs White. They were tremendous.19

Importantly, she too thought that Titanic broke apart: ‘In my opinion the ship when it went down was broken in two. I think very probably it broke in two.’20

An able seaman, Frank Osman, laid on oars and watched the ship go down from the emergency boat No. 2 (commanded by Boxhall), not far away from the stern. He described what he saw in these words: ‘After she got to a certain angle she exploded, broke in halves, and it seemed to me as if all the engines and everything that was in the after part slid out into the forward part, and the after part came up right again, and as soon as it came up right down it went again.’ The cause of the explosion(s), in his opinion, was ‘the cold water coming under the red-hot boilers’ (the fact that they were no longer red-hot by that time was quite convincingly explained by Pitman), which allegedly led to the boilers ‘bursting’. It is worth noting that Osman did not see any explosion as such, nor any flashes or balls of fire; only heavy smoke – ‘a great amount of black smoke coming up through the funnels’, along with some amorphous masses of quite large size – he did not know what it was, but he dubbed them ‘lumps of coal, and all that’.21

Another able seaman, George Alfred Moore, also claimed to have observed the break-up and heard explosions – from lifeboat No. 3, which had rowed a little more than a quarter of a mile (about 460m) away:

Senator Newlands. What was the appearance of the ship at that point of time?

Mr Moore. I saw the forward part of her go down, and it appeared to me as if she broke in half, and then the after part went. I can remember two explosions.22

Oddly enough, there were no further questions. Senator Francis G. Newlands abruptly changed the subject, showing complete disinterest in finding out the details of what appeared to the witness to be a ship’s breaking in half.

A 26-year-old able seaman, Edward John Buley, gave one of the most detailed and descriptive evidences in favour of the Titanic’s break-up that was voiced during the American inquiry. He escaped the sinking vessel in the last or second to last large wooden lifeboat (No. 10) launched at around 1.50 a.m.; it is likely that this lifeboat was about 200 yards away at the time of the events described. Below is an extensive excerpt from the transcript of Buley’s testimony taken by Senator Duncan Fletcher:

Edward John Buley (1885–1917), able seaman. (Daily Mirror, 18 May 1912, p. 13. Courtesy of Charles Haas)

Senator Fletcher. After you left her, her bow continued to go under?

Mr Buley. Settled down; yes, sir. She went down as far as the afterfunnel,23 and then there was a little roar, as though the engines had rushed forward, and she snapped in two, and the bow part went down and the afterpart came up and stayed up five minutes before it went down.

S. F. Was that perpendicular?

Mr B. It was horizontal at first, and then went down.

S. F. What do you mean by saying she snapped in two?

Mr B. She parted in two.

S. F. How do you know that?

Mr B. Because we could see the afterpart afloat, and there was no forepart to it [this is not entirely consistent with what some other survivors stated – Author]. I think she must have parted where the bunkers were. She parted at the last, because the afterpart of her settled out of the water horizontally after the other part went down. First of all you could see her propellers and everything. Her rudder was clear out of the water [this corresponds to what Quartermaster Bright said – Author]. You could hear the rush of the machinery, and she parted in two, and the afterpart settled down again, and we thought the afterpart would float altogether.

S. F. The afterpart kind of righted up horizontally?

Mr B. She uprighted herself for about five minutes, and then tipped over24 and disappeared.

S. F. Did it go on the side?

Mr B. No, sir; went down headforemost.

S. F. That makes you believe the boat went in two?

Mr B. Yes, sir. You could see she went in two, because we were quite near to her and could see her quite plainly.

S. F. You were near and could see her quite plainly?

Mr B. Yes, sir.

S. F. Did you see any people on her?

Mr B. I never saw a soul.

S. F. You must have been too far away to see that?

Mr B. It was dark.

S. F. Were there lights on that half part?

Mr B. The lights were all out. The lights went out gradually before she disappeared.

S. F. Notwithstanding the darkness you could see the outline of the ship?

Mr B. Yes, sir; we could see the outline of the ship.

S. F. You could see the funnel?

Mr B. Quite plainly.

S. F. Were there any cinders or sparks or anything of that sort from the funnel? [A reference to Osman’s ‘very black smoke’ and ‘lumps of coal’ coming out of the funnel – Author.]

Mr B. No, sir. …25

Together with Buley, able seaman Frank Oliver Evans also escaped in lifeboat No. 10; he fully confirmed the testimony of his colleague:

Senator Fletcher. Did you see the Titanic after you rowed away from where she was?

Mr Evans. Yes, sir.

S. F. How far did you go away?

Mr E. About 200 yards.

Senator Smith. Could you see the boat well after you pulled away from her?

Mr E. You could see her when the lights were clear, and then until she gave the final plunge.

Senator Fletcher. Did the boat go to pieces or come in two?

Mr E. She parted between the third and fourth funnels.

S. F. What makes you say that?

Mr E. The foremost part was gone, and it seemed as if the engines were all gone out [emphasis added. This will be further analysed in Chapter 16 – Author].

S. F. You did see the forepart was all gone and you could see the stern come up horizontally?

Mr E. Yes, sir.

S. F. After the forepart had disappeared the stern came up and was horizontal with the surface of the water?

Mr E. Yes, sir.

S. F. And how much of the stern; up to what part of the ship; to the funnels?

Mr E. From the after funnel to the ensign mast.

S. F. About how much of the ship was afloat then, after the forepart had gone down?

Mr E. I should say about 200ft was afloat; that is, of the stern part.

S. F. Could you see that clearly in the outline?