Tales from Great Passenger Ships E-Book

Paul Curtis

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

Seitenzahl: 343

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Passenger ships have always played a key role in shaping our lives and destinies. From the biggest to the smallest, the most beautiful to the most basic, in peacetime and war, they have carried emigrants, holidaymakers, troops and other travellers on countless life-changing journeys – and many of those passengers have a tale or two to tell about their time on board. Tales from Great Passenger Ships is a collection of intimate and often humorous portraits of the most famous and notorious ships to ever sail our seas. From the escapades of passengers and crew to terrible disasters, infamous controversies and thrilling rescues, author and former Queen Mary entertainment officer Paul Curtis takes a nostalgic voyage through the history of seagoing.

Leseprobe

Also by Paul Curtis:

Pacific Princess: The New Love Boat

High Tea on the Cunard Queens: A Light-Hearted Look at Life at Sea

Aboard Pacific Princess: The Princess Cruises Love Boat

The Oasis Sisters: Royal Caribbean’s Fleet of the World’s Biggest Cruise Ships

History of Professional Photography in Australia

Better Boating Blunders: Sea Going Stuff Ups for Beginners and Experts

Around the World in Eighty Years: A Pictorial Journey

‘Fair Winds and Following Seas …’

(Anon)

The sailors’ traditional wish for good luckfor your ongoing voyage through life.

Front cover image: Cunard’s RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth ocean liners. (WorldPhotos/Alamy Stock Photo)

First published 2023

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Paul Curtis, 2023

The right of Paul Curtis 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 212 9

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

(Ships Listed in Order of End of Life)

Author’s Note

Common Nautical Terms Explained

Preface: How Safe is Cruising?

1      RMS Britannia: Pioneering Power on the Atlantic (1880)

2      RMS Titanic: The Needless Tragedy (1912)

3      RMS Empress of Ireland: Death on the St Lawrence (1914)

4      RMS Lusitania: Civilian Ship Torpedoed (1915)

5      RMS Carpathia: Mission of Titanic Mercy (1918)

6      SS Morro Castle: The Ship that Beat Prohibition (1934)

7      SS Normandie: Fairest of Them All (1942)

8      MV Wilhelm Gustloff: Disaster for Hitler’s Cruise Ship (1945)

9      SS Eastland: Mutiny and Sunk at the Docks (1946)

10    SS Andrea Doria: Tragedy in Fog (1956)

11    TSMS Lakonia: Unhappy Ending for Fun Ship (1963)

12    RMS Mauretania: ‘Getting There is Half the Fun’ (1965)

13    SS Queen of Bermuda: Honeymooners’ Delight (1966)

14    RMS Queen Elizabeth: Queen of the Atlantic (1972)

15    RMS Caronia: The Green Goddess of Cruising (1974)

16    SS Mariposa: Luxury Queen of the Pacific (1974)

17    SS Nieuw Amsterdam: The Darling of the Dutch (1974)

18    SS Angelina Lauro: Disaster at St Thomas (1979)

19    SS Admiral Nakhimov: Disaster for the Russians (1986)

20    SS America: ‘There She Is, Miss America’ (1993)

21    MS Achille Lauro: Fires, Collisions and Hijack (1994)

22    MS Estonia: Mystery of a Modern Ship Disaster (1994)

23    SS Canberra: Taking Passengers Down Under (1997)

24    MV Aurelia: From Caterpillar to Butterfly (1999)

25    MS Victoria: Crew Idiosyncrasies (2004)

26    RMS Windsor Castle: On Time, Every Time (2005)

27    SS France: Oo-La-La on the Atlantic (2006)

28    MV Stella Polaris: The Beauty of Being Small (2006)

29    Costa Concordia: A Captain’s Shame (2012)

30    MS Pacific Princess: Pioneer of Popular Cruising (2013)

31    RMS Queen Mary: Longest-Surviving Liner

32    SS United States: Fastest Across the Atlantic

33    HMY Britannia: Cruising with the Royals

34    RMS Queen Elizabeth 2: The Most-Travelled Liner

35    RMS Queen Mary 2: The Ship that Would Never Happen

36    Oasis Class of Sisters: The World’s Biggest Cruise Ships

Bibliography and Further Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Author’s Note

‘Now hear this …’

I borrow this nautical phrase, commonly used by the US Navy to call sailors to ‘listen up’, to explain why, in this often-personal account of the life of a ship, I have used the somewhat whimsical terms ‘born’ and ‘died’ rather than the more mundane and commonly used ‘launched’ and ‘scrapped’.

Why? Well, I love ships. They may well be tons of metals heaped and welded together in a maze of stacked steel plates, but to me they are living, breathing beings. Life is poured into them by the hearts and sweat of everyone from welders, carpenters, electricians, engineers and designers to the crew and passengers who, in all weathers, journey on them for work or play. They are, in fact, floating homes.

So many of us have walked into a house and sensed this is a happy place: that this home has a presence, and this home has character.

You can get this strange sensation of another dimension when you walk into some small church in a devout community. Even cathedrals can give off a similar vibe, if they are not plagued with thousands of snapping and flashing cameras and the walls not cluttered with endless vanity oil portraits glorifying past priests.

I am not the only person given to the personification of loved items. I have a friend who has lived in several countries but always takes with him an antique Queen Anne dining table – not the easiest thing to keep lugging around the world. Over many decades he has taken it wherever he is sent. To him, his table is alive with recollections of great dinners and conversations and he calls his table ‘she’.

And so, we refer to boats and ships as ‘she’. And if ‘she’ is to have a life on this planet, she must be born. To my mind, her true birthday is the day she bursts from the womb with all fingers and toes accounted for and sets off on her maiden voyage.

And when she dies, as she surely must, like all of us, we do not say we are sending her to the undertakers to be scrapped. In line with afterlife theories, she is recycled and bits of her become something else. Maybe the car you are driving contains steel from one of the great ocean liners.

I can be called out as drawing a long bow. But you either sense these things or you do not. What further justification can I offer?

Also, an eagle-eyed reader with the memory of an elephant may recognise three of my stories on the Cunard Queens include some small anecdotal extracts from my book High Tea on the Cunard Queens. Mea culpa. But I definitely think they are worth retelling. So there!

Common Nautical Terms Explained

Aft

Towards the stern of a ship.

Air Height

Measured from the waterline to the topmost point of the ship.

Amidships

Midpoint of the distance between bow and stern.

Beam

The width of the ship from side to side at its widest point.

Companionway

On a ship this refers to the stairway from one deck to another.

Cruise Ship vs Liner

A liner is a ship that maintains a regular schedule on a route to a distant port. They are built with reinforced and finer bows to cope with severe weather conditions experienced in all seasons. A cruise ship makes voyages for pleasure with a variable route and is designed for excellent accommodation and the ability to change routes to avoid severe weather. The only proper liner left is the Queen Mary 2. The only other passenger ships running a regular schedule are more likely to be on short runs and called ferries.

Draft

The depth below the waterline to the bottom of the keel.

Fathoms

The depth of the water is measured in fathoms. It is an old English way of measuring and refers to the distance of a man with arms outstretched between fingertips to fingertips. In other words (approximately) 6ft.

Forward

Any point on the ship that is towards the bow when facing the front of the ship.

GRT

Gross Registered Tonnage. This has nothing to do with the actual weight, it is a measurement of the amount of available space for passengers and does not include crew quarters and engine rooms.

Hull

The watertight body of a ship.

Knots (kt)

A unit of speed to cover one nautical mile in one hour. A nautical mile is 6,080.3ft. Why such an odd measure? Well, that distance is one minute of arc on a circle of the earth. So it all makes sense from a navigational point of view.

Length

The distance between the most forward part of the ship and the very end, known as the stern. It is the length overall. Sometimes referred to as LOA.

Port

Left side of the ship when facing forward.

Screw

A ship’s propeller.

Ship Prefixes

Commonly used are terms such as MS (Motor Ship); MV (Motor Vessel); RMS (Royal Mail Ship); SS (single-screw ship); TSS (twin-screw ship); TSMS (twin-screw motor ship); TEL (Turbo Electric Drive); RN (Royal Navy) and USS (United States Ship). Finally, just in case, know the prefix LB means it’s the ship’s lifeboat.

Sister Ships

Sometimes used to refer to vessels in the same line, it is used in this book to refer to near identical ships from the same line.

Starboard

Right-hand side of the ship when facing forward.

Stern

The very back of the ship.

Waterline

The floating line where the hull meets the water. The different salinity of the various seas can affect the buoyancy of a ship, so there can be several lines on the bow of a ship to mark the limits of loading for the various seas. These are known as Plimsoll Lines.

Preface

How Safe is Cruising?

Included in this book are a few ships that met unfortunate ends. This is partly because I have selected ships with a history: not many biographies are written on the lives of 3-year-olds. So, while some of the selected ships met calamity, they are not included just to entertain and titillate. They are here because they earned their place in history and most definitely should not give a false impression of the true safety of cruising. The fact is that even with the hundreds of ships now cruising the world, it is the safest form of holiday travel.

Media tales of the sea include horror stories of people contracting Covid-19, being hit by horrendous storms, ships sinking, pirate attacks, terrorists, murders and waves of norovirus-sick passengers. The truth is these circumstances are so unusual they ensure intensive and disproportionate media coverage. If it happens, it’s going to be big news. Indeed, the sinking of Titanic is still making news and it happened far more than a century ago.

Compared to flying, on a ship, if you are ever involved in some sort of crash, you still have a good chance of survival. Whereas when an aircraft hits the deck, it’s mostly a case of candles in the wind.

Fear of pirates should not deter you. Although equipped with fast, small boats, a 2019 report said only 6 of the 230 recorded attacks by young men armed to the teeth with AK-47s were against cruise ships. None of these were successful. In more recent years, the number of attacks on shipping has diminished greatly due to an international navy presence in key areas such as the Gulf of Aden, Indonesia and parts of India in the Arabian Sea.

Today, all cruise ships are geared up to deal with any attempts by deploying everything from barbed wire, high-powered water hoses, ear-splitting sonic boom equipment and, when in high-risk areas, military-trained snipers. When a ship is passing through such places, passengers can be sent to special assembly areas where they are totally protected. Of those few passenger ships attacked, even the smallest, the under 100-ton Seabourn Spirit, in 2005 saw them off safely by firing a sonic boom gun.

The term piracy is generally used to refer to attacks on ships in international waters, and is defined as an assault with the purpose of making financial gain. Terrorism, on the other hand, is when the motivating factor is either religious or political.

However, terrorism has so far been less of a threat at sea than we experience in many of our cities on land. Due to the vastness of the oceans and weather conditions, even finding a particular ship can be difficult. During the Second World War, the combined might of the Nazi war machine could not manage to catch either RMS Queen Mary or RMS Queen Elizabeth. This was despite a huge bounty offered on both their heads.

In 1973, when Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) was on a Mediterranean cruise to Israel to mark its twenty-fifth anniversary of foundation, Muammar Gaddafi let it be known he planned to sink the famous ship with a submarine as revenge for the downing of Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114. He was planning to borrow the submarine from Egypt, but the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, fearful of repercussions, countermanded the requisition.

Al-Qaeda also made threats to the maiden voyage of Queen Mary 2 (QM2), but the ship’s progress was protectively monitored and in ports patrol craft stood by. In Fort Lauderdale protective boom nets were deployed, preventing any possible close approaches by submerged craft or frogmen.

There has only been one hijacking of a passenger ship in recent times and that was of the Italian ship Achille Lauro in 1985 (see Chapter 21), but this really was a rare event.

The murder rate on cruise ships is also very low, especially when you consider the number of people in a confined area. Those on board are likely to be relaxed and having a good time, plus security is very tight and alcohol consumption is monitored closely. If a murder does happen, it makes very big media news indeed.

In instances of Covid-19 among those living in near proximity, there are millions more cases ashore than there have ever been at sea. Furthermore, because of the years of having to cope with the norovirus, ships are more experienced and better equipped to handle infectious disease outbreaks than many shore establishments. Blaring news headlines screamed about a gastro outbreak on board Diamond Princess, but the cold fact is it only affected 150 people out of the 4,000 on board. In the very early days of the discovery of Covid-19 on ships, Ruby Princess generated huge headlines for weeks when 133 people on board tested positive. But, while not wishing to be thought to be downplaying the matter, it is not so catastrophic when you consider there were again nearly 4,000 people on board. However, this combined with other ship outbreaks, was enough to put a brake on cruising for two years. There is a risk, but personally I don’t think it is any worse than going to the theatre.

Storms, hurricanes, cyclones and freak waves are a more natural form of threat, but again, the ability of modern cruise ships to cope with such circumstances are a far different story from the harrowing tales of yesteryear. For instance, the media leapt on a 2016 story of Anthem of the Seas encountering an extreme storm with terrible seas and 122mph winds off the notorious Cape Hatteras. The ship was on her return leg from the Bahamas to the New Jersey port of Bayonne. Watertight doors were closed and passengers were confined to their cabins as furniture was hurled around and water poured in through upper windows smashed by the waves. But of the 4,529 passengers on board only four were injured and none seriously.

The fact is that cruising is one of the safest holidays you can take. So, go cruise.

1

RMS Britannia

(Later SMS Barbarossa)

RMS Britannia.

Born

1840

Died

1880

GRT

1,154

Length

207ft

Beam

34ft

Speed

8.5 knots

Passengers

115

Crew

82

Line

Cunard Line

Sister ships

Acadia, Caledonia and Columbia

Pioneering Power on the Atlantic

The most famous and longest-established name in the shipping world could have been Kunder rather than Cunard. Probably just as well. Somehow Kunder doesn’t have quit the same ring to it.

The Cunard family were Quakers, living in the English county of Worcestershire. In the seventeenth century, British authorities showed their disapproval of this religion by either jailing, evicting to penal colonies or confiscating their lands. I guess today you could call them extremists. But they were in charge. To escape this madness, the family took refuge in Germany, where they became known as the Kunders. Later, they moved on to Pennsylvania and reverted to the name of Cunard.

Despite this treatment in England, they remained loyal to the crown. Come the American Revolution, they transferred to Canada to continue living under the flag of the British Empire.

Samuel Cunard, born in 1787 and the founder of the shipping company, took a serious interest in the early use of steamships. He was an early adopter, ordering them for trading on his local Canadian waters.

Once firmly established in the shipping business, in 1837 he set off for England, seeking investors to form a company to bid for the rights to carry freight and the Royal Mail service between the United Kingdom and North America. He was successful and the North American Steam Packet Company was formed. This was mercifully shortened to Cunard Steamship Company. Nowadays, people just use ‘Cunard’.

At the time, steam engines were not considered 100 per cent reliable, so many ships went for both sails and steam-driven power. Oddly enough, the idea of adding sails is slowly coming back into fashion for both passenger and cargo ships. With today’s technology, adding some wind power is both economic and beneficial to the environment.

However, there was nothing environmental about coal-burning ships. Clouds of thick, black sooty smoke would spew from their funnels. Indeed, it is only recently that diesel-burning ships have stopped emitting dark clouds to trail in their wakes.

Britannia was the beginning of Cunard building its ships in Scotland, generally considered the home of engine-building prowess. When she was launched in 1840, she was a very large ship for her period. And to meet the rights to carry the Royal Mail she had to be of sufficient strength. Britannia also carried a proper armament of guns to protect both herself and British commerce on the seas. An example of ‘Rule Britannia’, and her determination to never, never, never be slaves.

Nowadays, Cunard has fun publishing her silhouette against that of their flagship QM2 to show just how much their ships have grown. There is quite a difference between 149,000 and 1,154 tons. Yes, I know. It is 147,846. (I have a calculator.)

Britannia had a large wooden paddlewheel each side, driven by her steam engines, and three masts to support her sailing rig. Unlike sail-only ships, when the wind was light and in the right direction, she could power on and if the wind was strong enough, she could be propelled by wind power alone. In between times she could use both, but white sails were soon discoloured by the smoke from the funnels.

On her first run, she was carrying the prized Royal Mail, mixed cargo, 115 passengers, 82 crew and, to keep those paddle wheels turning, 600 tons of coal. The worst job on the ship was being a stoker. In fierce heat below they were constantly stoking coal into the fires to keep the boilers steaming.

There was a real fear of fire spreading and smoking was not allowed below decks, unless in the special smoking room. There was also a ladies-only saloon. This was to protect the ladies from both the smoke and unwanted advances.

First-class passengers were living in floating luxury. The fare of 35 guineas included unlimited wine and spirits. The restaurant took up most of the upper deck. Fresh eggs were provided by chickens housed in coops on the open deck. Between the two paddle wheels, a hut was home for the ship’s cow. For the cow’s protection against battering between the sides by the seas, the walls of the stable were thickly padded. Otherwise, the cow would be producing cottage cheese. The biggest fan of the cow’s daily output was the ship’s cat, earning its daily reward for the job of keeping rats at bay.

With the combination of steam and sail, on her maiden voyage Britannia made good time across the Atlantic, making it in just under twelve days and ten hours. On the return leg, with current and wind in her favour, she set a record, arriving in just under ten days at an average speed of 11 knots, or 12.6mph.

Seven years later, she was invited to take part in the first ocean race between British and American steamships. The American challenger was Washington – longer and with more power. They both left New York on the same day but Britannia reached England two days earlier.

Less impressed was Charles Dickens. Making an early crossing to the United States, he succumbed to a heavy bout of seasickness and exclaimed, ‘This utterly impracticable, thoroughly hopeless, and profoundly preposterous box.’

He opted to return to Britain under sail.

Fellow writer Mark Twain took a more positive view of Cunard and wrote in his diary:

The Cunard people would not take Noah himself until they have worked him through the lower grades and tried him for ten years. It takes them about ten years to manufacture a captain, but when they have him manufactured to suit, at last they have full confidence in him.

Dickens had a change of heart when he later returned to Cunard for a voyage to the US on SS Russia. He wrote, ‘The ship was fragrant with flowers and bubbles pervaded the nose.’

On one voyage, Britannia met a mishap in dense fog on the southern point of Newfoundland. A correspondent of the day wrote in the New York Commercial Advertiser:

As you may imagine, it was a moment of deep solicitude. Many of us had been for some time watching for land, anxious to know our true situation, that we might escape all apprehension during the approaching night. My eye was at the moment fixed on Captain Harrison, our excellent commander, and I saw him turn quickly, and heard him exclaim, ‘Starboard – stop her!’ Before the echo could have died away the ship struck, and for the first time I saw the bleak and barren rocks.

As soon as it was ascertained that the steamer was ashore, orders were given to clew up the sails, the guns were run aft, and the provisions and everything else that could be removed were shifted, the water in two of the boilers was let off, and the passengers all crowded to the stern; the engines were reversed, and two waves or rollers coming in, we were, under the gracious protection of an over-ruling Providence, once more afloat.

The captain then summoned the chief engineer to ascertain whether the ship made water. The result was that she was making at the rate of about twelve inches per hour, but he was sure the two pumps usually in service would keep the water down. Under this impression the captain determined to proceed on his course.

The passengers, both ladies and gentlemen, behaved with great coolness during the exciting moment, and no one attempted to interfere with the commander in the course he pursued, nor did any one converse with him until we were again under way.

Soon after some half dozen gentlemen met the captain in his stateroom, and looked over his chart, and ascertained our position. St. John’s was some fifty miles north of us, but as the fog still continued there was no probability of getting into that port, and having full confidence in Captain Harrison’s statement, that the ordinary pumps would keep the ship free, Mr Winthrop made a report to the passengers which allayed their fears, and we arrived at Halifax on Friday morning, where a survey was held, and the report was made, in substance, that the steamer had been ashore at Newfoundland, that her forefoot had been knocked off, her keel injured, and that she made fourteen inches of water per hour; but that her two bilge pumps could throw out the water she made, and that she might proceed safely to Boston.

Now for the unusual part: sixty-five passengers got together on arrival in Boston and signed a statement attesting to the good judgement of the captain. That’s something the captain of the Costa Concordia never managed after he hit the rocks. See the story in Chapter 29 of this book.

After making forty Atlantic crossings and holding the honour of being the first ship contracted to carry the Royal Mail, Britannia’s Cunard career ended in 1849. The company wanted to move on to newer ships and sold her to the German Confederation Navy, who named her SMS Barbarossa. They fitted her with nine guns, but these were never used against Britain. By 1880 she was so worn out she was used as a target ship for German gunners to practise their shooting.

The lamentable fact is this significant, pioneering ship of scheduled transatlantic crossings ended up blown to bits. A sad ending as Britannia had earned pride of place in any maritime museum.

2

RMS Titanic

RMS Titanic. (US National Archives/Heritage-Images/Imagestate)

Born

1912

Died

1912

GRT

46,328

Length

883ft

Beam

93ft

Passengers

2,435

Crew

892

Line

White Star Line

Sister ships

Olympic, Britannic

The Needless Tragedy

This should be a very short life story as Titanic died only five days out of the crib. However, the story of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic is legendary. I hesitate to raise it again, so to speak, but please bear in mind that this Hollywood star’s sister ship, Olympic, completed an illustrious career of twenty-four years before ending up at the breakers.

Mostly forgotten by the popular press was the fact that the builders never claimed she was unsinkable. The words they used were ‘practically unsinkable’. There is a difference. But never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Their claim was based on the fact the ship had a double bottom. Unfortunately, the ice sliced into the ship on the side and not the bottom.

After the enormous success of James Cameron’s movie Titanic, there came moves for two ‘practically’ unthinkable full-size replicas. First off was the eccentric, but somewhat erratic, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer. For many years he proclaimed to be well advanced with building a seagoing replica. First it was set to be finished in 2012. Then that date was moved to 2018. After gala public relations launches around the world, nothing further was heard.

Not so ambitious were the Chinese, who said they were all set to build a theme park full-sized version. This would most definitely have been an ‘it’ and not a ‘she’ as it would never go to sea. Instead, it was designed to sit in a reservoir. Building began in 2016 and, although much hyped, it has yet to eventuate.

Both these copy projects received their fair share of criticism and were labelled as tasteless and guilty of trivialising a horrific tragedy. However, for those with a dissimilar mindset, there are two half-size reproductions in the United States: one in Branson, Missouri, and the other in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

Was it the Worst Disaster?

With the loss of an estimated 1,500 lives, Titanic is often named as the worst passenger ship disaster in history. Alas, this is far from true. In 1940, the Luftwaffe sank the British Cunard liner RMS Lancastria at the cost of an estimated 4,000 lives. Another wartime victim was Cunard’s Lusitania, which lost 1,198 lives. So, the combined loss of Titanic and Lusitania is still less than that of Lancastria. She holds the unfortunate record of having the biggest loss of any single British ship.

The worst passenger ship disaster of all was the German ship MV Wilhelm Gustloff, which lost an estimated 9,000 lives. Her story is in Chapter 8.

Was Titanic, which remember was boasted as ‘practically unsinkable’, faulty in construction? Not by the standards of the day. They were well built by the famous shipyard of Harland & Wolff to be the biggest and most luxurious ships on the Atlantic.

True, the third of the three sisters, Britannic, sunk before she even went into passenger service. But there were extenuating circumstances. She was no sooner completed than requisitioned by the British Government to serve as a hospital ship for the First World War. She was sunk by a mine. But there is a bit of difference between hitting a mine in a war zone and hitting an iceberg in a well-known, seasonal field of icebergs.

To my mind, it occurred because Captain Edward Smith succumbed to the public relations pressures to get to New York in record time for the waiting media. To do this, he must have felt it necessary to take a few risks by maintaining speed through an ice-field area. This drive for punctuality could only have been increased by the presence of the chairman of the White Star Line on board.

Captain Smith was an experienced captain and in fact was making his final voyage on the new ship before his retirement. His career had not been without mishaps, but, unlike some others, I am not going to point the accusative finger at him as there are many conflicting stories by survivors of his actions. The simple fact is that I was not there. Thank heavens for that.

However, I do believe the accusations of excessive speed is the reason why Cunard, which was later forced to merge with rival White Star Line, to this day make it very clear the company has no interest in speed for speed’s sake.

On this first and final voyage, Captain Smith was off to a bad start. While clearing the berth in a crowded Southampton dock area, the thrust of her propellers created a strong current that snapped the lines of the nearby moored SS City of New York. Breaking from the dock, this ship was then sucked in a drift to Titanic. The tugs went into emergency action and managed to pull Titanic out and push City of New York back against the dock. This was done with just 4ft to spare.

A collision would have meant repairs and delays, and that fateful voyage might never have been made at all.

Already running an hour late, Titanic presses on to her first scheduled European passenger pick-up port of Cherbourg, France, and then more passengers in Queenstown, Ireland. Still at less than full capacity, she sets off for New York.

The day before the ship sank, Captain Smith curiously cancels the planned passenger lifeboat drill, allegedly wanting to deliver one last Sunday service before going into his retirement.

At the time, God may have been a bit preoccupied elsewhere, but he did arrange other ships to send warnings that there were icebergs ahead.

Captain Smith changes his course a bit further south but did not significantly slow his ship. A little later another ship radios a warning of heavy pack ice and large icebergs, but the wireless operator does not pass this message on to the bridge. The 46,000-ton Titanic thunders on through the cold night at a speed of nearly 24mph.

Possible Rescue with Sight

Just before eleven at night, the Californian, which is nearby, radios Titanic: ‘Say, old man, we are stopped and surrounded by ice.’ Titanic’s radio operator reportedly says, ‘Shut up! Shut up! I am busy.’ He is handling passengers’ private messages to shore.

Wireless was a new feature on ships, and it is probable the operator did not know the significance of the message. His negligence and ignorance of priorities cost him his life.

Just half an hour later, the sole lookout is on watch without binoculars as they have been mislaid. On a moonless night, with his naked eyes, he spots an iceberg directly ahead. He immediately calls the bridge.

Straight away, the order is given to put the helm over, reverse engines and close watertight doors. But it is too late, and the iceberg slides down the ship’s hull, rupturing five of the watertight compartments. This brings Captain Smith to the bridge.

The tear in the steel side is 300ft long. Ironically, I think, that if the ship had not swerved and instead met the iceberg head on, there would have been less damage, and if the ship had not reversed away to leave a gaping hole open to the sea, the water could not have flooded in so fast and certainly given considerably more time to abandon ship. But then it’s all very well to be wise after the event.

The ship is in calm water and the damage is surveyed. It is estimated Titanic has only one or two hours before sinking.

At midnight, the lifeboats are readied for launch. The twenty lifeboats will hold 1,178 people, but there are more than 2,200 on board. Belatedly, the order is given for women and children first.

A radio distress signal is sent and rockets are fired, but the nearest to respond is Carpathia from the rival Cunard company. She is 58 nautical miles away but, answering the call of the brotherhood of the sea, she speeds through the icefields to the rescue.

On board Californian, less than 10 miles away, the radio operator has gone to bed. However, those on board see rockets and a flashing Morse light. Remarks are also made about the ship’s lights being at a sloping angle. Theoretically, the captain could have got his ship to the rescue very quickly and saved many lives if he only had recognised these were all the indications of a sinking ship.

Much has been written about this, but it is a part of the story just too awful to contemplate. All I can offer in Californian’s defence is that the radio operator was asleep and rocket signalling was new at the time.

Meanwhile, panic is growing on board Titanic as the lifeboats are loaded in a disorderly fashion, with several pulling away from the sinking ship with only a few people on board. In a later interview recorded by the BBC, a young purser, Frank Prentice, goes up on the port side and encourages people into the lifeboats in the traditional order of women and children first.

A young wife says she doesn’t want to go without her husband. They are on their honeymoon. The assistant purser tells her not to worry, her husband will be along later. In the meantime, he helps her into her life jacket and sees her lowered away in a half-empty lifeboat.

Other passengers are hanging back, fearful of the 70ft drop, and do not believe the ship is going to sink. Said Prentice, ‘The lifeboats could hold 50, and if only they had been filled, we could have saved 800 whereas we only saved 500.’

When the ship gives a sudden steep lurch, all the lifeboats on the upside can no longer be lowered as the angle is too steep. Now everybody wants to get into the boats. With third-class passengers being pushed to the back of the queue, an officer tries to restore a semblance of order by firing his gun three times into the air.

Finally, Frank Prentice finds he cannot help anymore and puts on his life jacket and goes into the freezing water and certain death. But he is lucky, a lifeboat finds him and pulls him from the water into the boat.

But now he has hypothermia, is viciously cold and certain to die. But in the lifeboat is the lady who didn’t want to go without her husband. She recognises him and gives up her blanket to warm him.

Said the purser, ‘First I saved her life, and then later she saved mine.’

Unfortunately, the lady’s husband did not survive.

At 2.20 a.m. Titanic plunges to the bottom of the ocean, still 1,300 miles from New York City.

Just over an hour after Titanic has sunk, Carpathia arrives on the scene and begins taking aboard the surviving passengers who have made it into the lifeboats. Those in the freezing water who had not been pulled quickly into the boats had no chance of surviving long.

When dawn breaks, the terrible scene is fully revealed. Californian finally closes the scene. Offering to help, Carpathia directs her to make one last sweep for survivors while she hurries back to New York with the sick and wounded.

Carpathia arrives three days later with 705 survivors. Large crowds are gathered at the pier, but rather than the air being filled with the excitement expected for Titanic’s arrival, it hangs sodden with rain and the fear of hundreds worrying for their loved ones.

The crowd scans the passengers lining the rails and begins desperately calling out names as they search for their relatives. Few are successful. Of the 2,208 on board Titanic, only 705 have survived.

The Unsinkable Molly Brown

The tragedy revealed numerous tales of cowardice, ineptitude and extraordinary bravery. While Titanic proved sinkable, one of the first-class passengers, oil heiress Molly Brown, did not. Molly might have been very much an American society lady, but she had grit and determination equalled by few.

Spurning an early lifeboat rescue, she helped many others to get away before finally boarding one herself. The crewman in charge of the lifeboat was anxious to get clear before the boat was sucked under and did not want to pick up anyone from the icy cold water. But Molly could see there was room in the boat for others and threatened to throw the crewman overboard if he did not go back for them.

Once safely on board the rescue ship Carpathia, she then set about organising a committee of first-class passengers to help the second- and third-class passengers aboard. There is no doubt this was a first-class lady and she was honoured with a special gold medal award for bravery and, of course, a Broadway musical and a Hollywood film.

Also heroic was the ship’s orchestra, consisting of eight musicians, making up both a three-piece and a five-piece ensemble. These two groups gathered on deck to play music to help calm the passengers waiting to be loaded into the lifeboats.

As the ship sunk gently lower and lower into the freezing water, their final tune was reported as the hymn ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’.

All eight musicians died.

There are reports that the captain thanked the musicians, then went up to the wheelhouse and, according to some, shot himself. In those days, for the captain to go down with his ship was an honoured tradition. All in all, it might have been preferable to facing the inevitable boards of inquiry. We will never know the real truth. Captain Smith went down with his ship.

One of the key heroes for saving the lives of those on Titanic was Captain Rostron of Carpathia. More details are in the biography of Carpathia in this book.

Changing Life at Sea

Rearranging the deckchairs on Titanic has become a commonly used expression for hopelessly lost causes. The saying was originated by the Washington Post’s Rogers Morton, who wrote, ‘I’m not going to rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic.’

However, out of death comes renewal and the loss of Titanic caused a major rethink in both ship design and better safety procedures at sea.

If you saw the movie, you know all about the ship breaking in two. It was not so dramatic a break as in Cameron’s version. The tearing apart of the two halves of Titanic most likely occurred after she sank below the waves: a scene possibly a bit tame for a Hollywood blockbuster. But I have no petty quarrels with the film. It certainly made a lasting impression around the world.

To me, one of the most horrific aspects of the tragedy was the attitude of White Star Line. For instance, when the band was signed on, they had to agree to have the cost of their uniforms docked from their wages. The minute the ship went down, the company stopped their pay. And if that wasn’t bad enough, White Star then sent bills demanding payment for the lost uniforms to the grieving families. The company also made excessive charges for the retrieved bodies of crew to be returned to their families.

In 2022, a quarter of a century after Cameron’s movie, Norwegian Sun had a mild collision with a growler iceberg in Alaska. This promptly sent the cruise ship back home to Seattle for repairs.

On the way, whimsical couples lined up on her foredeck to parody a pose for their cell phones of a famous scene in that movie. You guessed it: a windswept Kate Winslet, arms widespread and with Leonardo DiCaprio close behind gripping her waist to stop her flying off Titanic’s bow.

Sadly, Titanic added five more lives to her death toll in June 2023. A specially designed submersible, carrying passengers to view the wreck of the Titanic