Titanic: A tragedy very much alive

The events of that night in 1912 haunted Jack Thayer for the rest of his life. Decades later, he wrote about it - a first-person account Lorin Stein edited for re-publication this year.

"Her deck was turned slightly toward us. We could see groups of almost fifteen-hundred people still aboard...
"Clinging in clusters or bunches, like swarming bees, only to fall in masses, pairs or singly, as the great after-part of the ship, 250 feet of it, rose into the sky."

For Stein, a distant relative of Thayer, the ghastly images are hard to shake, haunting: "It's very fresh in my mind. There are certain things he describes, like the moment when the ship went under and the people in the lifeboats watched it go down, and there are 1,500 people now floating in the water. And he says a great sob or sigh went up. And anyone, any New Yorker remembers the moment when the first tower when down, on the street, it was the same sigh or sob.

"This stuff is fresh."

Last Tuesday, descendants of Ida and Isidor Straus gathered at Macy's - the store Isidor co-founded - to honor their memories .

"I am so pleased there are so many family members here," said Kurzman.

And on this 100th anniversary , a new, and very special invitee - Lee Moore, a rabbi from Kent, Ohio. He said his grandfather told a story of a wealthy woman who gave up her seat: "And because of that, they got onto a lifeboat."

Before the Straus family contacted her a few years back, Lee Moore never dreamed her great-grandmother Bella, and her grandfather - just seven at the time - third class passengers, might be connected to Isidor and Ida Straus.

But indeed, family research has shown that it's just possible her great grandmother and grandfather were saved when Ida Straus made her selfless decision to stay with her husband.

"There's a chance I wouldn't be here if Ida hadn't given up her seat," Moore said.

One hundred years later, a new connection. A new chapter in the story that is still very much alive.

• « Previous Page
• 1
• 2

[Jhihmoac]

Nobody ever says a dammned thing about the Olympic, the first built of the three giants, and the only one to survive...It enjoyed a 35 year service of successful crossings...

[Jhihmoac]

Correction (typo) 25 years...

[marine1957]

To me, the greatest tragedy was the fact that the ship's crew were said to have locked the doors to the low-class (poor) people on the lower decks of the ship so that the upper-class (rich) people could have the lifeboats.
I would bet that a search of that ship would show that the doors are still locked and the bodies of the low-class people are still locked in there.
This is not just a personal opinion, but the result of having seen a documentary that showed this wickedness and prejudice against the poor... and having learned a few things about human nature in my 71 years, I believe the documentary. The proof can be seen in the names and background of those who survived - rich people only.

[Montana5]

Enough already.

[julianpenrod]

The fact is that the "official story" of the Titanic is as full of holes as the "official story" of Spetember 11. And the more it is looked into, the less and less credible it becomes. Many, however, tend to fixate solely on visceral aspects of a story, so they will completely ignore the fact that, frankly, it is so unlikely, if not implausible, that the Titanic occurred, it is all but inane to lend it any significant credence. No shipbuilder or ship line would play around with dangerous designs and operation and risk the kind of lawsuits that could result. Most disasters occurred in spite of safeguards, but Titanic is described as having been built deliberately without safeguards! In fact, despite claims, the lifeboats could have carried more than 80% of the entire passenger list, but, for example, the first lifeboat launched had only 19 people, rather than the 65 or more for which it was rated! And it begs disbelief that a wireless operator on Titanic actually told other ships to stop sending reports on pack ice! The Carpathia, the ship credited with most of the rescues, was reportedly less than 60 miles away when contacted, yet took four hours to reach Titanic! Meanwhile, the Californian is described as no more than about 10 miles away and as having watched as Titanic sank, thinking the distress flares were party rockets! No ship's captain ever would assume out of hand that signs of distress aren't distress! That is inherent in all long time seamen! And it is not credible that a band wouild have played on the deck. If they were suited against the cold, they would find it difficult to play and, if they had only inside clothes on, they would be too cold or even numb to play! And there is a mysterious newsreel that shows Titanic being guided out of Southampton by English design tugboats that claims to be of Titanic's sister ship Olympic in New York Harbor! The names of the tugs, on their sterns, are scratched out in every frame of the newsreel! the "official story" of the Titanic is a lie.

[retm-w]

And you post no sources for your claims. You don't even know how long it would take for a ship at that time to travel less then 60 miles.

[jaykay3141]

Thank you, walyern. Just as Freud said that a cigar is sometimes just a cigar, there are times that a horrible accident is a horrible accident. It seems that ever since the Kennedy assassination, every major tragedy ends up being spun as the result of some hidden conspiracy. Is Occam's Razor in that much need of sharpening?

It's been noted over and over again that Board of Trade regulations were woefully out of date and that Titanic actually carried 4 more lifeboats than mandated. "Building to the law" was and remains common, regardless of whether it makes practical sense. Case in point: About 20 years ago there was a horrible high-rise fire in a major east-coast city. The building's shell was stronger than required by law, but the city's fire code only required sprinklers on floors with potentially hazardous equipment. One night a small fire started in some rags left by painters working on one of the UN-sprinklered floors. A full sprinkler system would have put it out almost immediately, but instead the fire spread and overwhelmed the partial system. The building was destroyed and along with it, the lives of several firefighters. But it met the codes.

And as to the question about how long it took Carpathia to reach Titanic, please, it's absurd on the surface to judge by modern standards! Even current ships rarely approach 30 knots, so it's not in the least unreasonable for a small, coal-fuelled liner to have maxed out at less than 20. And given Captain Rostron's concern that they not compound the tragedy by hitting another iceberg, it seems pretty remarkable that he managed to average 13 or 14 knots in the middle of the night.

[walyern]

The Titanic disaster is not some giant conspiracy, just like September 11th isn't either. But, first, I will go point for point, and explain things a whole lot better.
Titanic's sinking was not the work of fraud, or espionage. Titanic's fate was merrily the product of an age, an age in which man truly thought that technology and the products of our vast knowledge could defeat nature. I will put it another way...This disaster was simply waiting to happen as it could have very well happened to the Mauritania, or the Kaiser Wilhelm II, or the France, or any other liner. Had it not happened to the Titanic, most would have never heard of the Titanic.
No one had deliberately built the Titanic to lower standards, she was built at what was the most advanced shipyard of the day. The workmanship that went into the Olympic Class liners was of the utmost quality. The Olympic ships were not the only liners to be built without enough lifeboats, Cunard's Lusitania and Mauritania had sailed since 1907 without enough lifeboats...and, only having them in the first class areas. At least over in Germany, many liners, while still not having enough boats, did have some of them in the second and third class areas of the ship.
All the things many have said about the steel used in the Titanic...it was 1911 when she was launched. There really was no such thing as good steel or bad steel. Ships of that day were built of plane old steel. As far as the workmanship of the lifeboats themselves, they had been tested in Belfast overloaded with full grown men...lowered from the boat deck all the way down to the water. Poor workmanship did not play a hand in the Titanic's sinking. man's smug since of superiority did.
Why boats left the ship unfilled? MANY reasons. There has always been questions as to who knew about the nature of the damage to the ship. Clearly, the Captain, Thomas Andrews, and J. Bruce Ismay knew exactly what was going to happen. However, there is very little evidence to suggest that anyone else in the senior staff (let alone the rest of the crew) knew anything about how serious it was until very late in the sinking. With this in mind, many of the officers and crew sent boats away because of the fact that many passengers initially refused to get into the boats, as well as the fact that the crew had not been trained in lifeboat evacuation plans, and simply did not know either that the boats could easily handle 65 to 75 people, or that the crew simply did not what the life boat's capacities were.
As it became clear to everyone on board that the ship was in serious danger, the life boats started to leave very full, and even some of the officers and crew did try to motion, or single some of the lifeboats that had already gone to return back to take on more passengers. If you were in a life boat with 20 to 30 other people, and you were maybe 500 feet away seeing that the liner was indeed in serious trouble, what might go through your mind? How about, "returning to the ship may cause severe swamping of the boat..." or "we might as well be on our own." These thoughts did go through the minds of those in the boats simply because, after witnessing what they did, both during the sinking and immediately after, they were desensitized to the point that their own lives became paramount to all else.

[walyern]

The Californian...It has been widely determined that the Californian was in fact 20 miles away from the Titanic during the sinking. Even had she responded to what some have sad to be distress signals, she still would not have been able to arrive at the Titanic's position in time to save any more lives. That being said, it is necessary to look at what the officers and crew of the Californian saw that night. At 20 miles distance, Californian, if seeing anything, would not have been able to see much. Most of the Titanic would have been just beyond the horizon of the line of sight from the bridge of the Californian. What the officers of the Californian did barely see (again, mostly hidden below the horizon) were the Titanic's 8 provisioned white company rockets. Titanic was not equipped with any regulation distress rockets which are RED. Had the officers of the Californian seen a single red rocket, you can bet that they would have immediately informed Captain Lord, who would have awoken Evan's, and the Californian would have immediately responded.
Because white rockets were barely seen, it may have been assumed that they were being used to signal to someone else. The officers of the Californian were the ones who suggested to Captain lord that white company signals were being sent up. Captain Lord repeatedly ordered the officers to attempt to contact the ship by Morse lamp. It would have been nearly impossible for anyone on the Titanic to see the Morse signals coming from the Californian however, and thus the communication was not made.
As far as what people on the Titanic saw to North of them, it is fairly safe to say that, at 20 miles, the much smaller Californian would have been completely below the horizon. This raises the question of what BOTH the Titanic and Californian crew saw on the horizon. By witness reports from both ships, a light was on the horizon, and seemed to disappear. By the Titanic's perspective, it was shortly after 1:00 AM. This has raised the question of whether or not a third ship was within the 20 miles that separated the Titanic and the Californian. Speculation has revealed that it could have been a whaling ship that was illegal harvesting seal pellets. When she found herself in between two large liners, she left. This explains why people on both liners seemed to see a ship steaming away.
As far as the conspiracy that it was the Olympic that sank, it has been proven many time that the wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic is that of the Titanic, and this conspiracy is as laughable as those surrounding September 11th.

[walyern]

The use of the wireless...Titanic's Marconi equipment had been down for most of the day on Sunday April 14th. Phillips and Bride worked most of the day repairing the wireless, and by the time they were done, were desperately backlogged with passenger traffic. The wireless was not widely seen as a tool for safety at sea (yet). It was more seen as some fantastic new luxury service, much as when cell phones were first introduced. Wireless operators, more often than not, were paid to send passenger traffic, and if they wanted to get paid, they were to make sure those messages were sent.
While Phillips actions in the receiving of messages was rather inexcusable, one must remember, he was paid to send passenger traffic, and had an enormous backlog of messages to send...all the while having been at his post for a very long time having had very little sleep. It was actually quite a luxury and a novelty to have two wireless operators on the Titanic. Many liners of the day only had a single wireless officer, and could therefor not hold a 24 hour service.
It may also bare noticing that, Cyril Evans, Californian's sole wireless operator, did not try to re-call up the Titanic to relay the message again. Like Phillips and Bride, Evans had been at his post for a very long time and was extremely fatigued. After Phillips cut into the Californian's message, Evans simply signed off, deactivated his wireless equipment, and went to bed.
The Carpathia....Almost every other liner hearing the Titanic's distress signals just could not believe what they were hearing. Harold Thomas Cottam, Carpathia's sole wireless operator, was about to go to sleep himself and simply, by luck, heard the Titanic's distress call and responded, and then immediately informed Captain Arthur Rostron.
Carpathia actually drove harder and faster than she ever did or than anyone ever thought she could that night. Managing 17.5 knots, it took her 4 hours to travel 58 miles, which seams accurate. One must also remember, as Carpathia got closer to the Titanic's position, she had to maneuver around ice bergs herself.

[Transatlantique]

The women and children first approach makes no sense. How are they going to survive without the fathers to support them? The same attitude in that men were considered expendable is the same attitude that has fueled wars with casualties. Men are no more expendable than are women, and I'm sick of hearing how chivalrous men were. The feminists never speak of the chivalry of men in the past.

If it had been me, I'd have either pulled a RuPaul or saddled up to the nearest liquor cabinet or medical supply for pain relief. This is why every one should be allowed pain killers or sensory diminishment emergency doses in the event of an imminent tragedy. Dying isn't so bad, its just the reality of it before that is the worst.

[tmittelstaed]

The children first makes sense because that's preserving your genetic material - Nature has no use for the organism once it's reproduced. There's always someone else who can raise your child out there. And the women first makes sense because of the same reason - a woman can remarry but she is always going to make sure her genetic material descendent is provided for.

Men, not so much. Consider the statistics of single women with kids vs single men with kids. 'nuff said.

[TheRedTent]

We are loyal fans of your show for many years. There is a big Canadian connection to the Titanic story. Halifax, N.S. was the closest harbor to the disaster, which was called upon to dispatch assistance, and which dramatically affected the city. Over 100 Titanic victims are buried there, as well as a major Titanic museum. Our CBC evening news program The National has been running a series all week on the subject, and many of the stories I had not heard before: coffins stacked on the docks; burials at sea; descendants of Canadian victims living here; Titanic anniversary tourism; the poignant story behind "The Unknown Child" grave; and many more.

[retiredgustav]

For those left abord the sinking Titanic, death was the great equilzer, as it alway has been.