British Liner
Titanic,
April 15, 1912
2:20 a.m. (The Titanic's broken off stern settled back into the water, becoming
more level for a few moments. Slowly it filled with water and tilted its end
high into the air before sinking into the sea. People in the water slowly froze
to death.)
On that
fateful night of April 14, 1912 there were 2,235 souls crowded aboard the
R.M.S. Titanic. There was no wind to speak of. The frigid, dark sea was calm,
like a plate glass mirror beneath the star-spangled heavens. It was an hour
before midnight on a starry, moonless night. While the band played on beneath
the decks in the first class lounge, and while the night watch paced the Bridge
high above, the greatest maritime tragedy in the history of sailing,
stealthily, silently awaited them in the ice-strewn midnight waters of the
North Atlantic.
Survivors recalled a gentle shudder that briefly shook the 900 foot long
vessel. It came and went so quickly that nobody gave it much of a second
thought. Except for the occupants of the Bridge–who in the split seconds before
that collision, saw the towering iceberg ahead, floating in their unlighted
pathway. The helmsman swerved to miss the iceberg–but they would have been
better off to have struck it head on. In narrowly avoiding a head-on collision,
they suffered an even worse fate!
Three-fourths of the iceberg lay unseen beneath the calm ocean surface. When
the Titanic swerved, it brushed the iceberg's underside on the starboard side
of the bow, slitting a quarter of an inch wide opening more than 300 feet down
the side of the vessel. Like a titanic can opener, the iceberg knifed open the
side of the iron hull. The damage was just enough to cause the metal plates to
buckle so that six watertight compartments began taking in sea water.
So scientifically had this great sailing ship been constructed, with 16
watertight compartments in a 1/6 mile long hull, that the captain had made a
pre-voyage boast, "Not even God himself could sink her". The builders
had calculated that even if four of the compartments should burst, the ship
would still float! But on that starry night, six of them exploded and began to
suck in the frigid water of the North Atlantic! Mathematically, the
"unsinkable ship" was mortally wounded. And, in two hours she was
gone. Commander Lightoller, one of the few crew members who survived the
tragedy, described the moment she sank.
Of the 2235 occupants, 1522 met their death in those dark waters including most
of the men, most of the third class, most of the crew, and all of the band.
Only 713 people were rescued.
