In the dark waters of the North Atlantic, the great passenger liner, R.M.S. Titanic, came to a violent and mysterious end. Each of her passengers unwitting players in a harrowing drama. The builder who would pronounce her dead. The brave men who refused to let her die. Thousands of people who struggled for their lives.
Now for the first time, a prominent Titanic historian will retell her tragic tale from the ship's actual decks. Haunting locations will take us back to pivotal moments during the epic disaster. Newly discovered artifacts are helping to piece together Titanic's untold stories.
It's a moment in history we'll still striving to understand, a part of our past impossible to forget. On the French research vessel Nadir, a countdown begins. The crew prepares for an unprecedented dive to one of the greatest shipwrecks in history, R.M.S. Titanic. On Nadir's fantail, a prototype submersible, Nautile, is run through a final series of systems checks. She is one of a few submersibles able to dive more than twelve thousand feet to reach Titantic. Historian, Charles Haas, is leading today's dive. His mission, to document key sites on the ship where critical events unfolded. To Haas, Titanic is a dramatic stage.
But it is the characters in the tragedy who draw him in. I think in order to get a full picture of what that night was like, you need to know the people who were involved in that situation. By knowing the characters in the drama, by knowing the people, you get a much better insight into the great drama of that night. As part of Haas' mission, he will also look for artifacts, personal objects which may provide clues to Titantic's story. When Nautile leaves these decks, she will drop two and a half miles into the Atlantic, into a hostile world. A place of freezing temperatures, bone crushing pressure and desolate darkness. If something goes wrong at the site, there is no chance of a rescue. In the control room, Nautile's position will be monitored by expedition leader, George Tulloch. I'm really proud of this expedition and this team.
Dim lights Embed
It's just a wonderful thing to be a part of. The Titanic is the piece of our history and it's just special in every direction. Tulloch is joined by Titanic historian and Haas' writing partner, Jack Eaton. There are many things that still can be learned from Titanic, from the disaster, from the recollection of the people and of the events. There are some major mysteries that are still unsolved. From the bridge, the crew watches as Nautile free falls to Titanic. A ship still giving up her secrets. For historians studying Titanic, much of what they know is based on testimony taken after the disaster. Hearings were held in both the United States and Britain which investigated the reason for her sinking.
Additional evidence turned up in rare diaries and letters. Now artifacts retrieved from the ocean floor let us study tangible pieces of lost history. In their research, historians have learned most about passengers who traveled lavishly in first and second class. People such as Emily Ryerson and Lawrence Beesley have given us a glimpse of what that horrific night was like. Remarkably, personal accounts of Titanic continue to surface. New witnesses are emerging. Their stories have rarely been heard. As the submersible Nautile descends to Titanic, the crew prepares for arrival at the site. Your approach to the Titanic is pretty much like hovering over a beach in a helicopter. You see the sand rolling under you and your navigating forward at maybe two or three miles an hour. All of a sudden, you see this immense object. And it is so, so immense that it completely fills the view port. Your first reaction is, it's almost an automatic, "Oh my God." Titanic is, it's still a very, very beautiful ship to see.
The lines are so beautiful under water. And there's an awe or a reverence or a silence from realizing what occurred on these decks, human stories of personal tragedy that literally happened within the space that you can now see. On April 4th, 1912 at midnight, Titanic docks at Southampton, England where her fist passengers will board. Under the direction of Haas, the crew of Nautile moves to the very spot where travelers first embarked. The trip aboard Titanic actually began at this spot. These are the B deck doorways, the so called shell doors. When you boarded the ship at Southampton in England, you would essentially have gone through these doors and the purser would greet you there. These doorways mark the site where many first touched Titanic, a simple portal that became an entrance to history.
In Southampton, boarding begins in the early morning. In command of the ship is Captain E. J. Smith. Smith's passenger list includes a who's who of the era. But the majority of the ship's passengers are third class. Titanic's owners hope to profit from immigrants such as Gerda and Edvard Lindell. The Lindells recently married are living in Skognas in southern Sweden. According to plans, Edvard will go to America first. Gerda will follow thereafter. Gerda, however, won't be separated from her new husband. At the last minute, she joins him. In a farewell gesture, Gerda drops roses along their route leaving a trail behind. In Southampton she writes a final postcard to her brother. Tomorrow we shall go aboard Titanic. We have been down to see the colossus. You should see what a beast it is.
Greetings from Gerda. On the 10th of April, 1912, the Lindells join more than two thousand others for Titanic's maiden voyage. Onboard, Edvard and Gerda meet fellow Swede, August Wennerstrom. Wennerstrom is traveling under an assumed name. He's a political dissident leaving Sweden to live in America. Only one of these three passengers will survive the journey. Today Titanic is a mass of twisted metal. But historian Charles Haas can see past the decay to the people who once walked these decks. As the crew of Nautile moves to a new location, twelve thousand feet above them at the surface, members of the expedition team help navigate the wreck Their destination is a third class area at Titanic's bow. Hello Jack Hello Jack Hello Charlie. How are you doing down there? Over. We're working hard down here.
We're looking now down at the third class area, the so called forward well deck And it was here that third class passengers were enjoying themselves and coming out for recreation. From this place, the sunsets must have been dramatic. Third class passengers including the Lindells spent early evenings strolling here, taking in the brisk sea air. Above the third class promenade, first and second class passengers enjoyed uncompromising luxury. Amenities included an exotic steam room. A state of the art gymnasium. And lavish dining salons. For one first class passenger, none of Titantic's palatial amenities are enticing. Mrs. Emily Ryerson's eldest son has been killed in a car crash in America. She's going to claim his body. She leaves her cabin rarely and eats in her room. The elegance of Titanic is meaningless to a mother in mourning. Haas is now one deck above Mrs. Ryerson's cabin. The team moves forward along the bow to one of Titanic's most famous locations.
Between the first and second funnel, there was a magnificent dome which sat atop an area known as the grand staircase. There's really no part of the Titanic that perhaps demonstrated the grandeur of the ship than this feature which was called the grand staircase in first class. It was surmounted by a rod iron and glass dome. It penetrated five or six decks down through the ship. As we can see now, however, the grand staircase is only a shattered leftover of its former self. For the first few days out at sea, the trip to America is uneventful. Then on Sunday, the temperature drops dramatically. Titanic's chief designer, Thomas Andrews, spends his Sunday reviewing the ship's plans and inspecting the vessel for any subtle imperfections. Titanic is the greatest achievement to date of his ascending career. Harold Bride is one of the ship's two radio operators. Bride's partner is Jack Phillips. Throughout the day on Sunday, they receive six warnings of ice.
Titanic's course is altered further south to avoid the danger. For passengers like the Lindells, the frigid air is enough to keep them indoors. Mrs. Emily Ryerson, however, makes a rare appearance outside her cabin to enjoy the quiet evening with a friend. Bruce Ismay, managing director for the company that owns Titanic, approaches Ryerson. Mrs. Ryerson. Ismay shares a wireless message. I have here a communication from the captain. It indicates... First he showed the telegram, then he said, We're in among the icebergs. At the time, the conversation had no importance to me. I was very much overburdened with other things that were on my mind. First Class Passenger, Mrs. Emily Ryerson. In fact, few on board are concerned about ice. Titanic, after all, is unsinkable. The colossal scale of Titanic was unrivaled in her day. Her tragic sinking is one of few events in history that still holds such a grip on our imagination. Titanic holds the place in the public interest for a number of reasons of course.
The first... is that it was probably the first major disaster to be covered by all of the media. There were some very early disasters in the 20th century but Titanic was the first one that made such a worldwide impact. People from the outset could identify with people on board the ship and this is something that has remained over the years. Titanic stood as a pinnacle of human ingenuity in a time of unbridled optimism. There was great optimism that the age was going to improve. They had such modern things as telephone and automobiles and even airplanes. And how far are these wonderful scientific devices going to take us? Above the wreck, Nautile moves to a haunting location in the story. The submersible is guided to the devastated remains of the forward funnel.
A one hundred and fifty foot funnel once occupied this cavernous hole. What we're passing over now is a huge ventilation system. Titanic had, of course, four funnels connected to the boiler rooms. So what we're looking at here is a giant tube in effect. And if we were to pursue it further, we would find ourselves way down in the Titantic's boiler rooms. The massive boilers located deep in the belly of the ship were Titanic's source of power. On the day of the disaster, twenty-four boilers are feeding Titanic's enormous engines. The ship's speed, twenty-one and a half knots. That evening, stoker Frederick Barrett begins his shift. In a few short hours, he will find himself in a pitched battle for survival. Second class passenger, Lawrence Beesley, fills out a claim form so that he can retrieve his valuables from the purser's safe. Before retiring, Beesley takes in some quiet entertainment. Eternal father come to save... After dinner, Mr. Carter invited all who wished to the saloon and with the assistance at the piano, he started passengers singing hymns. He was curious to see how many chose hymns dealing with dangers at sea. Second class passenger, Lawrence Beesley.
Two hours before impact, wireless operator Jack Phillips receives a warning from the ship Mesaba. Ice report, latitude 42 degrees north to 41 degrees, twenty-five minutes north. Saw much heavy pack ice and great number of large icebergs. Wireless operator, Jack Phillips. Phillips doesn't realize the ice field lies directly in Titanic's path. Rather than report the warning to an offiicer, he places it on a spike. This simple act dooms Titanic. The warning should have been delivered to Second Offiicer Charles Lightoller who was working on the bridge. The one vital report that came through but which never reached the bridge was received from the Mesaba. That delay proved fatal and was the main cause of the loss of that ship. Second Offiicer, Charles Lightoller. With the stage now set for disaster, the Nautile approaches an eerie scene. We are hovering over the fallen forward mast and you see the remains of the crow's nest. It was here that lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. On the night of April 14th, 1912. Fleet used the crow's nest bell but he essentially telephoned the bridge to report iceberg dead ahead.
The iceberg is spotted a quarter mile away. Not enough distance to turn a ship that stretches four city blocks long. Offiicers steered Titantic from this location. The ship's wheel used to be attached to this device called a telemotor. It is all that's left of the bridge. What we're seeing is the telemotor coming up. Here is really where Frederick Fleet's order was translated into action. Between Frederick Fleet's warning of the berg and the collision, it was just thirty-seven seconds of time. As Titanic begins to turn, it looks as if the ship will clear the iceberg. But an underwater ledge pierces Titanic's steel hull, buckling plates, causing thin separations in her side. There came what seemed to me, nothing more than an extra heave of the engines, nothing more than that, no sound of a crash or anything else. No sense of shock, no jar that fell like one heavy body meeting another. Second Class Passenger, Lawrence Beesley. I was just about ready for the land of nod when I felt a sudden vibrating jar run through the ship. Not that it was by any means a violent concussion but just a distinct and unpleasant break in the monotony of her motion.
Second Offiicer, Charles Lightoller. Deep below in third class, the impact is more obvious to the Lindells. And August Wennerstrom. Captain Smith dispatches Titanic designer Thomas Andrews to inspect the damage to the ship. What Andrews sees is devastating. He reports to Captain Smith that Titanic is filling fast. A quick calculation reveals the ship has an hour, maybe two. Andrews realizes the deadly implications immediately. On board are more than two thousand passengers and crew but only enough lifeboats for just half of them. Following the collision, the ship is quiet again. Most first and second class passengers are still sleeping. Little do they realize, a drama unfolds in the bow of the ship. Deep below, the front of Titanic is quickly flooding. The forward crew must abandon their positions. For the time being, Titanic's electricity is holding. Stoker Barrett and several others attempt to keep the water out of boiler room five. The men attach long hoses to the pumps.
If they keep this section from flooding, they believe they can save the ship. They do not know that Titanic's designer has already declared her doomed. From the boiler rooms, Nautile travels to a location where another battle was fought. Above this fatal wound in the ship lies Titanic's mail room. Among the greatest heroes of Titantic's story, I think, are the postal workers. There were more than thirty- five hundred bags of mail onboard... Thirty-five hundred. and as the water began flooding this area, the men's only thought was to try to rescue the mail that they had been placed in charge of. As Titanic's mail room floods, the postal workers drag the mail to higher ground. As they work, the rising water rapidly pursues them, lapping at their heels at each level. Eventually, they are overtaken. This great hole marks the spot where the five postal workers died. They were Titanic's first victims. The next site is perhaps the most wrenching. From the control room, the crew guides Nautile to one of the evacuation areas.
Titanic's lifeboats were stored on her uppermost decks. There were only sixteen, capacity for about one thousand. This ghostly crane lowered boats into the dark sea. Second Offiicer Charles Lightoller worked at this very spot. As Lightoller and his men crank out the boats. Passengers stand by and watch. Among them, there is utter disbelief. Nothing seems wrong. Why are they being asked to evacuate? Many passengers initially won't leave and the first boats are launched virtually empty. Near this location, the radio operators frantically signal for assistance. In a desperate attempt to summon help, they send a newly adopted distress code SOS. Titanic is one of the first ships in history to send the call. What we are looking at now is the interior of the ship's wireless room. Here the radio operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were given the information that the Titanic was doomed. They began immediately sending out distress signals.
And so it was from this very room that these two men worked very hard to save lives. Recognizing the fatal damage to Titanic, designer Thomas Andrews calmly works to prepare the passengers for the lifeboats. He knows, regardless of his effort, there will be a tragic loss of life. Third class passengers August Wennerstrom and the Lindells are left on their own. As they head for the lifeboats, the stern begins to rise out of the water. We saw the sea climbing up the deck more quickly than before. I could see that everyone was clamoring aft and trying to keep from sliding down the slanting deck which was growing steeper. Third Class Passenger, August Wennerstrom. Deep in the belly of the ship, Frederick Barrett of the crew feared the red hot boilers will explode when they come in contact with the icy sea water so they extinguish the boilers.
As each fire is put out, the hold fills with steam. Blinded by black dust and steam, one of Barrett's companions falls into an open manhole. His leg is shattered and Barrett drags him to a pump room. Nearly two hours after impact, a weakened wall caves in and the sinking of Titanic accelerates. Barrett escapes but his companion will perish. When Barrett arrives on deck, his timing is perfect. He is quickly assigned to a lifeboat as an oarsman and is lowered away. Lawrence Beesley climbs aboard Barrett's boat when no more women or children are nearby. On the opposite side of the ship, one man wrestles with his conscience. His name is Masabumi Hosono. I tried to prepare myself for the last moment making up my mind not to leave anything disgraceful as a Japanese but I still found myself looking for any possible chance for survival. There were many men who attempted to squeeze in but sailors refused them at gunpoint. I, myself, was deep in desolate thought.
Even if I became the target of a pistol shot, it would be the same and thus I made a jump for the lifeboat. From the dark sea, Hosono looks back at embattled Titanic. Her lights burning brightly. Her stern rising perversely from the water. I saw a great number of passengers still frantically moving about on the deck giving terrible shouts and cries for help. The scene was just horrible and eerie. Our lifeboat too was filled with sobbing and weeping women who had been worried about the safety of their husbands and fathers. It was all unbearably sad and hopeless. On board Titanic, Mrs. Ryerson refuses to leave her husband despite his best efforts to convince her otherwise. My husband said, "When they say women and children first, you must go." And I said, "Why do I have to go on that boat?" And he said, "You must obey the captain's orders and I'll get in somehow. "First Class Passenger, Mrs. Emily Ryerson. Hundreds of families are struggling with the same question.
Should they separate or stick together? With few lifeboats left, people take the threat of sinking seriously. Now the challenge for the crew is to keep people from mobbing the remaining boats. At 1:45 a.m., Emily Ryerson boards one of the last boats to be launched with her two daughters and one son. Her husband stays behind. Mr. Andrews, Mr. Andrews. Titantic's designer, Thomas Andrews, is last seen looking lost in a trance in the first class smoking room. Andrews. Mr. Andrews. Mr. Andrews? As Titantic's stern tilts higher, the Lindells and August Wennerstrom slide into the water. Relieved of his duty, Second Offiicer Lightoller also takes his chances in the sea. Immediately he is sucked into a ventilation shaft. Although I struggled and kicked for all I was worth, it was impossible to get away. Every instant expecting myself shot down into the bowels of the ship. I was still struggling and fighting when suddenly a terrific blast of hot air came up the shaft and blew me right away up to the surface.
From the surface, Lightoller witnesses the end of R.M.S. Titanic. The bow of the ship was now rapidly going down and the stern was rising higher and higher out of the water piling the people into helpless heaps around the steep decks and by the score into the icy water. Second Offiicer, Charles Lightoller. As she swung out, her lights, which had shown without a flicker all night, went out suddenly. Came on again for a single flash and then went out all together. Second Class Passenger, Lawrence Beesley. The stern stood for several minutes black against the stars and then the boat plunged up. Then began the cries for help which seemed to go on forever. First Class Passenger, Mrs. Emily Ryerson. As Titanic plummets to the ocean floor, the most beautiful liner the world every saw shatters into pieces. On the surface, the human drama continues. Charles Lightoller manages to climb atop an overturned lifeboat. Some thirteen men struggle here to keep their balance, to prevent slipping into the icy water. Wireless operators, Bride and Phillips are among these men. Phillips will die of exposure before morning.
The Lindells manage to find a lifeboat but the boat overturns sending them helplessly back into the sea. For how long a time I was away from the boat, I don't know. When I came back to the boat, it was filled with water. My friend, Edvard Lindell had also got aboard. I saw Mrs. Lindell in the water and clasped her hand. I didn't have the strength to pull her aboard. Mr. Lindell looked straight ahead. Never made a move or said a word. I realized that he'd frozen to death. After a half hour, I lost my grip and saw Mrs. Lindell disappear into the sea. Third Class Passenger, August Wennerstrom. More than one thousand, five hundred men, women and children perished this night. Relics of their lives are strewn along the ocean floor. Artifacts like these provide the last clues to their stories. Among broken plates and debris, Haas makes a discovery. He finds and retrieves a device called a telegraph that was used to signal the engines.
Your emotional attachment to a particular object eventually evolves into a great deal of anxiousness about its future. And when you see the artifacts being brought up and in particular when you see them being conserved that anxiousness is replaced by a great, great deal of happiness that you've preserved them for the future. After a day of exploration, Nautile returns to the surface with precious cargo. On the fantail of Nadir, the newly discovered artifact is shared with the crew. You know, history's progressed another notch there Charles. I'm really quite overwhelmed by that. In a warehouse in Hamburg, Germany, people line up to visit an extraordinary exhibit of Titanic artifacts. Historians Charles Haas and Jack Eaton and expedition leader, George Tulloch take in the emotional display.
They have come to see fragments of history, some of which they have helped to rescue from certain oblivion. Certain objects here played a critical role during Titanic's final hours. The giant wrenches used by the men in the boiler room remind us of those who struggled to keep Titanic afloat. Men like Frederick Barrett. Barrett survived the disaster and continued to work most of his life out at sea. One of Titanic's brass bells, a symbol of her elite offiicers, including Second Offiicer Charles Lightoller. Lightoller was the only senior offiicer to survive Titanic. He retired unceremoniously. During World War II, he used his yacht in daring missions to aid the British war effort. This claim check, number two, oh, eight, belonged to Lawrence Beesley and it was retrieved from the ocean bottom.
Beesley lived to be eighty-nine and write one of the most significant accounts of the Titanic tragedy. Women's jewelry, reminds us that many of Titanic's survivors were widowed that night. When Mrs. Ryerson arrived in New York, she would bury her son who was killed in a car crash and mourn her lost husband. Mrs. Ryerson died at the age of seventy-six. Masabumi Hosono lived reclusively and rarely spoke of Titanic. His rare written account has now become a part of history. Hosono lived to be sixty-nine and died in Japan. August Wennerstrom survived Titanic. He spent most of his life in America and died in Culver, Indiana.
This is the wedding band of Gerda Lindell. It was retrieved from the lifeboat where both she and her husband lost their lives. These objects are the last remnants of the Titanic disaster. They forge a link across a century to a vanished time. This clarinet and these letters of love found in a man's suitcase give us an intimate glimpse into a life we would have known nothing about, a life like many others forever changed by Titanic. Of the two thousand, two hundred and twenty - eight individuals aboard Titanic, we only know the experiences of perhaps half. Some of their stories have been told and fully developed. But even to this day, most of Titanic's stories still remain untold.
Original: http://www.amworld.info/titanic-stories/titanic-ship
