One hundred years ago, in the waters of the North Atlantic, the seas were calm, the air was brisk and chilly, and the stars shone brilliantly through the clear northern air. The closest land, Newfoundland, was 400 miles away. Basked in the thin light of the moon, it looked as peaceful a place as there was on earth.
The lone disturbance that night was a majestic, Edwardian, sixty-four foot bow gliding though the flat, motionless sea. It gracefully swept back into a spotless, streamlined hull, dotted with glowing portholes that threw bright and cheerful reflections onto the cold sea. The liner’s superstructure was a perfect white, and her four black and red funnels stood proudly erect, leaving a trail of steam in her wake. The seven massive yellow letters at the front of her bow spelled TITANIC.
She was the sensation of her day. 882 feet long, and driven though the water at a top speed of twenty-four knots by three massive propellers, the RMS Titanic was the largest, grandest, and safest ocean liner in the world. She incorporated new designs, such as airtight compartments, that made it virtually impossible for her to sink. Onboard that fateful night, among other celebrities, were John Jacob Astor, one of the richest men in the world, Benjamin Guggenheim, another multi-millionaire, and a famous actress, Dorothy Gibson.
Cruising through the glassy and frigid ocean at twenty-three knots, the Titanic was closing out the fifth day of her maiden voyage. She was ahead of schedule, and except for a small mishap while leaving port, her first voyage had been as smooth as the water surrounding her. By 11:30, most of the passengers had gone to bed, and a skeleton crew was left to man the watch. But at 11:39, a frantic sounding lookout named Frederick Fleet screamed into the telephone on the bridge, “Iceberg, dead ahead!”
The terrified watch officers turned hard to starboard, and the three massive engines were reversed, but the twenty-six seconds they had to change the ships course were not enough, and the iceberg smashed six gashes down her port side. The iceberg did not, as it is commonly thought, cut through the side of the ship. In truth, the enormous pressure of the collision buckled Titanic’s side plates, causing them to collapse inwardly. The damage stretched into six of the airtight compartments, and despite the best efforts of the crew to contain the flooding there, the entire front of the ship was already almost filled with water, a wound the mighty ship could not sustain for long.
Passengers began to wander up on deck to investigate the source of the grinding noise that had awoken them, and a group of young boys began to play soccer with ice smashed off the upper portion of the berg that had fallen onto the deck. The mood was calm, and no one imagined that the great ship was doomed. Thomas Andrews, the Titanic’s chief designer, hurried to the bridge. Once informed of the extent of the damage, he gave his greatest accomplishment just an hour to remain afloat.
Stewards and crewmen rushed through the passenger quarters, knocking on doors and calling out for everyone to report to the deck. But the passengers, many woken up by the banging on their door, refused to cooperate. They had no interest in the cold night, and did not believe for a moment that the unsinkable Titanic was in any danger. For reasons unknown, orders were given for the passengers not to be told the ship was, in fact, going to sink.
Those who did make it up to the boat deck were told to put on life jackets, but the lifeboats, which could only hold half of the ship’s occupants, were not launched for almost an hour. This delay reinforced the belief that there was no danger, and many passengers went back inside. Finally, at 12:45 on the morning of the 15th, boats began to be launched. The twenty boats could fit sixty-eight people each, but the inexperienced crew barely filled them half-way. Women and children went first, and as the lifeboats went down, one by one, the ship began to list dramatically, finally convincing people that the danger was real, and mad charges for the lifeboats began.
The crew fired distress rockets, seen by the S.S. Californian and a Norwegian whaler, but were taken as merely fireworks shot off in fun. The radioman pounded off message after message in Morse code, praying that one would get through. His efforts seemed in vain. The closest ship would be there within twelve hours. Titanic would slip into the freezing waters within one.
The lifeboats dwindled away, until there were only a few remaining. The men gave way to the women and children, husbands fighting for spots for their families, and men giving seats to women they had never met, knowing that they were sacrificing their own lives. The quiet heroics and chivalry of that night came to symbolize Edwardian England. Benjamin Guggenheim, who could have had passage in any lifeboat he desired due to his wealth, told another passenger to find his wife and tell her that he “played the game out straight to the end. No woman shall be left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward.”
The last lifeboats were away by 2:05. Captain Edward Smith toured the deck one last time, and proclaimed that now it was “every man for himself.” Many of the men, after helping distribute lifejackets and get every woman and child they could find into a boat, sat down in the smoking room, opened a brandy, and prepared to die with honor, knowing they would never survive in the icy waters.
The unsinkable Titanic began her death throes at 2:15. The bow began to plunge deeper into the water, the funnels started to collapse, the ship was rocked by huge explosions as the mighty boilers blew up. As the stern rose higher and higher into the night sky, those in the boats recalled seeing the groups of the 1,500 left aboard hanging on to the railings, masts, and each other. A priest remained aboard, praying and hearing confessions. The ship’s band played until the very last. Captain Smith returned to the bridge to await the inevitable.
The electric generator finally died with the bow almost completely underwater, and the stern stretching almost a hundred feet into the sky, plunging the ship into darkness. Soon thereafter the tension from the bow pulling down and the stern struggling to stay upright finally gave way, and the great ship split in half. The stern dropped back into the water, and the bow and all those trapped inside it vanished under the cold sea. The stern rose up again, her great propellers arcing out of the water, until it was almost completely vertical. Passengers and crew still hung on for dear life to railings, and some jumped off, landing on the propellers. Finally, at 2:20, what was left of Titanic began her death plunge, the stern sinking almost vertically, and vanishing into the depths.
The survivors waited in the lifeboats until 4:10, when the S.S. Carpathia, having heard of the disaster and driven at full speed through the ice pack, arrived on the scene. By the time that bodies were counted, only 710 out of 2,224 had survived.