The Titanic – History of a Disaster
Essay title: The Titanic – History of a Disaster
The Titanic – History of a Disaster
On April 14,1912 a great ship called theTitanic sank on its maiden voyage. That night therewere many warnings of icebergs from other ships.There seems to be a conflict on whether or not the
warnings reached the bridge. We may never know the answer to this question. The greatest tragedy of all
may be that there were not enough lifeboats for everyone on board. According to
Walter Lord, author of The Night Lives On, the Titanic
could have been saved in the very beginning of the
crisis when the iceberg was first reported to the
bridge. If First Officer Murdoch had steamed right at
the iceberg instead of trying to avoid it, he might
have saved the ship. The author feels there would have
been a loud crash and anyone within the first one
hundred feet would have been killed, but the ship
would have remained afloat (82). This view was
entirely speculation and we will never really know if
this would have happened. In contrast, Geoffrey
Marcus, author of The Maiden Voyage, suggests that the
bridge did not
receive warning of the ice from the very beginning.
One of the messages received was from the Masaba
warning the Titanic of a mass of ice lying straight
ahead. According to Marcus, the message never reached
the bridge, but instead was shoved under a paperweight
(126). At 10:30 p.m. that evening, a ship going the
opposite direction of the
Titanic was sighted. This ship, the Rappahannock, had
emerged from an ice field and had sustained damage to
its rudder. The vessel signaled the Titanic about the
ice and the Titanic replied that the message was
received (Marcus 127). At 11 p.m. another ice report
was received. This one was from the Californian. This
liner had passed through the same ice field that the
Rappahannock had reported to the Titanic. Like all the
other warnings, this warning never reached the bridge
though it was known to both of the Titanics wireless
operators (Marcus 128). By the time the bridge
realized the ship was about to hit an iceberg, it was
too late. Quartermaster Hitchens tried to turn the
wheel hard to the starboard. Twenty seconds later, he
had an order for full speed astern but the iceberg was
too close. The starboard side hit the iceberg,
bringing a block of ice onto the deck (Pellegrino 21).
After the collision occurred, there was only one thing
open for Captain Smith to do. It was almost midnight
and he gave the order to take to
the lifeboats (Lord, Lives On 82). This decision
brought Captain Smith face-to-face with the fact that
there were 2,201 people on board and enough
Lifeboats for only 1,178 people (Lord, Lives On 83).
Captain was going to have to make a choice as to who
would be the
first allowed on the lifeboats. Around 12:30 a.m. the
bridge informed
the crew that only women and children would be loaded
on the lifeboats
(Eaton,Haas,152). By 1:30 a.m., there was panic among
some