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Titanic

Titanic (RMS Titanic in English), known as Titanic in Taiwan and Hong Kong, British in the early 20th century The largest luxury liner in the world at the time, it was called "unsinkable" at the time, but it hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on April 15, 1912. The sinking, due to the lack of enough lifeboats, killed 1,500 people on the seabed, causing the most serious navigation accident in peacetime at that time, and the most famous one so far. The American movie "Titanic" was based on this true story.

"Titanic" cost 75 million pounds, with a tonnage of 46,328 tons, a length of 882.9 feet, a width of 92.5 feet, 175 feet from the keel to the top of the four large chimneys, and a height equivalent to 11 stories. building. It was a first-class ultra-luxury ship at the time.

In May 2006, the last female survivor who witnessed the incident passed away at the age of 99. There are currently two female survivors still alive, but they were less than one year old at the time of the accident and therefore have no recollection of the incident.

Construction process

On March 31, 1909, construction of the Titanic began at the Harnan and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland's largest city. The hull was launched on May 31, 1911. She is also the second Olympic-class cruise ship built by the White Star Line at the same shipyard. It was the largest and most prestigious manned mail ship at the time. Titanic is 260 meters long, 28 meters wide, with a tonnage of 46,329 tons (net weight 21,831 tons), and a displacement of an unprecedented 66,000 tons! Although she contained more space resulting in a greater gross tonnage (1,600 tons more than Olympic). Her hull is still the same size as her sister ship Olympic. There are 899 crew members on board and can carry 3,300 passengers. Because she also carried mail, she was also called the Royal Mail Steamer Titanic. Only three of the four huge chimneys actually work. The remaining one was a foil, its only practical use being as a chimney for the main kitchen. The power system has three sets of main engines: two of them are four-cylinder reciprocating steam engines and one set of steam turbines. The main engine power reaches 50,000 horsepower and the speed is 23 to 24 knots.

But White Star's interest is not in the pursuit of speed. Biggs, Titanic's baker, recalled: "... there will never be another ship like her. I worked on the Olympic, the Majestic, the Queen Elizabeth... They were all inferior to the Titanic. . . . Yes, just like the Olympic, but much more luxurious. For example, in the grand dining room, the Olympic does not even have carpets. The carpets on the Titanic are so thick that they can reach your knees... and the furniture is so heavy. It couldn't be lifted. And those wainscots... They could have built a bigger, faster ship, but the Titanic was all about creating a luxurious and comfortable space... She was a Remarkable ship…”. Biggs was speaking out for a common sentiment. The Titanic tempted all those who built and designed her. This allure was so great that she became more and more popular over the years. In the words of Shipbuilder magazine, the Titanic "imitated the Palace of Versailles in many details...the lounges filled with Louis XV furniture, the salons of the Petit Trianon in France, the carvings on the fireplaces" The work is "The Lady of the Hunt at Versailles." There are also other exquisite reliefs and works of art... fine teak and brass decorations, chandeliers and frescoes, Indian and Persian carpets." Even third-class cabins have marble sinks and bedside heaters. The Titanic was an unparalleled luxury at the time. Although she was not the first ship to offer an on-deck swimming pool, gym, bathrooms and lifts, she went to great lengths to provide a level of service never seen before. For first-class passengers, she provided three lifts; as an innovation, she provided one lift for second-class passengers. Economy class passengers still have to climb stairs.

One of her most famous features is her luxurious staircase. James Cameron faithfully recreated this staircase in his film.

Although the Olympic and Titanic are sister ships, some details are different.

Observations after the Olympic's maiden voyage found that people on deck A would be drenched in water mist, and the promenade running through deck B was not highly utilized. Both of these flaws were improved on the Titanic, where part of the B-deck was converted into a private terrace for the first-class luxury suites.

Titanic is considered a landmark work of technical achievement. Titanic was more concerned about safety. The two-layer ship bottom is divided into 16 watertight compartments by 15 watertight partitions with automatic watertight doors, spanning the entire ship. 16 watertight (watertight) compartments prevent her from sinking. Oddly, these watertight compartments did not extend very high. The first two watertight partition walls and the last five were only built up to the D deck. The eight middle walls only extend to the E-deck on the lower floor. Nevertheless, she could still move if any two of the compartments were filled with water, and she could remain afloat even if all four compartments were filled with water. People at the time could not imagine a worse situation, so they called the Titanic an "unsinkable ship." A crew member said to a second-class female passenger Sylvia Caldwell during the voyage: "Even if God himself came, he could not sink this ship."

Main Voyage

On February 3, 1912, the decoration work on the Titanic was completed, and the maiden voyage was initially scheduled for March 20. But Olympic's unfortunate collision in September 1911 (with the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Hawke) delayed Titanic's final work. Her maiden voyage was scheduled for April 10th. Prior to this, sea trials will be conducted on April 1. All is well. Titanic arrived at Southampton Port on the 3rd and anchored at anchorage 41, waiting for the exciting moment on the 10th. As an unpleasant side note, coaling operations encountered a slight setback due to a strike by coal workers at the port of Southampton. IMM didn't want to delay the Titanic's maiden voyage any longer, so it scavenged all the coal from the coal bunkers of the company's mail ships anchored in Southampton Port.

On April 10, 1912, thousands of people were surging at the Ocean Pier in Southampton Port. The "unsinkable" Titanic sets sail for the New World. The dock was crowded with passengers, family members, baggage handlers and customs inspectors. At 11 a.m., chimney No. 1 spewed white steam. 25 of the 29 boilers began to light fires in sequence. At exactly 12 noon, the Titanic slowly left the dock under the tugboat. The two outer propellers began churning up the water in Southampton Harbor. The Titanic sailed past the stately (not the one later compensated by Germany), Philadelphia, St. Louis, Ocean and New York anchored in the port in turn, honking its whistle to pay tribute to them. The 46,000-ton ship seemed attractive to other ships. Under the action of the suction of the water, the hull of the New York mail ship began to move closer to the Titanic. Fortunately, the anchor chain and cables pulled it in time. Titanic's tugboat Vulcan pushed the New York's hull back. The world's largest mail ship begins its first and only voyage.

At 7 o'clock that evening, the Titanic arrived at the port of Cherbourg, France. Another group of passengers and cargo boarded the Titanic on the two special ferry boats "Nomad" and "Traffic", including American millionaire Astor and Mrs. Margaret Brown - later called " The unsinkable noble Mrs. Brown." At noon the next day, the Titanic arrived in Queenstown, Ireland (today's Cork). A group of Irish immigrants who were full of longing and hope for the new world boarded the ship. A passenger disembarked here, and the photo he took later became a rare photo of the Titanic, and today it is extremely valuable in the eyes of collectors.

In order to cross the Atlantic as quickly as possible, the Titanic chose the shorter northern route. The temperature keeps dropping. But the weather was very sunny. The surviving crew members said they had never seen such a peaceful North Atlantic before. Following Ismay's orders, Titanic increased its speed to 25 knots the next day. Although they felt that Canard's speed-only strategy had lowered the company's image, White Star also wanted to get a blue ribbon to show off. Along the way, nothing major happened to the Titanic. Philip, the telegraph operator on the ship, was busy sending expensive private telegrams to the first-class passengers, most of which were nonsense reports about safety and instructions for stock trading and delivery.

April 14, 1912, Sunday night, a calm night. There wasn't even a hint of wind.

If there were, a lookout on the ship would have spotted the phosphorescence of the waves lapping on the iceberg. The Titanic sailed at a speed of 22 knots on this dark and cold ocean. After receiving reports of ice conditions from many nearby ships, Captain Smith ordered the lookouts to observe carefully. This year's icebergs drifted further south than in previous years. But, surprisingly, despite custom-made gilded stair handles and hand-woven Indian rugs for the first-class cabins, White Star did not equip the lookouts with telescopes! ! At 11:40, lookout Frederick Fleet (who later survived) spotted a black shadow "the size of two tables" in the distance, growing in size very quickly. He rang the alarm bell on the bridge three times and picked up the phone: "There is an iceberg directly ahead!". Sixth Officer Moody answered the phone and informed First Officer Murdoch who was standing next to him. Murdoch ordered to slow down, full port rudder, stop the ship and reverse. This turned out to be the stupidest decision. The best option at that time was either to accelerate while using full left rudder and take some risks; or to slow down and hit the iceberg with a strong bow. On that cold night in April 1912, the Titanic and the iceberg had a kiss of death.

The result of this collision was later known to everyone. But the passengers and crew on the ship had mixed reactions. Some half-sleeping passengers in first and second class were awakened by a slight scraping sound of metal. The ship's hull shook slightly. Some people thought they had encountered big waves, some thought they had hit a rock, and still others thought the propeller had malfunctioned. But passengers in the cabin below felt the shaking much more violently. Some passengers saw milky white icebergs passing by outside the port window. Some of the scraped ice fell into the cabin. The immigrant passengers in the steerage cabin on the ground floor were even more horrified to find that the cold and biting seawater was flowing through the crack of the door from an unknown place. The boat soon stopped. Some passengers put on their coats and came to the deck. Stars twinkled over the North Atlantic, and the temperature dropped to minus one degree. Under the dark sky, a warm yellowish light shines from the windows of the Titanic. Four tall yellow and black chimneys billowed with white steam smoke. Suddenly, three of them let out a deafening roar and hiss. Passengers who know steam engines know that this is the boiler safety valve on the ship releasing excess superheated high-pressure steam. Captain Smith was notified and inspected the damage together with Thomas Andrews, chief naval architect of the Harlan Wolfe Company. The five forward compartments were flooded with seawater. The water seemed to be flowing across H deck in an orderly manner. In the dim light of the mail bay, packages of mail floated on the water. After checking all the watertight compartments, Andrews calmly said to Captain Smith: "This ship is hopeless." Captain Smith asked how much time was left, and the answer was one hour, two hours at most. What happened next is already clear to everyone. At 0:05 a.m. on the 15th, Captain Smith ordered to prepare to launch the lifeboat. At 0:15, the Titanic sent a distress signal "CQD MGY". CQD was the common distress signal at the time - "Come Quickly Danger", and MGY was the Titanic's radio call code. Soon after, the SOS distress signal, newly identified by the International Maritime Association, was sent. Many ships in the Atlantic received distress telegrams. The Canadian Pacific Company's Temple Mount, the Cunard Company's Carpathia, the Russian cargo ship Burma, the Frankfurt, and the Virginia... were all speeding towards the scene of the accident. The exception was that the transceiver of the tramp passenger ship Californian, which was just 18 nautical miles away, turned off the telegraph machine and went to sleep. The ship has been trapped by ice floes for nearly a day. Nothing major happened on the ship all night, and it seemed that nothing major would happen.

At 0:45, the first lifeboat was lowered. The first distress rocket was launched from the ship. A sheet of shining white sparks slowly fell. At 0:55, the bow of the Titanic was submerged in the water. The work on the side of the lifeboats was chaotic. Although the virtue of women and children (women and children in first and second class cabins) boarding the lifeboats first was observed, many lifeboats were lowered in mid-empty state. However, this cannot be blamed on the crew. The sailing community at the time believed that if the lifeboat was lowered with a full load of people, it would cause damage or even capsize. The Titanic's lifeboats were designed to be strong, but the crew didn't know this. As a result, only 651 people got on the lifeboat that could carry 1,178 people (some people were rescued on the lifeboat after jumping into the sea). By 1:40, the last foldable lifeboat was lowered to the sea.

The band on the ship accompanied the passengers, using music to comfort these people who were destined to die dozens of minutes later, and played until the last moment. Faced with the choice of life and death, some people choose to die like a gentleman. The rich man Guggenheim put on an evening dress and said, "Even if you die, you must die like a gentleman." Mrs. Evans of Denver gave up her lifeboat seat to a mother of one, while White Star Chairman Ismay jumped into the lifeboat at the last minute, abandoning his passengers, his crew, and his ship. The good and evil of human nature are fully exposed here. As more and more water poured into the front of the ship, the stern gradually left the water and tilted high. At 1:35 a.m., seawater entered the boiler room. At 2:10, Phillips, who had been sticking to his post, sent his last telegram for help. At 2:13, the 29 large boilers on the ship left their bases one after another, collided with each other, broke through watertight walls, and opened a large hole in the bow of the ship, falling into the sea water. At 2:17, seawater poured into the central power control room, causing a short circuit and the lights on the entire ship went out. At 2:18, with a huge cracking sound, the Titanic's hull was broken into two parts between the third and fourth chimneys. At 2:20, the bow part of the ship sank into the sea, and the rear half smashed back into the sea. Within a minute, the front half of the Titanic sank into the water. 1,503 passengers and crew went with it.

People who fell into the water quickly lost consciousness. What awaits them is rapid loss of body temperature, nerve paralysis and death. The people in the lifeboats were also half frozen to death. Some people relied solely on their strong will to hold on to the capsized lifeboat No. 2 while half-body was immersed in the freezing water. Mrs. Brown in lifeboat No. 6 insisted on rescuing those still submerged in the water, but was severely threatened by the crew on the lifeboat. Until 3:30, the passenger ship Carpathia of Cunard Company was the first to arrive at the scene of the accident. At four o'clock, the crew of the Carpathia spotted the first lifeboat in the dim light of dawn in the North Atlantic. The rescue work continued until 8:30 in the morning, when lifeboat No. 12 was attached to the rescue cable. Of the 2,208 crew and passengers on the Titanic, only 705 survived. The captain and chaplain of the Carpathia presided over a memorial service in the great dining room. At 8:50, we turned around and returned to New York.

On November 18, the Carpathia arrived in New York Harbor. Tens of thousands of people watched on the Battery Shores of Manhattan Island as they passed the Statue of Liberty. At Pier 54, about 30,000 people stood in the rain and silently greeted the survivors of the Titanic. News of the sinking of the Titanic shocked the entire Western world. People were shocked at that time, no less than the 9.11 incident in the United States this century. Flags were flown at half-mast in many places on both sides of the Atlantic. King George V of the United Kingdom and President Taft of the United States exchanged messages of condolence. Kaiser Wilhelm II also sent a telegram of condolence.

The consequences and impact of the accident

The Titanic was the product of mankind's beautiful dreams reaching their peak, reflecting mankind's strong self-confidence in mastering the world. Her sinking demonstrated to mankind the mysterious power of nature and the unpredictability of fate. By the time the Titanic sank, people in the Western world had enjoyed stability and peace for 100 years. Science and technology are advancing steadily, industry is developing rapidly, and people are full of confidence in the future. The sinking of the Titanic shook all this up. The "unsinkable ship" - the largest man-made steel structure after the Eiffel Tower and a great achievement of the industrial age - sank on its first voyage because of its indifference to the power of nature. The Titanic will forever serve as a reminder of the cost of human arrogance. People will never forget this picture: the Titanic holds its head high on the bottom of the sea, and its dilapidation and stains cannot conceal her nobility. This is where she belongs. This is how history turned into legend.

This disaster shocked the international community. Because it proved to some people that people and people's technological achievements cannot be compared with the power of nature.

The steelmaking technology at that time was not very mature, and the steel produced could not be used for shipbuilding by modern standards. The steel plates used on the Titanic contained many chemical impurities, zinc sulfide, and were soaked in cold seawater for a long time, making the steel plates even more fragile.

On the other hand, the Titanic impact diagram is inconsistent with public thinking: there are many opinions on the form of the Titanic's sinking.

Including the whole ship sinking; the hull folded in the middle near the second and third chimneys, and then each sank vertically; the hull folded in the middle near the third and fourth chimneys, and then the forward hull part dragged the stern, and the stern sank vertically. . Until 1985, when the famous scientist Ballard found the wreckage of the Titanic in the waters about 380 miles southeast of Newfoundland, which were the bow part of the first two chimneys and the stern part after the fourth chimney, it was initially proved that 3 theories. This theory was later experienced in the movie "Titanic" directed by James Cameron. At that time, everyone believed that since the hull part of the third chimney had been blown to pieces, this part would never be found. However, in August 2005, an archaeological team sponsored by History Channel found the hull part 500 meters behind the stern wreckage. The wreckage was about 12 meters by 27 meters, and the red paint on the bottom of the ship was still clearly visible. This discovery overturns the "double cut theory" of the past 20 years. Scientists believe that the Titanic sank after breaking into three parts.

The internationally accepted Morse code distress signal SOS was indeed used when the Titanic sank, but this was not the earliest example of SOS being used. The SOS signal was first proposed at the International Radiocommunication Conference outside Berlin in 1906. The international community recognized this proposal and slowly began to use it widely in 1908, four years before the sinking of the Titanic. However, British radio operators rarely used the SOS signal, preferring the older CQD distress signal. Titanic's chief radio officer, John George Philip, had been sending the CQD distress signal until junior radio operator Harold Blade suggested to him: Send SOS, this is the new call signal, this could be you too Last chance to send it in! Philip then mixed the SOS signal with the traditional CQD distress signal. The distress signal was eventually received by the USS California the next morning, as she was not monitoring the radio 24 hours a day.

The sinking of the Titanic greatly affected ship manufacturing and radio and telegraph communications. On December 12, 1913, the first International Conference on the Safety of Life at Sea was held in London, England. The treaty established by the conference led to the formation and funding of the International Iceberg Detection Organization. A branch of the reorganized U.S. Coast Guard that to this day detects and reports icebergs in the North Atlantic that may threaten shipping. The treaty also agreed on a new provision: all manned ships should have enough lifeboats to carry all people on board, and appropriate relevant training should also be carried out. Also, radio communications should be open 24 hours a day, with a Level 2 backup power supply, so that calls for help are not missed. The treaty also agrees: any rocket sent from a ship must be interpreted as a distress signal.

Even today, a century later, several absurd theories about the Titanic and its sinking still exist. One is: her rudder was too small, a larger rudder would have avoided this disaster. A larger rudder might have saved her, as her rudder was not legally small for the size of the ship at the time. In fact, according to today's regulations for ships, the size of the Titanic's rudder is still qualified. Another way to put it is: There were not enough lifeboats on the Titanic. In fact, her number of lifeboats complied with British law, which determined the number of lifeboats not based on the number of passengers but on the tonnage of the ship. All ships at the time had far fewer lifeboats than were needed. The purpose of the lifeboats at that time was not to carry all passengers; they were only used to transfer passengers from one sinking ship to another rescue ship. on board. At that time, the internationally accepted maritime safety rules were that the number of people in a lifeboat on a passenger ship should be one-third of the total number of people on the ship, and the lifeboat on the Titanic could carry half of the passengers. White Star Company also provided this kind of "high safety for passengers" It feels unfair that the additional configuration of "Responsible" has not attracted public attention. The sinking of the Titanic permanently changed this life-saving strategy. After the sinking of the Titanic, new maritime safety regulations were enacted. The requirements for a lifeboat are simple: it must be able to accommodate everyone on board. All shipping companies have quickly carried out transformation work in accordance with the new requirements. In fact, even if she had more lifeboats to carry all the passengers, it would still be possible not to ensure that more people would be rescued because the crew would not have time to lower all the lifeboats while she was sinking. ! Another theory is that the crew of the mechanical crew insisted on their posts until the end.

A book published in 1988 also mentioned this and made it immortal. The fact is that the machinery room was flooded at 1:15 AM. In the final moments of the sinking, the mechanics and furnace workers stood on the stern deck along with hundreds of other people, trapped on the ship without any hope of rescue.