Why They Sank the Titanic (2012) - full transcript
The Titanic sank on April 14, 1912 - Or did it? This documentary explores the conspiracy that in fact it was Titanic's sister ship the Olympic that sank on that fateful night.
This film is based upon the research of
Andrew Newton and includes the evidence
of both the British and American inquiries,
the eye witness reports of survivors,
newspapers of the day, photographs,
video, film and radio broadcasts.
The views and opinions presented in
this film are based on actual evidence
and legitimate inference.
The people depicted are all deceased
and can shed no light on the mystery
of the Titanic's sinking.
This hypothesis is presented for
viewers to reach their own conclusions.
On the 15th April 1912,
the Titanic sunk in the North Atlantic
with the loss of 1,507 lives.
What you are about to see is
a reconstruction of the events
behind the disaster...
and the reasons for it.
Everyone knows the
story of the Titanic,
how the largest moving object
ever fashioned by the hand of man
hits an iceberg on its maiden voyage
and sank in the middle
of the North Atlantic.
1,500 lives were lost.
The tragedy has been well
documented in books and on film.
No matter how often
the story is told,
it never fails to capture
our imagination.
Yet, it is a story that has left
many questions unanswered.
Now, for the first time,
we take a fresh look at some of the
mysteries surrounding the Titanic
and reveal evidence that leads to a
compelling and shocking hypothesis,
that the ship that plummeted 2
miles to the bottom of the sea
was not the Titanic,
but its sister ship, the Olympic.
Titanic
The Shocking Truth
The Titanic and the Olympic were
built for the White Star Line
by Belfast shipbuilders, Harland and
Wolff, whose chairman was Lord Pirrie.
Harland and Wolff built ships almost
exclusively for the White Star Line,
which was acquired in 1903
by American financier
J. Pierpont Morgan's
International Mercantile Marine.
This was part of a drive
to create a monopoly
on the lucrative North Atlantic
passenger trade.
Chairman of the White Star
Line was J. Bruce Ismay.
It was in fact Lord Pirrie who was
responsible for bringing together
Morgan's money and British
engineering excellence.
Over dinner at Pirrie's
London residence, in 1907,
Lord Pirrie's London home 1907
Lord Pirrie and White
Star Line's Bruce Ismay
conceived the idea of building
three luxurious superliners:
first the Olympic,
then the Titanic...
and finally the Britannic.
The first of the new ships,
Olympic and Titanic
were to be virtually identical.
This represented the White
Star Line's survival strategy
in the highly competitive North
Atlantic passenger market,
while also ensuring a bright future
for the Harland and Wolff shipyard.
As well as holding a large financial
stake in Harland and Wolff,
Lord Pirrie was a shareholder
in the White Star Line
and the International
Mercantile Marine.
Almost all passenger liners
on the North Atlantic route
in the early part of the 20th
century were immigrant ships.
In poor condition, many
were known as coffin ships
and their owners blatantly overloaded
and overinsured their vessels.
In fact, it was an industry
noted at the time for fraud.
On the 14th of June, 1911,
the Olympic made her maiden voyage
under the command of
captain Edward J. Smith,
Commodore of the White Star Line.
Then, just a week later, still
under the command of Edward Smith,
the Olympic was involved
in a stern collision
with the tug O.L. Hallenbeck
in New York,
an accident that nearly
caused the tug to sink.
Barely three months later,
on the 20th of September, 1911,
the Olympic, still under the
command of captain Smith,
was involved in yet another
collision, this time
with the British warship HMS Hawke
in the Brambles channel
in Southampton water.
It was a serious collision which
was to seal the fate of the Olympic.
Pulled in by the suction from
the Olympic's great propellers,
the Hawke is irresistibly
drawn towards the larger vessel
and the two ships collide.
The Hawke's underwater ram
and bow strike and penetrate
the starboard side of the Olympic,
causing a triangular hole
several meters high and an even
larger hole below the waterline.
Any accident involving a royal naval
ship was investigated by the Admiralty
who, not surprisingly
in this case, found
that the Olympic was at fault,
even though the evidence,
including eyewitness accounts,
suggested otherwise.
As a consequence of this ruling,
the White Star's insurers declined
to pay out on the claim.
The damage done to the
Olympic was severe.
Besides being hold both above
and below the waterline,
she sustained numerous
other injuries,
including steel frames buckled,
thousands of rivets popped,
steel plating dislodged
over four decks
and distortion to the starboard
propeller and crankshaft.
To make matters worse,
the keel was bent,
giving the ship a pronounced
list to port.
Interestingly enough,
when six months later
the ship which came to
be known as the Titanic
made her maiden voyage
out of Southampton,
second class passenger Lawrence
Beesley, a science teacher,
noted that the ship seemed to have a
slight, but permanent, list to port
on the first part of the voyage,
a fact noted by several
other surviving passengers.
The great hull was
patched up in Southampton
by riveting steel plates
below the waterline
and reinforcing with
wooden beams above.
This work took over two weeks,
suggesting just how
serious the damage was.
In October, 1911,
with these temporary
repair works in place,
the Olympic then limped back to the
Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast
for more permanent
repairs to be done.
In fact, some of those temporary repairs
failed during the voyage to Belfast.
By the way, remember that although
this is a model of the Olympic
the two ships were
virtually identical.
It's this fact which made
a conspiracy feasible,
a conspiracy of
monumental proportions.
The starboard propeller is
going to have to be replaced
Harland and Wolff Shipyard October 1911
and the crankshaft is damaged, has a
crack between the arm and the shaft.
But worse, the keel is bent.
That's going to give her
a permanent list to port
and there's no way
we can correct that.
You're gonna have to cut the
ship in half, insert a new frame
and then put it all
back together again.
The dog is gonna take
months and, frankly,
for what it's going to cost,
I think it's... simply a waste of time.
Can you not just patch her up...
until Titanic is ready?
Well, we could put in a
bulkhead to strengthen her,
but to be honest, sir, she will never
pass another Board of Trade inspection.
In Belfast, the Titanic was nearing
completion, but all work on her stopped
so that every effort could be put
into the repair of the Olympic.
This work took seven weeks instead
of the two weeks originally planned
and involved replacing steel
plates along fully one-third
of the starboard side of the ship.
Another indication that the damage was
far worse than was originally thought.
Now, look at this.
This is a film of the Olympic
backing out of the dock in New York.
You can see where she's been
patched up on her starboard side.
It's a huge area...
and that's just the damage
above the waterline.
In order to get the
Olympic back to sea
and earning a profit
as soon as possible,
the starboard propeller, stamped
with the Titanic's number 401
and not yet fitted to the Titanic,
was fitted to the Olympic.
This is a fact of some
considerable significance,
as we shall find out later.
The Olympic's troubles, however,
were only just beginning.
After leaving New York Harbor,
on the 24th of February in 1912,
she ran over a sunken
wreck off the Grand Banks
and threw a propeller blade
again on this starboard side.
The loss of the propeller blade shock
loaded the engine and driveshaft
and placed enormous stresses
on the already weakened liner.
She limped back to Southampton
on only one engine,
arriving there on
the 28th of February.
By the second of March,
she was once again
in the Thompson drydock in Belfast
having her propeller blade replaced.
This should have taken
only a few hours,
but the Olympic was there in
Belfast until the 7th of March.
In Belfast, the Titanic and the Olympic
were most often berthed side by side
and were regularly moved in
and out of the Thomson drydock,
especially during
repairs to the Olympic.
One close examination of
contemporary archive photographs,
it is possible to see the
minor differences in design
that tell the two ships apart.
On the forward part of sea deck,
Olympic was built with 16 portholes.
The Titanic, with 14.
Somehow mysteriously,
the Titanic has acquired
two extra portals between its
launch and its maiden voyage.
This clearly points to the possibility
that the two ships were switched.
At the time of Titanic's launch,
the windows on B deck are clearly
discernible as being evenly spaced.
Yet, at the time of her
maiden voyage,
they have taken on a
distinctly uneven appearance.
And whereas the Olympic
had been open to the public
for inspection in Belfast and
Liverpool, Titanic was not.
That first week in March
1912 was the last time
that the Olympic and Titanic
were together in Belfast.
The twin ships side-by-side
on the river Lagan
and that was when the decision to
switch them could have been made.
You can't be serious.
Lord Pirrie's Belfast home March 1912
Olympic and Titanic
are exactly the same.
No one will know we've switched them
when they get back to
work on Monday morning.
We just swapped the names.
Everything else is standard
White Star issue.
I have some boys of the yard who
do the job for a couple of hundred
pounds each... and say nothing.
I'll never get away with it.
If word of this gets out...
It's either that, Ismay,
or we both go down,
White Star Line and this yard.
There's got to be another way.
There isn't. We have no choice.
Right.
That's it, then.
Switching the two ships would have
been a remarkably simple undertaking.
There were no members of
the press poking around
or roving TV crews
looking for a story.
Even photography was in
its infancy at the time
and, generally, people believed what
they were told to be the truth.
All crockery, linen and so on
was White Star standard-issue,
interchangeable from ship to ship.
Letter heads of menus, etc,
were styled to the particular ship,
but could easily have been changed.
Only the names on the bows
and sterns of the ships,
the name plates on the
lifeboats and 48 life belts
would have to be swapped.
This could easily have been
achieved using a very small crew,
literally over a weekend.
And it's highly unlikely that
anyone would have noticed a switch
when they returned to
work on Monday morning.
White Star often used photographs,
both exterior and interior,
of the Olympic as the Titanic in their
advertisements and press releases.
Both ships had tile
and linoleum flooring.
Yet, just days before
Titanic's maiden voyage,
Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line,
ordered her floors to be carpeted.
Was this to cover Olympic's
worn linoleum floors?
The Harland and Wolff yard was a vast
labyrinth of buildings and workshops,
as well as machinery and ships,
in various stages of completion.
Any unusual activity
would hardly be noticed.
The social order of the day was such
that the majority of the workers
would never have thought
to question their betters.
They lived in a time when the
majority of the population
were told what to think, where to go,
what to do and when to do it.
It was also a lot easier,
in the early years of the century,
to bribe or even bully men
into toeing the company line,
as we shall see when the surviving
crew members returned to Britain.
There was no social security
safety net for the unemployed
and companies had the power to
dismiss whole families of workers
if one of them did
not do as he was told.
There's a wee scam going on here
and the bosses are in on it.
Belfast March 1912
They switched those ships
two weeks ago and I knew it. (?)
Listen to me, puddy,
any more talk from you about
two ships being swapped over
and you'll end up at the
bottom of the river Lagan.
So, remember that when you get
back to your wife and your 17 kids,
you Irish scum.
The Olympic's original sea trials,
conducted by the Board of Trade,
lasted two full days while the
ship was put through its paces.
Strangely, the Titanic sea trials
were most peremptory affair,
no strenuous maneuvers
were carried out
and the inspection was
over in time for lunch.
Of course, by now the
switch had taken place.
The collision between
the Olympic and HMS Hawke
was by no means captain
Smith's first incident at sea.
In fact, he had one of the worst
professional records of his day.
The Commodore of the White
Star Line was a show-off
who liked to drive his ships as
though they were giant speedboats
and he damaged a few in his time.
The three incidents
involving the Olympic,
which probably damaged
her permanently,
must have put him in a very serious
position in the eyes of his employers.
Could he perhaps have being
summoned by J. Bruce Ismay,
chairman of the White Star Line,
once it became obvious that
the Olympic was a write-off?
If so, it would have been a meeting
with the very gravest of consequences.
Oh, come now, E.J.,
we've always been good to you,
kept you in brandy and cigars...
Besides, it's not going
to be that difficult.
You've broken a few
of our ships, E.J.:
the Republic,
the Germanic, the Quartic.
And when that fire broke out on the
Majestic and those crew men were killed...
- Yes, but...
- Yes, I know you denied it had ever happened,
but we did know.
We gave you command of the Olympic
and look what a disaster
that's turned out to be.
And we always paid you well, E.J.
Look, it's not for me,
it's for the company.
We are in a desperate
situation, financially,
especially after what
happened to the Olympic.
So, I'm sorry to have to
put it to you like this,
but you do owe us.
We've arranged for a small
steamer from the Leyland line
to be in a position to
take the passengers off.
I have a good man lined up for the
job, Lord, captain Stanley Lord.
Ever come across him? Well, he's
done this sort of thing before.
Well, he did the job so well he
received a commendation for it.
So, there it is.
He'll be there to lend a hand
and I'll be there, of course,
along for the ride...
All right, and I want to
choose my own officers.
Yes,...
of course, E.J.
Men you can trust in.
At the time of
Titanic's maiden voyage,
Britain was in the
grip of a coal strike.
Fuel was in short supply and ships
and men were laid up in Southampton.
And yet, White Star Line had
difficulty finding firemen and greases (?)
to work below decks on the Titanic.
After steaming from
Belfast to Southampton,
all, but two of the firemen
aboard the ill-fated liner,
refused to sign up again in Southampton
for the voyage across the Atlantic,
preferring to wait for
employment on another ship.
All these men in the
middle of a coal strike,
with so many thousands laid off,
what did they know?
Shortly before Titanic sailed,
chief officer Wilde,
who was to lose his life three nights
later, wrote a letter to his sister
in which he said:
"I still don't like this ship."
Strange thing for a man to say
who had just set foot on
board the day before...
unless, of course, he realized he was
actually on his old ship, Olympic.
It's strange to think that, as the
Olympic, now renamed the Titanic,
was preparing to make
her second maiden voyage,
the ship that started out life as the
Titanic and was now called the Olympic
had to enter her working
life with no fanfare at all.
The Olympic's original maiden
voyage was fully subscribed,
whereas her second, this time as the
Titanic, was only about half full,
and that in the middle
of a coal strike,
when passengers were
queuing up to get to America.
First-class passengers
on other White Star ships
were only offered second-class
berths on Titanic,
even though we know that
first-class cabins were available.
It's almost as though White Star Line
didn't want that many people on board...
By the way, when I refer to
the Titanic from this time on,
I want you to remember that I'm
actually talking about the ship
that started out its
life as the Olympic,
but which we believe,
by this stage, had been switched
and taken on the
identity of the Titanic.
The coal strike is important for
another possibly more sinister reason.
Most other ships were
desperate for coal
and passengers and cargo destined for
the New World was stuck in Europe.
Yet, the Leyland liner Californian,
under the command of
Captain Stanley Lord,
left the port of London
on the 5th of April, 1912,
just five days before Titanic's
departure from Southampton,
not only fully coaled, but,
apart from her own crew,
empty of passengers.
With more than enough coal to
get her to the United States,
she headed off into the middle of
the Atlantic at full speed, empty,
apart from a cargo
of woollen sweaters.
Over 50,
mostly first-class passengers,
canceled their passages on the
Titanic at the last minute.
Many of them, close friends and
business associates of J.P. Morgan.
Morgan himself cancelled his
passage at the 11th hour,
despite having the best suite
on the ship, claiming illness.
Two days after the sinking,
an American reporter found
him in perfect health
at the French resort of ???
with his mistress.
Morgan also had several
valuable bronze statues,
which he was planning to
import to the United States,
taken off the Titanic an
hour before she sailed.
Could Morgan have known
the fate of the Titanic
fully four days before the disaster?
Florence Ismay, wife of J.
Bruce Ismay, also turned down
the opportunity of
taking the maiden voyage
on the world's most luxurious liner,
preferring, instead, to take their
children on a motoring holiday,
after first claiming ill health.
Now, there's one thing that
sailors fear above all else
and that is fire at sea.
And yet, when Titanic
cast off from Southampton,
there was a fire smoldering
in number 10 coal bunker.
Instead of putting out the fire,
the bunker was actually topped up
with 400 tons of coal.
Captain Smith knew it.
The ship's officers and
chief engineer knew it,
as did those who worked hard partly (?)
to put it out.
The fire that had been smoldering
in coal bunker number 10
had been smoldering for
a week and it was kept
from the Board of Trade inspector,
Morris Harvey Clark,
who had the British inquiry
denied all knowledge of it.
Could the fire in coal bunker
number 10 have been plan B?
If all else fails, tell the
passengers there's a fire,
then the smoke through the
ship and get them off that way.
Captain Stanley Lord,
in the Californian,
had left the port of London in a great
hurry, ostensibly bound for Boston.
Then, on the evening
of the 14th of April,
the ship came to a dead stop
in the middle of the ice field.
Strangely, captain Lord, six-foot-tall,
elected to sleep that night
fully clothed on a five and a
half foot couch in the chart room,
rather than in his cabin.
He also ordered her boilers to be kept
fired up and her engines on standby.
Why? Was he expecting
some sort of emergency
that might mean a last-minute
dash into the night?
That evening, the Titanic
received six radio messages.
The first three were from other ships
giving the location of icebergs.
The other three were
from the Californian,
more concerned with giving her own
position stopped for the night.
Those three were personally
address to Captain Smith.
It's almost as if Captain Lord
was letting Smith know
that the Californian
was ready and waiting.
Captain Smith had delayed
turning the corner
on the outward southern track.
He ordered the turn to the west
10 miles further south than
the normal turning point.
This was certainly not as an evasive
measure to avoid the ice field,
but one designed to take him directly
into it. He must have known this.
Tragically, captain Lord failed
to keep his radio operator awake,
even so the Californian's last message
to the Titanic never got there.
The Titanic's radio operators were
too busy with passengers messages.
It was standard practice of the
day for captains to run their ships
at full speed through the ice field.
Any object large enough to
damage an iron steamship
would be seen in plenty
of time to avoid it.
Other ships in the vicinity cruised
on at full speed on that night,
so, in that respect, Captain
Smith was by no means unique.
So, why then was the
Californian stopped?
Had she reached her destination
and was she now waiting?
Sometime before 11 p.m.,
lookouts Fred Fleet and Reginald Lee
came on watch and climbed
to the crow's nest.
Captain Smith's retired for the night,
but, coincidentally,
like Stanley Lord, he also
chose to rest fully clothed,
not in his own cabin, but in the
chart room behind the bridge,
almost as if he expected to be called
back to the bridge at any moment.
It was very cold outside and few if
any passengers would have been on deck.
First officer Murdoch was
standing on the open part
of the starboard side of the
bridge when he saw the iceberg
about eight hundred yards ahead.
He ordered the ship turned to port and,
inexplicably, engines full astern.
By reversing the engines,
Murdoch was actually increasing
the risk of collision,
something he must have known.
Maybe Murdoch,
hand-picked by Captain Smith,
was deciding to give the
iceberg a nudge anyway.
Given that the turning circle
of the Titanic was 1280 yards
and the stopping distance 850 yards,
Titanic should have been able to avoid
the iceberg with the greatest of ease,
even allowing for a slight delay
while orders were given and the
wheel turned the ship to port. (?)
So, why didn't it?
Second officer Lightoller
told the inquiry
that, before going off
duty for the night,
he would have been easily able to see
an iceberg from a mile and a half,
more probably two miles away.
He also said that the iceberg
would have been just as visible
from the bridges
from the crow's nest,
plenty of time to turn
and avoid it then.
In an emergency such as this,
it was never a good idea to
turn your broadside to danger.
Even if Titanic had rammed the iceberg
head-on, it would have stayed afloat.
Although up to 250 crewmen
would have been killed
while they slept in
their bunks in the bar.
Apart from those on the bridge
and, of course, those in
the forward boiler rooms,
the glancing blow with the iceberg
would have passed virtually unnoticed.
The vibration felt by
some of the passengers
was almost certainly that caused
by the reversing of the engines.
And by the time anyone
noticed what had happened,
the iceberg had slipped
away into the night.
Captain Smith was on the bridge
in a matter of seconds,
but instead of a general
call to stations,
his officers acted as though
there were no emergency at all.
Second officer Lightoller, awakened
by the sound of steam letting off,
claims to have stayed in his cabin
until another officer came to get him.
His evidence later, to the
effect that he had stayed there
because he was off-duty
and thought he should stay
where he would expect to be found,
simply does not ring true.
The bridge was only a few seconds walk
from his cabin in the officers quarters
and he should have gone straight
there at the first hint of trouble.
So, why didn't he?
A few passengers came
out of their cabins
to see why the engines had stopped,
but for the first 40
minutes after the collision
there was really no
sense of danger at all.
One can understand this frame of
mind on the part of the passengers,
even on the part of the crew,
except for those who are dancing
the fires in boiler rooms 5 and 6.
After all, they thought they
were on an unsinkable ship.
But for the captain and the officers who
were in full possession of the facts,
there is really no excuse.
They did it because they
expected to be rescued.
It was 35 minutes before the
first distress signal was sent.
35 minutes before the first
radio emergency CQD was sent.
45 minutes before
starting the pumps.
45 minutes before starting
to prepare the lifeboats.
And a full hour and 25 minutes
before the first one was launched.
Only six crew members were on watch at
the time Titanic struck the iceberg.
First officer Murdoch and sixth
officer Moody were later drowned.
Of the surviving crew members,
quartermaster Alfred Oliver was aft of
the bridge at the time and saw nothing.
Helmsman Robert Hitchens
was hastily transferred
to a job as harbor
master in Cape Town,
which leaves lookouts Frederick
Fleet and Reginald Lee.
At the British inquiry as a witness,
Frederick Fleet was
clearly defensive, edgy.
Obviously, didn't trust his questioners
and at times was downright surly.
But then, he was under the
watchful gaze of J. Bruce Ismay,
the chairman of the White
Star Line and the lawyers.
I'm no judge of distances or spaces.
British Inquiry
Was it a mile away or
how far away was it?
- I cannot say.
- Can you not give any estimate?
- No.
- Was it half a mile?
I cannot say.
It is impossible to tell.
- Was it as far away as the boat's length?
- I could not say.
- Can you not say anything about it?
- No.
Sir, you really do not understand.
That gentleman is not trying
to get round you at all.
Well, some of them are, though.
Is there (?) anymore who'd (?)
like to have a go on me? (?)
When Titanic came to a rest,
captain Smith asked
the fourth officer, Joseph Groves
Boxhall, to work out a position.
It is clear from the records
the Titanic's navigator
worked out a position
that was 12 miles away from
where they actually were.
This was to prove a fatal mistake.
We know he was 12 miles
out in his calculations
because of the actual
location of the wreck.
The position that Boxall gave
would have put the Titanic
within sight of the Californian.
Was that where he thought
he should have been?
For some reason, Captain Smith
ordered the Titanic to move
half speed ahead for
another five minutes
before stopping the engines
again for the last time.
Maybe he was heading towards
the ship whose lights
could just be made out on the horizon,
expecting it to be the Californian.
Several survivors mentioned
the sighting of a ship
about five or six
miles from the Titanic.
The Titanic could easily
have steamed there,
yet Smith was content to assume
the ship would sail over to him
View from Titanic
because he believed it
was the Californian.
At this point, let's examine
what's happened so far.
A stricken ocean liner
is dead in the water.
A rescue ship, the Californian,
is standing by.
Messages have been sent to
Captain Smith from the Californian
stating exactly
where she is waiting.
Captain Smith can see a
stationary ship on the horizon,
and, having received
inaccurate information
from fourth officer
Boxhall as to his position,
he assumes it's the Californian and
everything's going according to plan.
At about midnight, the Titanic started
sending up the distress rockets
red, white and blue.
Rockets could also be seen from
the bridge of the Californian
and this was duly
reported to captain Lord.
View from Californian
Captain Lord asked what
color the Rockets were.
In fact, over the next two hours,
Lord repeatedly asked his officers
about the color of the rockets.
Was he expecting to see
red or blue signals?
Very likely.
But whether he was or not,
the answer from the bridge
was always the same,
only white rockets could be seen.
He, therefore, rightly
assumed that the rockets were
not coming from the Titanic.
Survivors reported that the rockets
launched from the bridge of the Titanic
soared up several hundred
feet into the night sky,
bursting with an
ear-splitting report.
The rockets from the ship that
was visible from the Californian
only went as high as
the top of her mast,
and, even at four to
five miles distant,
the officers would have quite
reasonably expected to hear a report,
but they heard nothing.
It seems most likely that the
ship seen from the Californian
was a wooden sailing bark,
called the Samson,
conducting illegal seal fishing
activities on the ice floes at the time.
The white rockets she was
firing to mast height only
were intended to recall
her small rowing boats.
A few months after the disaster,
the captain of the Samson
said that he had also seen
a large liner firing rockets
View from Samson
and that he had not
gone to investigate
because f his own
illegal activities.
The Californian's apprentice,
Gibson, later testified
View from Californian
that he saw only eight rockets
fired from the ship and all white.
The Titanic had fired at least 18,
possibly as many as 22,
and had included red and blue.
Titanic survivor,
Miss Edith Russell,
said the officers told them all:
"Don't worry. The Californian
will pick everybody up
if you don't come
back for breakfast."
How could they possibly have
known it was the Californian?
It's hard to believe
in such an emergency,
that they were letting
life boats go half full.
They knew the ship was sinking,
nobody could be that stupid.
But they expected the ship on the
horizon to come steaming over,
but it was the wrong ship.
The Californian was 19 miles away,
where captain Stanley Lord
waited for colored rockets.
At around 1:00 a.m., it must
finally have dawned on Captain Smith
that the rescue upon which the
survival of so many depended
was not going to materialize.
Now boats are being let go full and
passengers are beginning to panic.
As the senior surviving officer,
much credence and publicity
was given to the evidence of
second officer Lightoller.
I did not leave the Titanic, sir.
The Titanic left me.
He was evasive in response
to pertinent question
at the American and
British inquiries,
out to protect first and
foremost his own reputation
and then that of
the White Star Line.
At the British inquiry, he claimed:
"The Titanic began her turn to port
before the lookout dragged
down from the crow's nest."
How would he have known this? He
said he was in his cabin at the time.
Lightoller also said at
the American inquiry:
"There was no mist ten minutes
before the ship struck berg (?)."
Flatly contradicting the
evidence of the two lookouts.
And how would he have known
this if he was in his cabin?
He also lied about the number of
ice warnings received on the bridge,
as if to suggest that the
iceberg came as a surprise.
"I do not remember any ice warnings
being posted on the bridge."
Lightoller, along with second
radio operator Harold Bride
and ship's baker Charles Joven,
all claimed that after
getting off the Titanic
they stayed in the
water for up to an hour.
"I was in the water for between
half an hour and an hour
before I climbed aboard
the upturned collapsible.
20 of us spent most of the rest of that
night balancing on the upturned boat
while I gave the orders:
lean left, lean right."
This is quite clearly not possible.
We know that the sea temperature
that night was between
2 and 3 degrees below freezing.
Average life expectancy at that
temperature between 3 and 4 minutes.
This testimony would
simply not stand up today.
It is quite clearly fabrication.
Just before 5:30 on
that fateful morning,
captain Stanley Lord
woke his radio operator
only to discover that the
Titanic had already sunk.
He set off at full steam
for the wreck site,
but, of course, he was too late.
The Carpathia had already arrived
and was picking up survivors.
Notable amongst these
was J. Bruce Ismay,
who had slipped into a
lifeboat at the last minute.
For this, he was to pay the price in
public shame for the rest of his life.
As the Carpathia steamed
towards New York,
Ismay was supposedly taken to the
doctor's cabin and put under sedation.
Even so, he managed to find time
to send three separate telegrams
to the White Star's New York office,
urging them to hold the
Cedric in New York Harbor
so that the Titanic's
surviving crew members
could be taken straight
back to Southampton.
Hastily organized, the American inquiry
failed to ask the right questions.
Titanic's surviving officers
stonewalled, as did Ismay himself.
Several experienced sea
captains were called
to give evidence regarding the
wisdom of steaming at full speed
through an ice field,
but they all said the same thing:
maintaining full speed in the
vicinity of ice was perfectly normal.
And on the night in question,
the icebergs
could be seen at between
five and six miles distant.
It never occurred to anyone
to ask the simple question:
in that case, why did the
Titanic hit an iceberg?
When the surviving crew
got back to England,
they naturally expected to go
straight home to their loved ones.
Instead, they were all
herded into a railway shed
and held for nearly 24 hours before
being made to sign pieces of paper.
A lot of them were
under the impression
that they were signing
the Official Secrets Act.
Was someone trying to
suppress something here,
some vital piece of information?
Remember what it is
you've put your names to.
If there's any talk of the
ship being swamped in Belfast,
or any stories of
insurance fraud going on,
then there will be 20 years
of His Majesty's pleasure
awaiting you and no job to
come out to when it's over. So,
think on this when you see
your wives and sweethearts.
Ismay, Lightoller and the
other surviving officers
all came back to England
on the steamship Adriatic.
There can be little doubt as to the main
subject of conversation on their voyage.
They were all to be star witnesses
in the forthcoming British inquiry.
Titanic Disaster
Great Loss of Life
Now, it is unlikely that a fraud
of such immense proportions
could have been undertaken without
the collusion of the authorities,
notably the British government,
as we shall see later when
we look at the inquiry.
In fact, it makes perfect sense
for the government of the day,
under Prime Minister Lord Asquith,
to have colluded in a cover-up.
Never believe what
they've just done.
- How many?
- I'm told 1,500.
The position is simply this,
Prime Minister.
The White Star Line is on
the verge of bankruptcy. Now,
if White Star were forced
to go into liquidation,
the Harland and
Wolff yard in Belfast
can also be placed in a
very precarious position,
perhaps even forced to close down.
Now, that means
that 20,000 men will be laid off,
not to mention the effect
on all the subsidiary and dependent
industries. Quite frankly,
it is a political situation we
cannot afford, Prime Minister.
Alienate the Irish and we will
certainly lose seats in Belfast.
The Finians, the Republicans,
will seize the opportunity.
With our majority gone,
we will undoubtedly lose the
next election, Prime Minister.
It is the chance of a blunder (?)
of unprecedented proportions.
We are going to have to go
along with this, Prime Minister.
I will not see a stain put
upon the British government,
not for the White Star Line,
not for Harland and Wolff,
not for the Irish and certainly not
for the interests of J.P. Morgan.
I would also remind you,
Prime Minister,
that is part of the arrangement
for an American company
to acquire the White Star Line. J.P.
Morgan agreed that this government
could requisition his ships as Royal
Naval Reserves, should the need arise.
I would also remind you,
Prime Minister,
that the situation in Europe
is becoming ever more doubtful.
If the White Star Line were
to go into liquidation,
the major creditor would
be J.P. Morgan himself.
Now, as both owner and banker,
he would certainly exercise his rights
to seize his assets and we would
lose all those ships, Prime Minister.
It's a sad day for England when the
policies of a British government
are dictated by greedy
and ruthless businessmen.
And if it ever became public...
Doubtless, you have someone
in mind to run the show.
Yes.
I thought we could bring
Mersey out of retirement.
He's reliable, he knows how
the system works, he's discreet
and he would do what
needs to be done.
My son is called to the bar. It would
be more comfortable if he were there
- to keep an eye on things.
- Of course, Prime Minister.
We'll find employment for him
at the Attorney General's office.
???.
But neither I nor the administration
know anything about it.
So, the Board of Trade inquiry was
to be conducted by Lord Mersey,
president of the Board of Trade and
no stranger to the art of cover-up.
Since the enormous loss
of life was in part
due to outdated Board
of Trade regulations
regarding the number of
lifeboats to be carried by ships
and the safety of ships at sea
generally, it was hardly likely
that the inquiry was going to be too
concerned with uncovering the truth,
the Board of Trade being both
plaintiff and defendant in the case.
The hearings were held at the
Scottish Drill Hall, in London,
where the acoustics were so bad that
spectators in the public galleries
found it difficult to hear
everything that was said.
Lord Mersey had complained about
the unfortunate choice of venue,
but then, again,
it had been booked by his son.
Harold Sanderson,
representing Harland and Wolff,
repeatedly made the mistake of
referring to the Titanic as the Olympic.
As for Lord Mersey himself,
he simply didn't ask or allow
to be asked the right questions.
The press, who were there
throughout the hearings
and could have done something
about it, were more interested
in the scandal surrounding the
lucky escape of J. Bruce Ismay.
Other expert naval officers told Lord
Mersey that, even on a moonless night,
there'd be no difficulties
spotting an iceberg
from as far away as
six or even ten miles.
Remember, the full turning circle
of the Titanic at top speed
was only three-quarters of a mile.
The whole British
inquiry was a whitewash.
Captain Smith would not be blamed
because he was no longer alive
and could not defend himself.
The lookouts were not to blame.
The design and construction of
the Titanic was not to blame.
Neither were her
officers or her owners.
In fact, no one was to blame,
except captain Lord.
Captain Lord stood alone.
If Lord Mersey heard anything at
the enquiry that he didn't like,
he simply ignored it.
She looked like a small trap
steamer about five miles away.
They were firing rockets
just after midnight.
Altogether, she fired
eight rockets and all white
Testimony of Californian's Officers
and rose no further
than the masthead.
I think we are all of the opinion
that the distress signals,
which was seen from the
deck of the Californian,
were, in fact, the distress
signals from the Titanic.
I went down below to captain Lord,
he was sleeping in the chart room.
He asked me again if I sure there
was no color in the rockets.
So, I said, no, they were all white.
I think the onus of proof in this
matter is upon the Californian.
That it will be for the
Californians to satisfy us
that they were not the
signals of the Titanic.
Whenever a Titanic survivor
referred to the mystery ship
that they had seen on the horizon,
as often as not,
Lord Mersey would interject with:
"You mean the Californian."
There was barely an attempt
at cross examination
and, as happened so often, captain
Lord declined to defend himself,
perhaps out of fear that he might
reveal his part in the conspiracy.
Furthermore, when the
inquiry heard from passengers
who'd been aboard the Mount Temple
that they'd actually seen
the Titanic on the horizon
and were even close enough to hear
the last two reports of her rockets,
Lord Mersey repeatedly
interrupted them.
"You do not give me the
answers that please me."
Of course, if Lord Mersey
was a party to the cover-up,
he would have known about
captain Lord's secret mission
and of how the rescue plan failed
largely because of circumstances
outside captain Lord's control.
And yet,
Lord Mersey repeatedly interrupted the
testimony of Californian's officers
and, instead, accepted
evidence against captain Lord
that would have been laughed out of
court under normal circumstances.
Was Captain Lord
being made a scapegoat
because he had failed to do
what he'd been engaged to do
on the night of the disaster?
Of course, by highlighting
Lord and the Californian,
Lord Mersey was drawing attention away
from rather more sensitive issues.
Titanic's bulkheads should
have gone one deck higher.
It was the Board of Trade's
own regulations
that allowed Titanic to go to
sea with too few lifeboats.
And the Board of Trade's inspectors,
who had been so ready to
sign the ship office (?)
fit to go to sea in the first place.
Titanic cost 10 million dollars
to build and, as a brand new ship,
would have been insurable
for that amount and more.
The Olympic, on the other hand,
damaged beyond economic repair,
would only have been insurable
for a much smaller amount.
A motive for switching
the ships is clear.
Normally, White Star Line,
when they insured their ships,
took on part of the risks themselves
and it was at first thought
that Lloyds of London
would only be liable for seven
and a half million dollars.
Not so. For just one week before
the maiden voyage of the Titanic,
which we now know was,
in fact, the Olympic,
White Star Line upped their
insurance on the vessel dramatically
and, incredibly,
just five days after the sinking,
Lloyds paid out twelve and
a half million dollars.
Although three-quarters of a century
at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
did not exactly preserve Titanic
in museum-like condition,
there is enough left of the wreck
to give us more than just an
idea of what really happened.
Corrosion has done
its relentless work,
but where the original black
paint of the hull has flaked away
it is still possible to see spots of
gray paint which formed the undercoat,
except that gray paint was only
used as an undercoat on the Olympic
and not on the Titanic.
Examination of the
starboard propeller
reveals the number 01
stamped into the metal.
In fence (?), there is too much corrosion
to make out the number 4 clearly,
but, remember, the starboard
propeller numbered 401 for the Titanic
was put on the Olympic
as part of the repairs
after the collision with the Hawke.
Remote cameras under the control
of the discoverer of the Titanic
wreck, Dr. Robert Ballard,
have examined the stern
section of the ship.
They show that, in addition
to the lateral bulkheads
that were a feature of both
the Titanic and the Olympic,
there is a longitudinal
bulkhead in the stern section
where there was none on the
original plans for either vessel.
The position of this
bulkhead suggests
a temporary repair has been
carried out to strengthen the keel,
a keel perhaps damaged by
the collision with HMS Hawke.
And finally, a close look at the bow
could reveal the most
damning evidence of all.
In 1986, the French National
Oceanographic Institute
examined the wreck with
Dr. Robert Ballard.
One of the things they checked
was the name of the ship.
In keeping with White
Star tradition, both ships
had their names engraved
into the upper bow plates
in letters four-foot high.
Examination of the wreck
and the name Titanic
shows that it is made of iron
letters which have been riveted
onto the original bow plates.
With the passage of time,
two of the letters have dropped off
and been lost forever in
the sediment of the seabed.
At the place where they once were,
engraved into the hull,
are the letters M and P!
The Titanic was the first
ship in living memory
to sink as a result of a
collision with an iceberg
Before his death in 1962, Captain
Stanley Lord tried on several occasions
to re-open the British Inquiry into the
loss of the Titanic to clear his name.
He was unsuccessful...
In 1914, Lord Mersey was
appointed chairman of the inquiry
into the sinking of the Lusitania -
also a British government cover-up...
Second officer Lightoller
continued with the White Star Line,
but was never given a command.
In World War II, his private yacht
was one of the first vessels to
assist in the evacuation of Dunkirk...
Lookout Fred Fleet
committed suicide in 1965...
J. Bruce Ismay left the White Star
Line just 12 months after the disaster.
Those around him were forbidden
ever to mention the Titanic...
The ship known as the Titanic
continued successfully as the Olympic
for another twenty five years.
In World War I,
the Olympic was requisitioned
as a troop transport by a
grateful British Government.
subtitles by
Tio Beto from Brazil
Andrew Newton and includes the evidence
of both the British and American inquiries,
the eye witness reports of survivors,
newspapers of the day, photographs,
video, film and radio broadcasts.
The views and opinions presented in
this film are based on actual evidence
and legitimate inference.
The people depicted are all deceased
and can shed no light on the mystery
of the Titanic's sinking.
This hypothesis is presented for
viewers to reach their own conclusions.
On the 15th April 1912,
the Titanic sunk in the North Atlantic
with the loss of 1,507 lives.
What you are about to see is
a reconstruction of the events
behind the disaster...
and the reasons for it.
Everyone knows the
story of the Titanic,
how the largest moving object
ever fashioned by the hand of man
hits an iceberg on its maiden voyage
and sank in the middle
of the North Atlantic.
1,500 lives were lost.
The tragedy has been well
documented in books and on film.
No matter how often
the story is told,
it never fails to capture
our imagination.
Yet, it is a story that has left
many questions unanswered.
Now, for the first time,
we take a fresh look at some of the
mysteries surrounding the Titanic
and reveal evidence that leads to a
compelling and shocking hypothesis,
that the ship that plummeted 2
miles to the bottom of the sea
was not the Titanic,
but its sister ship, the Olympic.
Titanic
The Shocking Truth
The Titanic and the Olympic were
built for the White Star Line
by Belfast shipbuilders, Harland and
Wolff, whose chairman was Lord Pirrie.
Harland and Wolff built ships almost
exclusively for the White Star Line,
which was acquired in 1903
by American financier
J. Pierpont Morgan's
International Mercantile Marine.
This was part of a drive
to create a monopoly
on the lucrative North Atlantic
passenger trade.
Chairman of the White Star
Line was J. Bruce Ismay.
It was in fact Lord Pirrie who was
responsible for bringing together
Morgan's money and British
engineering excellence.
Over dinner at Pirrie's
London residence, in 1907,
Lord Pirrie's London home 1907
Lord Pirrie and White
Star Line's Bruce Ismay
conceived the idea of building
three luxurious superliners:
first the Olympic,
then the Titanic...
and finally the Britannic.
The first of the new ships,
Olympic and Titanic
were to be virtually identical.
This represented the White
Star Line's survival strategy
in the highly competitive North
Atlantic passenger market,
while also ensuring a bright future
for the Harland and Wolff shipyard.
As well as holding a large financial
stake in Harland and Wolff,
Lord Pirrie was a shareholder
in the White Star Line
and the International
Mercantile Marine.
Almost all passenger liners
on the North Atlantic route
in the early part of the 20th
century were immigrant ships.
In poor condition, many
were known as coffin ships
and their owners blatantly overloaded
and overinsured their vessels.
In fact, it was an industry
noted at the time for fraud.
On the 14th of June, 1911,
the Olympic made her maiden voyage
under the command of
captain Edward J. Smith,
Commodore of the White Star Line.
Then, just a week later, still
under the command of Edward Smith,
the Olympic was involved
in a stern collision
with the tug O.L. Hallenbeck
in New York,
an accident that nearly
caused the tug to sink.
Barely three months later,
on the 20th of September, 1911,
the Olympic, still under the
command of captain Smith,
was involved in yet another
collision, this time
with the British warship HMS Hawke
in the Brambles channel
in Southampton water.
It was a serious collision which
was to seal the fate of the Olympic.
Pulled in by the suction from
the Olympic's great propellers,
the Hawke is irresistibly
drawn towards the larger vessel
and the two ships collide.
The Hawke's underwater ram
and bow strike and penetrate
the starboard side of the Olympic,
causing a triangular hole
several meters high and an even
larger hole below the waterline.
Any accident involving a royal naval
ship was investigated by the Admiralty
who, not surprisingly
in this case, found
that the Olympic was at fault,
even though the evidence,
including eyewitness accounts,
suggested otherwise.
As a consequence of this ruling,
the White Star's insurers declined
to pay out on the claim.
The damage done to the
Olympic was severe.
Besides being hold both above
and below the waterline,
she sustained numerous
other injuries,
including steel frames buckled,
thousands of rivets popped,
steel plating dislodged
over four decks
and distortion to the starboard
propeller and crankshaft.
To make matters worse,
the keel was bent,
giving the ship a pronounced
list to port.
Interestingly enough,
when six months later
the ship which came to
be known as the Titanic
made her maiden voyage
out of Southampton,
second class passenger Lawrence
Beesley, a science teacher,
noted that the ship seemed to have a
slight, but permanent, list to port
on the first part of the voyage,
a fact noted by several
other surviving passengers.
The great hull was
patched up in Southampton
by riveting steel plates
below the waterline
and reinforcing with
wooden beams above.
This work took over two weeks,
suggesting just how
serious the damage was.
In October, 1911,
with these temporary
repair works in place,
the Olympic then limped back to the
Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast
for more permanent
repairs to be done.
In fact, some of those temporary repairs
failed during the voyage to Belfast.
By the way, remember that although
this is a model of the Olympic
the two ships were
virtually identical.
It's this fact which made
a conspiracy feasible,
a conspiracy of
monumental proportions.
The starboard propeller is
going to have to be replaced
Harland and Wolff Shipyard October 1911
and the crankshaft is damaged, has a
crack between the arm and the shaft.
But worse, the keel is bent.
That's going to give her
a permanent list to port
and there's no way
we can correct that.
You're gonna have to cut the
ship in half, insert a new frame
and then put it all
back together again.
The dog is gonna take
months and, frankly,
for what it's going to cost,
I think it's... simply a waste of time.
Can you not just patch her up...
until Titanic is ready?
Well, we could put in a
bulkhead to strengthen her,
but to be honest, sir, she will never
pass another Board of Trade inspection.
In Belfast, the Titanic was nearing
completion, but all work on her stopped
so that every effort could be put
into the repair of the Olympic.
This work took seven weeks instead
of the two weeks originally planned
and involved replacing steel
plates along fully one-third
of the starboard side of the ship.
Another indication that the damage was
far worse than was originally thought.
Now, look at this.
This is a film of the Olympic
backing out of the dock in New York.
You can see where she's been
patched up on her starboard side.
It's a huge area...
and that's just the damage
above the waterline.
In order to get the
Olympic back to sea
and earning a profit
as soon as possible,
the starboard propeller, stamped
with the Titanic's number 401
and not yet fitted to the Titanic,
was fitted to the Olympic.
This is a fact of some
considerable significance,
as we shall find out later.
The Olympic's troubles, however,
were only just beginning.
After leaving New York Harbor,
on the 24th of February in 1912,
she ran over a sunken
wreck off the Grand Banks
and threw a propeller blade
again on this starboard side.
The loss of the propeller blade shock
loaded the engine and driveshaft
and placed enormous stresses
on the already weakened liner.
She limped back to Southampton
on only one engine,
arriving there on
the 28th of February.
By the second of March,
she was once again
in the Thompson drydock in Belfast
having her propeller blade replaced.
This should have taken
only a few hours,
but the Olympic was there in
Belfast until the 7th of March.
In Belfast, the Titanic and the Olympic
were most often berthed side by side
and were regularly moved in
and out of the Thomson drydock,
especially during
repairs to the Olympic.
One close examination of
contemporary archive photographs,
it is possible to see the
minor differences in design
that tell the two ships apart.
On the forward part of sea deck,
Olympic was built with 16 portholes.
The Titanic, with 14.
Somehow mysteriously,
the Titanic has acquired
two extra portals between its
launch and its maiden voyage.
This clearly points to the possibility
that the two ships were switched.
At the time of Titanic's launch,
the windows on B deck are clearly
discernible as being evenly spaced.
Yet, at the time of her
maiden voyage,
they have taken on a
distinctly uneven appearance.
And whereas the Olympic
had been open to the public
for inspection in Belfast and
Liverpool, Titanic was not.
That first week in March
1912 was the last time
that the Olympic and Titanic
were together in Belfast.
The twin ships side-by-side
on the river Lagan
and that was when the decision to
switch them could have been made.
You can't be serious.
Lord Pirrie's Belfast home March 1912
Olympic and Titanic
are exactly the same.
No one will know we've switched them
when they get back to
work on Monday morning.
We just swapped the names.
Everything else is standard
White Star issue.
I have some boys of the yard who
do the job for a couple of hundred
pounds each... and say nothing.
I'll never get away with it.
If word of this gets out...
It's either that, Ismay,
or we both go down,
White Star Line and this yard.
There's got to be another way.
There isn't. We have no choice.
Right.
That's it, then.
Switching the two ships would have
been a remarkably simple undertaking.
There were no members of
the press poking around
or roving TV crews
looking for a story.
Even photography was in
its infancy at the time
and, generally, people believed what
they were told to be the truth.
All crockery, linen and so on
was White Star standard-issue,
interchangeable from ship to ship.
Letter heads of menus, etc,
were styled to the particular ship,
but could easily have been changed.
Only the names on the bows
and sterns of the ships,
the name plates on the
lifeboats and 48 life belts
would have to be swapped.
This could easily have been
achieved using a very small crew,
literally over a weekend.
And it's highly unlikely that
anyone would have noticed a switch
when they returned to
work on Monday morning.
White Star often used photographs,
both exterior and interior,
of the Olympic as the Titanic in their
advertisements and press releases.
Both ships had tile
and linoleum flooring.
Yet, just days before
Titanic's maiden voyage,
Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line,
ordered her floors to be carpeted.
Was this to cover Olympic's
worn linoleum floors?
The Harland and Wolff yard was a vast
labyrinth of buildings and workshops,
as well as machinery and ships,
in various stages of completion.
Any unusual activity
would hardly be noticed.
The social order of the day was such
that the majority of the workers
would never have thought
to question their betters.
They lived in a time when the
majority of the population
were told what to think, where to go,
what to do and when to do it.
It was also a lot easier,
in the early years of the century,
to bribe or even bully men
into toeing the company line,
as we shall see when the surviving
crew members returned to Britain.
There was no social security
safety net for the unemployed
and companies had the power to
dismiss whole families of workers
if one of them did
not do as he was told.
There's a wee scam going on here
and the bosses are in on it.
Belfast March 1912
They switched those ships
two weeks ago and I knew it. (?)
Listen to me, puddy,
any more talk from you about
two ships being swapped over
and you'll end up at the
bottom of the river Lagan.
So, remember that when you get
back to your wife and your 17 kids,
you Irish scum.
The Olympic's original sea trials,
conducted by the Board of Trade,
lasted two full days while the
ship was put through its paces.
Strangely, the Titanic sea trials
were most peremptory affair,
no strenuous maneuvers
were carried out
and the inspection was
over in time for lunch.
Of course, by now the
switch had taken place.
The collision between
the Olympic and HMS Hawke
was by no means captain
Smith's first incident at sea.
In fact, he had one of the worst
professional records of his day.
The Commodore of the White
Star Line was a show-off
who liked to drive his ships as
though they were giant speedboats
and he damaged a few in his time.
The three incidents
involving the Olympic,
which probably damaged
her permanently,
must have put him in a very serious
position in the eyes of his employers.
Could he perhaps have being
summoned by J. Bruce Ismay,
chairman of the White Star Line,
once it became obvious that
the Olympic was a write-off?
If so, it would have been a meeting
with the very gravest of consequences.
Oh, come now, E.J.,
we've always been good to you,
kept you in brandy and cigars...
Besides, it's not going
to be that difficult.
You've broken a few
of our ships, E.J.:
the Republic,
the Germanic, the Quartic.
And when that fire broke out on the
Majestic and those crew men were killed...
- Yes, but...
- Yes, I know you denied it had ever happened,
but we did know.
We gave you command of the Olympic
and look what a disaster
that's turned out to be.
And we always paid you well, E.J.
Look, it's not for me,
it's for the company.
We are in a desperate
situation, financially,
especially after what
happened to the Olympic.
So, I'm sorry to have to
put it to you like this,
but you do owe us.
We've arranged for a small
steamer from the Leyland line
to be in a position to
take the passengers off.
I have a good man lined up for the
job, Lord, captain Stanley Lord.
Ever come across him? Well, he's
done this sort of thing before.
Well, he did the job so well he
received a commendation for it.
So, there it is.
He'll be there to lend a hand
and I'll be there, of course,
along for the ride...
All right, and I want to
choose my own officers.
Yes,...
of course, E.J.
Men you can trust in.
At the time of
Titanic's maiden voyage,
Britain was in the
grip of a coal strike.
Fuel was in short supply and ships
and men were laid up in Southampton.
And yet, White Star Line had
difficulty finding firemen and greases (?)
to work below decks on the Titanic.
After steaming from
Belfast to Southampton,
all, but two of the firemen
aboard the ill-fated liner,
refused to sign up again in Southampton
for the voyage across the Atlantic,
preferring to wait for
employment on another ship.
All these men in the
middle of a coal strike,
with so many thousands laid off,
what did they know?
Shortly before Titanic sailed,
chief officer Wilde,
who was to lose his life three nights
later, wrote a letter to his sister
in which he said:
"I still don't like this ship."
Strange thing for a man to say
who had just set foot on
board the day before...
unless, of course, he realized he was
actually on his old ship, Olympic.
It's strange to think that, as the
Olympic, now renamed the Titanic,
was preparing to make
her second maiden voyage,
the ship that started out life as the
Titanic and was now called the Olympic
had to enter her working
life with no fanfare at all.
The Olympic's original maiden
voyage was fully subscribed,
whereas her second, this time as the
Titanic, was only about half full,
and that in the middle
of a coal strike,
when passengers were
queuing up to get to America.
First-class passengers
on other White Star ships
were only offered second-class
berths on Titanic,
even though we know that
first-class cabins were available.
It's almost as though White Star Line
didn't want that many people on board...
By the way, when I refer to
the Titanic from this time on,
I want you to remember that I'm
actually talking about the ship
that started out its
life as the Olympic,
but which we believe,
by this stage, had been switched
and taken on the
identity of the Titanic.
The coal strike is important for
another possibly more sinister reason.
Most other ships were
desperate for coal
and passengers and cargo destined for
the New World was stuck in Europe.
Yet, the Leyland liner Californian,
under the command of
Captain Stanley Lord,
left the port of London
on the 5th of April, 1912,
just five days before Titanic's
departure from Southampton,
not only fully coaled, but,
apart from her own crew,
empty of passengers.
With more than enough coal to
get her to the United States,
she headed off into the middle of
the Atlantic at full speed, empty,
apart from a cargo
of woollen sweaters.
Over 50,
mostly first-class passengers,
canceled their passages on the
Titanic at the last minute.
Many of them, close friends and
business associates of J.P. Morgan.
Morgan himself cancelled his
passage at the 11th hour,
despite having the best suite
on the ship, claiming illness.
Two days after the sinking,
an American reporter found
him in perfect health
at the French resort of ???
with his mistress.
Morgan also had several
valuable bronze statues,
which he was planning to
import to the United States,
taken off the Titanic an
hour before she sailed.
Could Morgan have known
the fate of the Titanic
fully four days before the disaster?
Florence Ismay, wife of J.
Bruce Ismay, also turned down
the opportunity of
taking the maiden voyage
on the world's most luxurious liner,
preferring, instead, to take their
children on a motoring holiday,
after first claiming ill health.
Now, there's one thing that
sailors fear above all else
and that is fire at sea.
And yet, when Titanic
cast off from Southampton,
there was a fire smoldering
in number 10 coal bunker.
Instead of putting out the fire,
the bunker was actually topped up
with 400 tons of coal.
Captain Smith knew it.
The ship's officers and
chief engineer knew it,
as did those who worked hard partly (?)
to put it out.
The fire that had been smoldering
in coal bunker number 10
had been smoldering for
a week and it was kept
from the Board of Trade inspector,
Morris Harvey Clark,
who had the British inquiry
denied all knowledge of it.
Could the fire in coal bunker
number 10 have been plan B?
If all else fails, tell the
passengers there's a fire,
then the smoke through the
ship and get them off that way.
Captain Stanley Lord,
in the Californian,
had left the port of London in a great
hurry, ostensibly bound for Boston.
Then, on the evening
of the 14th of April,
the ship came to a dead stop
in the middle of the ice field.
Strangely, captain Lord, six-foot-tall,
elected to sleep that night
fully clothed on a five and a
half foot couch in the chart room,
rather than in his cabin.
He also ordered her boilers to be kept
fired up and her engines on standby.
Why? Was he expecting
some sort of emergency
that might mean a last-minute
dash into the night?
That evening, the Titanic
received six radio messages.
The first three were from other ships
giving the location of icebergs.
The other three were
from the Californian,
more concerned with giving her own
position stopped for the night.
Those three were personally
address to Captain Smith.
It's almost as if Captain Lord
was letting Smith know
that the Californian
was ready and waiting.
Captain Smith had delayed
turning the corner
on the outward southern track.
He ordered the turn to the west
10 miles further south than
the normal turning point.
This was certainly not as an evasive
measure to avoid the ice field,
but one designed to take him directly
into it. He must have known this.
Tragically, captain Lord failed
to keep his radio operator awake,
even so the Californian's last message
to the Titanic never got there.
The Titanic's radio operators were
too busy with passengers messages.
It was standard practice of the
day for captains to run their ships
at full speed through the ice field.
Any object large enough to
damage an iron steamship
would be seen in plenty
of time to avoid it.
Other ships in the vicinity cruised
on at full speed on that night,
so, in that respect, Captain
Smith was by no means unique.
So, why then was the
Californian stopped?
Had she reached her destination
and was she now waiting?
Sometime before 11 p.m.,
lookouts Fred Fleet and Reginald Lee
came on watch and climbed
to the crow's nest.
Captain Smith's retired for the night,
but, coincidentally,
like Stanley Lord, he also
chose to rest fully clothed,
not in his own cabin, but in the
chart room behind the bridge,
almost as if he expected to be called
back to the bridge at any moment.
It was very cold outside and few if
any passengers would have been on deck.
First officer Murdoch was
standing on the open part
of the starboard side of the
bridge when he saw the iceberg
about eight hundred yards ahead.
He ordered the ship turned to port and,
inexplicably, engines full astern.
By reversing the engines,
Murdoch was actually increasing
the risk of collision,
something he must have known.
Maybe Murdoch,
hand-picked by Captain Smith,
was deciding to give the
iceberg a nudge anyway.
Given that the turning circle
of the Titanic was 1280 yards
and the stopping distance 850 yards,
Titanic should have been able to avoid
the iceberg with the greatest of ease,
even allowing for a slight delay
while orders were given and the
wheel turned the ship to port. (?)
So, why didn't it?
Second officer Lightoller
told the inquiry
that, before going off
duty for the night,
he would have been easily able to see
an iceberg from a mile and a half,
more probably two miles away.
He also said that the iceberg
would have been just as visible
from the bridges
from the crow's nest,
plenty of time to turn
and avoid it then.
In an emergency such as this,
it was never a good idea to
turn your broadside to danger.
Even if Titanic had rammed the iceberg
head-on, it would have stayed afloat.
Although up to 250 crewmen
would have been killed
while they slept in
their bunks in the bar.
Apart from those on the bridge
and, of course, those in
the forward boiler rooms,
the glancing blow with the iceberg
would have passed virtually unnoticed.
The vibration felt by
some of the passengers
was almost certainly that caused
by the reversing of the engines.
And by the time anyone
noticed what had happened,
the iceberg had slipped
away into the night.
Captain Smith was on the bridge
in a matter of seconds,
but instead of a general
call to stations,
his officers acted as though
there were no emergency at all.
Second officer Lightoller, awakened
by the sound of steam letting off,
claims to have stayed in his cabin
until another officer came to get him.
His evidence later, to the
effect that he had stayed there
because he was off-duty
and thought he should stay
where he would expect to be found,
simply does not ring true.
The bridge was only a few seconds walk
from his cabin in the officers quarters
and he should have gone straight
there at the first hint of trouble.
So, why didn't he?
A few passengers came
out of their cabins
to see why the engines had stopped,
but for the first 40
minutes after the collision
there was really no
sense of danger at all.
One can understand this frame of
mind on the part of the passengers,
even on the part of the crew,
except for those who are dancing
the fires in boiler rooms 5 and 6.
After all, they thought they
were on an unsinkable ship.
But for the captain and the officers who
were in full possession of the facts,
there is really no excuse.
They did it because they
expected to be rescued.
It was 35 minutes before the
first distress signal was sent.
35 minutes before the first
radio emergency CQD was sent.
45 minutes before
starting the pumps.
45 minutes before starting
to prepare the lifeboats.
And a full hour and 25 minutes
before the first one was launched.
Only six crew members were on watch at
the time Titanic struck the iceberg.
First officer Murdoch and sixth
officer Moody were later drowned.
Of the surviving crew members,
quartermaster Alfred Oliver was aft of
the bridge at the time and saw nothing.
Helmsman Robert Hitchens
was hastily transferred
to a job as harbor
master in Cape Town,
which leaves lookouts Frederick
Fleet and Reginald Lee.
At the British inquiry as a witness,
Frederick Fleet was
clearly defensive, edgy.
Obviously, didn't trust his questioners
and at times was downright surly.
But then, he was under the
watchful gaze of J. Bruce Ismay,
the chairman of the White
Star Line and the lawyers.
I'm no judge of distances or spaces.
British Inquiry
Was it a mile away or
how far away was it?
- I cannot say.
- Can you not give any estimate?
- No.
- Was it half a mile?
I cannot say.
It is impossible to tell.
- Was it as far away as the boat's length?
- I could not say.
- Can you not say anything about it?
- No.
Sir, you really do not understand.
That gentleman is not trying
to get round you at all.
Well, some of them are, though.
Is there (?) anymore who'd (?)
like to have a go on me? (?)
When Titanic came to a rest,
captain Smith asked
the fourth officer, Joseph Groves
Boxhall, to work out a position.
It is clear from the records
the Titanic's navigator
worked out a position
that was 12 miles away from
where they actually were.
This was to prove a fatal mistake.
We know he was 12 miles
out in his calculations
because of the actual
location of the wreck.
The position that Boxall gave
would have put the Titanic
within sight of the Californian.
Was that where he thought
he should have been?
For some reason, Captain Smith
ordered the Titanic to move
half speed ahead for
another five minutes
before stopping the engines
again for the last time.
Maybe he was heading towards
the ship whose lights
could just be made out on the horizon,
expecting it to be the Californian.
Several survivors mentioned
the sighting of a ship
about five or six
miles from the Titanic.
The Titanic could easily
have steamed there,
yet Smith was content to assume
the ship would sail over to him
View from Titanic
because he believed it
was the Californian.
At this point, let's examine
what's happened so far.
A stricken ocean liner
is dead in the water.
A rescue ship, the Californian,
is standing by.
Messages have been sent to
Captain Smith from the Californian
stating exactly
where she is waiting.
Captain Smith can see a
stationary ship on the horizon,
and, having received
inaccurate information
from fourth officer
Boxhall as to his position,
he assumes it's the Californian and
everything's going according to plan.
At about midnight, the Titanic started
sending up the distress rockets
red, white and blue.
Rockets could also be seen from
the bridge of the Californian
and this was duly
reported to captain Lord.
View from Californian
Captain Lord asked what
color the Rockets were.
In fact, over the next two hours,
Lord repeatedly asked his officers
about the color of the rockets.
Was he expecting to see
red or blue signals?
Very likely.
But whether he was or not,
the answer from the bridge
was always the same,
only white rockets could be seen.
He, therefore, rightly
assumed that the rockets were
not coming from the Titanic.
Survivors reported that the rockets
launched from the bridge of the Titanic
soared up several hundred
feet into the night sky,
bursting with an
ear-splitting report.
The rockets from the ship that
was visible from the Californian
only went as high as
the top of her mast,
and, even at four to
five miles distant,
the officers would have quite
reasonably expected to hear a report,
but they heard nothing.
It seems most likely that the
ship seen from the Californian
was a wooden sailing bark,
called the Samson,
conducting illegal seal fishing
activities on the ice floes at the time.
The white rockets she was
firing to mast height only
were intended to recall
her small rowing boats.
A few months after the disaster,
the captain of the Samson
said that he had also seen
a large liner firing rockets
View from Samson
and that he had not
gone to investigate
because f his own
illegal activities.
The Californian's apprentice,
Gibson, later testified
View from Californian
that he saw only eight rockets
fired from the ship and all white.
The Titanic had fired at least 18,
possibly as many as 22,
and had included red and blue.
Titanic survivor,
Miss Edith Russell,
said the officers told them all:
"Don't worry. The Californian
will pick everybody up
if you don't come
back for breakfast."
How could they possibly have
known it was the Californian?
It's hard to believe
in such an emergency,
that they were letting
life boats go half full.
They knew the ship was sinking,
nobody could be that stupid.
But they expected the ship on the
horizon to come steaming over,
but it was the wrong ship.
The Californian was 19 miles away,
where captain Stanley Lord
waited for colored rockets.
At around 1:00 a.m., it must
finally have dawned on Captain Smith
that the rescue upon which the
survival of so many depended
was not going to materialize.
Now boats are being let go full and
passengers are beginning to panic.
As the senior surviving officer,
much credence and publicity
was given to the evidence of
second officer Lightoller.
I did not leave the Titanic, sir.
The Titanic left me.
He was evasive in response
to pertinent question
at the American and
British inquiries,
out to protect first and
foremost his own reputation
and then that of
the White Star Line.
At the British inquiry, he claimed:
"The Titanic began her turn to port
before the lookout dragged
down from the crow's nest."
How would he have known this? He
said he was in his cabin at the time.
Lightoller also said at
the American inquiry:
"There was no mist ten minutes
before the ship struck berg (?)."
Flatly contradicting the
evidence of the two lookouts.
And how would he have known
this if he was in his cabin?
He also lied about the number of
ice warnings received on the bridge,
as if to suggest that the
iceberg came as a surprise.
"I do not remember any ice warnings
being posted on the bridge."
Lightoller, along with second
radio operator Harold Bride
and ship's baker Charles Joven,
all claimed that after
getting off the Titanic
they stayed in the
water for up to an hour.
"I was in the water for between
half an hour and an hour
before I climbed aboard
the upturned collapsible.
20 of us spent most of the rest of that
night balancing on the upturned boat
while I gave the orders:
lean left, lean right."
This is quite clearly not possible.
We know that the sea temperature
that night was between
2 and 3 degrees below freezing.
Average life expectancy at that
temperature between 3 and 4 minutes.
This testimony would
simply not stand up today.
It is quite clearly fabrication.
Just before 5:30 on
that fateful morning,
captain Stanley Lord
woke his radio operator
only to discover that the
Titanic had already sunk.
He set off at full steam
for the wreck site,
but, of course, he was too late.
The Carpathia had already arrived
and was picking up survivors.
Notable amongst these
was J. Bruce Ismay,
who had slipped into a
lifeboat at the last minute.
For this, he was to pay the price in
public shame for the rest of his life.
As the Carpathia steamed
towards New York,
Ismay was supposedly taken to the
doctor's cabin and put under sedation.
Even so, he managed to find time
to send three separate telegrams
to the White Star's New York office,
urging them to hold the
Cedric in New York Harbor
so that the Titanic's
surviving crew members
could be taken straight
back to Southampton.
Hastily organized, the American inquiry
failed to ask the right questions.
Titanic's surviving officers
stonewalled, as did Ismay himself.
Several experienced sea
captains were called
to give evidence regarding the
wisdom of steaming at full speed
through an ice field,
but they all said the same thing:
maintaining full speed in the
vicinity of ice was perfectly normal.
And on the night in question,
the icebergs
could be seen at between
five and six miles distant.
It never occurred to anyone
to ask the simple question:
in that case, why did the
Titanic hit an iceberg?
When the surviving crew
got back to England,
they naturally expected to go
straight home to their loved ones.
Instead, they were all
herded into a railway shed
and held for nearly 24 hours before
being made to sign pieces of paper.
A lot of them were
under the impression
that they were signing
the Official Secrets Act.
Was someone trying to
suppress something here,
some vital piece of information?
Remember what it is
you've put your names to.
If there's any talk of the
ship being swamped in Belfast,
or any stories of
insurance fraud going on,
then there will be 20 years
of His Majesty's pleasure
awaiting you and no job to
come out to when it's over. So,
think on this when you see
your wives and sweethearts.
Ismay, Lightoller and the
other surviving officers
all came back to England
on the steamship Adriatic.
There can be little doubt as to the main
subject of conversation on their voyage.
They were all to be star witnesses
in the forthcoming British inquiry.
Titanic Disaster
Great Loss of Life
Now, it is unlikely that a fraud
of such immense proportions
could have been undertaken without
the collusion of the authorities,
notably the British government,
as we shall see later when
we look at the inquiry.
In fact, it makes perfect sense
for the government of the day,
under Prime Minister Lord Asquith,
to have colluded in a cover-up.
Never believe what
they've just done.
- How many?
- I'm told 1,500.
The position is simply this,
Prime Minister.
The White Star Line is on
the verge of bankruptcy. Now,
if White Star were forced
to go into liquidation,
the Harland and
Wolff yard in Belfast
can also be placed in a
very precarious position,
perhaps even forced to close down.
Now, that means
that 20,000 men will be laid off,
not to mention the effect
on all the subsidiary and dependent
industries. Quite frankly,
it is a political situation we
cannot afford, Prime Minister.
Alienate the Irish and we will
certainly lose seats in Belfast.
The Finians, the Republicans,
will seize the opportunity.
With our majority gone,
we will undoubtedly lose the
next election, Prime Minister.
It is the chance of a blunder (?)
of unprecedented proportions.
We are going to have to go
along with this, Prime Minister.
I will not see a stain put
upon the British government,
not for the White Star Line,
not for Harland and Wolff,
not for the Irish and certainly not
for the interests of J.P. Morgan.
I would also remind you,
Prime Minister,
that is part of the arrangement
for an American company
to acquire the White Star Line. J.P.
Morgan agreed that this government
could requisition his ships as Royal
Naval Reserves, should the need arise.
I would also remind you,
Prime Minister,
that the situation in Europe
is becoming ever more doubtful.
If the White Star Line were
to go into liquidation,
the major creditor would
be J.P. Morgan himself.
Now, as both owner and banker,
he would certainly exercise his rights
to seize his assets and we would
lose all those ships, Prime Minister.
It's a sad day for England when the
policies of a British government
are dictated by greedy
and ruthless businessmen.
And if it ever became public...
Doubtless, you have someone
in mind to run the show.
Yes.
I thought we could bring
Mersey out of retirement.
He's reliable, he knows how
the system works, he's discreet
and he would do what
needs to be done.
My son is called to the bar. It would
be more comfortable if he were there
- to keep an eye on things.
- Of course, Prime Minister.
We'll find employment for him
at the Attorney General's office.
???.
But neither I nor the administration
know anything about it.
So, the Board of Trade inquiry was
to be conducted by Lord Mersey,
president of the Board of Trade and
no stranger to the art of cover-up.
Since the enormous loss
of life was in part
due to outdated Board
of Trade regulations
regarding the number of
lifeboats to be carried by ships
and the safety of ships at sea
generally, it was hardly likely
that the inquiry was going to be too
concerned with uncovering the truth,
the Board of Trade being both
plaintiff and defendant in the case.
The hearings were held at the
Scottish Drill Hall, in London,
where the acoustics were so bad that
spectators in the public galleries
found it difficult to hear
everything that was said.
Lord Mersey had complained about
the unfortunate choice of venue,
but then, again,
it had been booked by his son.
Harold Sanderson,
representing Harland and Wolff,
repeatedly made the mistake of
referring to the Titanic as the Olympic.
As for Lord Mersey himself,
he simply didn't ask or allow
to be asked the right questions.
The press, who were there
throughout the hearings
and could have done something
about it, were more interested
in the scandal surrounding the
lucky escape of J. Bruce Ismay.
Other expert naval officers told Lord
Mersey that, even on a moonless night,
there'd be no difficulties
spotting an iceberg
from as far away as
six or even ten miles.
Remember, the full turning circle
of the Titanic at top speed
was only three-quarters of a mile.
The whole British
inquiry was a whitewash.
Captain Smith would not be blamed
because he was no longer alive
and could not defend himself.
The lookouts were not to blame.
The design and construction of
the Titanic was not to blame.
Neither were her
officers or her owners.
In fact, no one was to blame,
except captain Lord.
Captain Lord stood alone.
If Lord Mersey heard anything at
the enquiry that he didn't like,
he simply ignored it.
She looked like a small trap
steamer about five miles away.
They were firing rockets
just after midnight.
Altogether, she fired
eight rockets and all white
Testimony of Californian's Officers
and rose no further
than the masthead.
I think we are all of the opinion
that the distress signals,
which was seen from the
deck of the Californian,
were, in fact, the distress
signals from the Titanic.
I went down below to captain Lord,
he was sleeping in the chart room.
He asked me again if I sure there
was no color in the rockets.
So, I said, no, they were all white.
I think the onus of proof in this
matter is upon the Californian.
That it will be for the
Californians to satisfy us
that they were not the
signals of the Titanic.
Whenever a Titanic survivor
referred to the mystery ship
that they had seen on the horizon,
as often as not,
Lord Mersey would interject with:
"You mean the Californian."
There was barely an attempt
at cross examination
and, as happened so often, captain
Lord declined to defend himself,
perhaps out of fear that he might
reveal his part in the conspiracy.
Furthermore, when the
inquiry heard from passengers
who'd been aboard the Mount Temple
that they'd actually seen
the Titanic on the horizon
and were even close enough to hear
the last two reports of her rockets,
Lord Mersey repeatedly
interrupted them.
"You do not give me the
answers that please me."
Of course, if Lord Mersey
was a party to the cover-up,
he would have known about
captain Lord's secret mission
and of how the rescue plan failed
largely because of circumstances
outside captain Lord's control.
And yet,
Lord Mersey repeatedly interrupted the
testimony of Californian's officers
and, instead, accepted
evidence against captain Lord
that would have been laughed out of
court under normal circumstances.
Was Captain Lord
being made a scapegoat
because he had failed to do
what he'd been engaged to do
on the night of the disaster?
Of course, by highlighting
Lord and the Californian,
Lord Mersey was drawing attention away
from rather more sensitive issues.
Titanic's bulkheads should
have gone one deck higher.
It was the Board of Trade's
own regulations
that allowed Titanic to go to
sea with too few lifeboats.
And the Board of Trade's inspectors,
who had been so ready to
sign the ship office (?)
fit to go to sea in the first place.
Titanic cost 10 million dollars
to build and, as a brand new ship,
would have been insurable
for that amount and more.
The Olympic, on the other hand,
damaged beyond economic repair,
would only have been insurable
for a much smaller amount.
A motive for switching
the ships is clear.
Normally, White Star Line,
when they insured their ships,
took on part of the risks themselves
and it was at first thought
that Lloyds of London
would only be liable for seven
and a half million dollars.
Not so. For just one week before
the maiden voyage of the Titanic,
which we now know was,
in fact, the Olympic,
White Star Line upped their
insurance on the vessel dramatically
and, incredibly,
just five days after the sinking,
Lloyds paid out twelve and
a half million dollars.
Although three-quarters of a century
at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
did not exactly preserve Titanic
in museum-like condition,
there is enough left of the wreck
to give us more than just an
idea of what really happened.
Corrosion has done
its relentless work,
but where the original black
paint of the hull has flaked away
it is still possible to see spots of
gray paint which formed the undercoat,
except that gray paint was only
used as an undercoat on the Olympic
and not on the Titanic.
Examination of the
starboard propeller
reveals the number 01
stamped into the metal.
In fence (?), there is too much corrosion
to make out the number 4 clearly,
but, remember, the starboard
propeller numbered 401 for the Titanic
was put on the Olympic
as part of the repairs
after the collision with the Hawke.
Remote cameras under the control
of the discoverer of the Titanic
wreck, Dr. Robert Ballard,
have examined the stern
section of the ship.
They show that, in addition
to the lateral bulkheads
that were a feature of both
the Titanic and the Olympic,
there is a longitudinal
bulkhead in the stern section
where there was none on the
original plans for either vessel.
The position of this
bulkhead suggests
a temporary repair has been
carried out to strengthen the keel,
a keel perhaps damaged by
the collision with HMS Hawke.
And finally, a close look at the bow
could reveal the most
damning evidence of all.
In 1986, the French National
Oceanographic Institute
examined the wreck with
Dr. Robert Ballard.
One of the things they checked
was the name of the ship.
In keeping with White
Star tradition, both ships
had their names engraved
into the upper bow plates
in letters four-foot high.
Examination of the wreck
and the name Titanic
shows that it is made of iron
letters which have been riveted
onto the original bow plates.
With the passage of time,
two of the letters have dropped off
and been lost forever in
the sediment of the seabed.
At the place where they once were,
engraved into the hull,
are the letters M and P!
The Titanic was the first
ship in living memory
to sink as a result of a
collision with an iceberg
Before his death in 1962, Captain
Stanley Lord tried on several occasions
to re-open the British Inquiry into the
loss of the Titanic to clear his name.
He was unsuccessful...
In 1914, Lord Mersey was
appointed chairman of the inquiry
into the sinking of the Lusitania -
also a British government cover-up...
Second officer Lightoller
continued with the White Star Line,
but was never given a command.
In World War II, his private yacht
was one of the first vessels to
assist in the evacuation of Dunkirk...
Lookout Fred Fleet
committed suicide in 1965...
J. Bruce Ismay left the White Star
Line just 12 months after the disaster.
Those around him were forbidden
ever to mention the Titanic...
The ship known as the Titanic
continued successfully as the Olympic
for another twenty five years.
In World War I,
the Olympic was requisitioned
as a troop transport by a
grateful British Government.
subtitles by
Tio Beto from Brazil