Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 18, Episode 10 - Abandoning the Titanic - full transcript

♪♪

- ♪ Oh, they built their
ship, Titanic ♪

♪ To sail the ocean blue

♪ And thought they had a ship

♪ That the water
wouldn't go through ♪

[ Bell clanging ]

- Three clangs of the bellin the RMS
Titanic's

crow's nest

in April of 1912

unknowingly signaled
the impending deaths

of 1,500 people.



In that moment,
the next 100 years of history

would be breached
by this reckless tragedy,

provoking a relentless pursuit
of answers

as to why so many had to die.

In the Titanic's last hours,
death came as the leveler

to a world of class,
wealth, and privilege,

a world abruptly swamped

by struggling
steerage-class immigrants

as keen as any aristocrat

to escape the gruesome demise
that confronted them.

♪♪

As death became certain,

the magic of Marconi's
wireless telegraph machine

sprang to life,



sending frantic pulses
and pauses of Morse code

into the unseeing night...

[ Beeping ]

...when suddenly,
off the port bow,

an unannounced
and unidentified light

on the horizon of the night sky

became a shimmering
gleam of hope.

A ship approached
within just a few miles.

The Titanic was not alone.

Now, startling revelationssuggest
an answer to the mystery

that has haunted the tragic
disaster for so long...

The identity of the ship that
turned its back on the Titanic.

"Abandoning the
Titanic."

♪♪

- On April 22, 1912,

just seven daysafter the dream ship RMS
Titanic

sank beneath the waters
of the North Atlantic,

a man walked into the
Toronto Star offices

and stunned the reporters.

- This gentleman who walked
into our busy newsroom

identified himself
as Friedrich Quitzrau.

And he was a doctor,

and the story he unfolded
was amazing.

- Thus began
one of the enduring mysteries

surrounding the
loss of the Titanic,

one that has lasted 108 years.

♪♪

1912... in Great Britain,

a time of wealth, confidence,
new beginnings...

a most auspicious moment

for the invincible
and unsinkable Titanic

to set out
on her maiden voyage...

only to sail
into the annals of history.

The Royal Mail Ship Titanic isthe
second of three ocean liners

built for the White Star line

by Harland and Wolff in Belfast,

the sister ship to
the RMS Olympic,

which preceded Titanic
on the North Atlantic's

lucrative mail
and passenger routes.

RMS Titanic is designed to be

the pinnacle
of British passenger transport,

departing Southampton
for New York City

with 1,300 passengers

and a contingent
of 900 officers and crew.

- In the early 1900s,
we were shifting from a period

of ships that were driven
by sail and wood

to ships that were driven
by steam and steel.

They were bigger ships.
They were faster ships.

- Titanic

was really built
as a strong ship

to withstand the blow
from another ship,

and it was not built
to be a ship

that would even encounter
an iceberg.

- Titanic

is known
as "The Ship of Dreams,"

and in dramatic portrayals
today,

we see her sent off
from Southampton

with great fanfare
and ticker tape.

Well, it... it wasn't like that
in truth at all.

- There was not so much
interest in Titanic

because Olympic
was the first ship.

- The sister ship
had taken all the garlands

and the accolades
the previous year.

She had inaugurated
this new great class of ships

of which the Titanic
was the second.

So her departure
was not attended

by pomp and state and ceremony.

The ship herself
wasn't even full.

It hadn't been this hot ticket
that everybody imagines

to get on board.

- The Olympic's earlier
debut isn't the only reason

the Titanic isn't carryinga
full complement of passengers.

- That was because of
the historic strangeness

of a national coal strike

which had caused all shipping
to be in question,

and, you know, whole schedules
of sailings were canceled.

- The 37-day coal strike
by a million British miners

is an annoying burden

for many of Europe's
transatlantic travelers.

It also brings unemployment
and financial hardship

to the thousands who work

in Great Britain's
shipping industry

until it ends on April 6th,

just four days before theTitanic

is to depart.

- White Star Line
had promised fatefully

that they would sail the Titanic

on the given day
of April the 10th, 1912.

- With the departure date
now confirmed,

Titanic

becomes
the epicenter of employment

as White Star quickly fills
all positions available.

- My dad was put onto the
maiden voyage of the Olympic.

Then he was selected
to go on the Titanic,

and he was thrilled.

- Just as White Star promised,
on April 10, 1912,

the Titanic pulls
away from Southampton

with her newly hired crew
and eager passengers.

- The Titanic had had a
wonderful maiden voyage so far.

The weather gods
had been smiling

on Captain Smith
and his command.

Bright sunshine, smooth seas

ever since leaving Queenstown
in Southern Ireland,

and the ship had been
performing exceptionally well.

She had made up steadily
increasing mileages each day.

And there was a great deal
of pleasure being felt

amongst the passengers
at the prospect

of making a smart arrival
in New York.

- White Star's most seasoned
and most trusted captain

of maiden voyages,
62-year-old Edward John Smith,

is at the helm
of the line's newest edition.

- Captain Smith of the Titanic

was a cultured,
well-coiffed man,

very presentable
with his trimmed white beard,

and inordinately popular.

He had a devoted following.

In those days, hard though it is
to believe today,

you know, maritime skippers
were almost like rock stars.

They had their personal coterie
of society,

grand dames
and wealthy plutocrats.

He commanded the Olympic
on her maiden voyage.

He had taken her out
in June 1911 to New York.

♪♪

- Alongside Captain Smith,

and drawn from
the Royal Naval Reserve,

Titanic's seemingly experienced
crew includes officers

who are familiar with sailing
with Captain Smith

and the elite
of the Edwardian class.

- Aside from the captain,
the only two senior officers

that were allowed
to freely mingle

were the ship's doctorand the
purser, and that was it.

In 1912,
the distance between officers

and passengers was great.

Officers were given
very strict instructions...

Be polite, answer
their questions quickly,

and then go about your business.

There was no socialization.

- Captain Smith is no stranger

to the North Atlantic route
to New York.

And neither are
his two executive officers,

Chief Officer Henry Wilde

and First Officer
William Murdoch,

both of whom had just sailed
with Smith on the Olympic.

As The Ship of Dreams
heads west,

opening up to speeds
close to her maximum,

Captain Smith and his officers
tend to the well-oiled machine.

Senior Officers Wilde, Murdoch,
and Lightoller

take their shifts
as officers of the watch,

while Junior Officers Pitman,
Boxhall, Lowe, and Moody

maintain the ship's performance
and position.

♪♪

[ Waves crashing ]

♪♪

- The year in which
they encountered the iceberg

was admitted by all
to be an unusual year

in which the icebergs
were flowing further south.

- If the Titanic were
in a visible ice field,

I would think that the captain
would be on the bridge.

But keep in mind that
up to the point of collision

they were not in an ice field

and the bergs that had been seen
were seen at a great distance.

So the clear and present danger
was not really at hand.

♪♪

- The ice, for weeks past,

posed serious challenges
to mariners.

But on this particular Sunday,

we know that many
of the masters of vessels,

the captains
with their own commands,

they were taking things
in a very cautious manner.

And some ships like the Niagara

were coming in with
damaged and buckled plates.

- The SS Californian
is one of several ships

in the area that night.

- She was about 440 feet long
with a general cargo.

It was a crew of 47.

And at her head was a Bolton
shipmaster, aged only 35.

His name was
Captain Stanley Lord,

and he had made a meteoric rise
in his profession,

and he had a reputation
as a fine navigator.

- In Lord's own words,
It was an "extraordinary night."

The sea was
completely flat calm,

and there was a clear night.

- No waves. No nothing.
- Absolutely calm.

There was no moon
but plenty of stars.

- That Sunday had proven
to be a long day,

at least for the captainof
the single-funnel cargo ship.

- The night of the accident,

Lord had been on duty
for a long shift of 16 hours.

And he was tired. You know,
he was in an ice field.

He was command of a ship,

and he wanted to make sure
it was safe.

- This was practically
the first time

the Californian had had a
Marconi operator aboard,

and the Marconi operator himself
had only made

two previous voyages,
and that was on another ship.

- The Californian's wireless
operator, Cyril Evans,

has also had a busy day,
exchanging messages

about the ice,
weather conditions,

and its location
with other ships in the area.

♪♪

- But on the Titanic,
this message crashed in

upon the ears of Jack Phillips.

- Titanic's

telegraph operators
are also busy.

In addition
to ship-to-ship messages,

they are finally within range

of the first
North American relay station...

Cape Race, Newfoundland.

- Suddenly,
Phillips was assaulted

by this unwanted information
about some small freighter

being stuck in pack ice
somewhere to his north,

when his own ship was racing,
as he knew, for New York.

- Titanic's

reply?

With receipt of that reply,

a reply that possibly sealed
Titanic's

fate,

Cyril Evans signs off

from the wireless room
of the Californian.

Just an hour later,

theCalifornian's
unheeded warning

would come to haunt the captain
and officers of the Titanic.

Captain Smith could not
have known that his ship

was not where his officers
reported it was

or how it negated the impact
of the ice warnings

being received
throughout the day,

leaving Titanic's safe passage

dependent on the lookouts
in the crow's nest.

- When you're a lookout,
it is not necessary for you

to be able to say
what it is you're seeing.

Your job is to
just raise the alarm.

"I have something there."

- They were huddled up
against the cold, peering.

And their blearing eyes
naturally produced tears

which made it harder still,
blinking those away,

and staring
and looking all over the sea.

Their job
was to identify objects.

And they would ring a bell

to send that signal
to the bridge.

It would be one bell
for somewhere on the port side.

[ Bell clangs ]

It would be two bells
for something to the starboard.

[ Clang, clang ]

And it would be three bells
for an object ahead.

[ Clang, clang, clang ]

Now, once they had rung...
Clang, clang, clang!

Their job was done.

- Then the officers on the bridge
identify it

and decide what
they're gonna do about it.

That's not
the lookout's problem.

Lookout doesn't have to
provide an identity.

- There were men on the bridge
who had done exams,

who had passed
seamanship courses,

who had achieved certificates.

[ Clang, clang, clang ]

- At 11:40 p.m., April 14, 1912,

three bells pierce the night,

signaling the Titanic is
headed right into her kill.

An iceberg, dead ahead,

without ample time to avoid it
by the turn of the wheel.

The duty to respond to the alarm
falls to First Officer Murdoch,

who, by training and instinct,

goes to the open bridge wingto
determine a course of action.

♪♪

He gives the orders for evasive
measures to turn the ship.

But it's too late.
Not enough time.

In just 30 seconds, the ship
strikes the massive iceberg,

bringing Captain Smith
to the bridge.

[ Metal scraping ]

♪♪

Smith calls on the officers

to provide two key pieces
of information...

The ship's position
and the status of the damage.

Both responses are flawed,

and both have
deadly consequences.

- A position is established
by celestial observations,

and there's basically
two ways you can do it.

One is by using the sun.

But you can't get a...
What we call a fix.

You can't get an exact
position from the sun.

You can get a latitude,

and you can use estimates
to get a longitude.

Now, the next way you can get
a fix is by the stars.

If they managed
to get a fix by the stars

on the evening prior to
the collision with the iceberg,

then anything after that
has got to be estimated.

You know, so, they're gonna say,
"Right. We're doing 23.5 knots.

We've got a current that
is going the opposite way,"

or whatever.

"We're altering the course,"
which will affect the speed.

So everything is estimated.

So it's quite conceivable
that the estimates were wrong.

But how accurate
was the evening stars?

- Fourth Officer Boxhall
is responsible

for setting Titanic's
position for the S.O.S.

The Captain's order
is to set a dead reckoning...

A calculationbased on
the last known position

adjusted by time, speed,
current, and direction...

And then
transmit those coordinates.

Boxhall's calculations
are reviewed,

deemed wrong, and recalled.

13 minutes later,

a new position
is sent to all ships

able to receive the message.

- It's very easy
to make a mistake,

if he did make a mistake.

- There is a mistake.

While the ship's new coordinates
are being released,

the wounded Titanic
continues to steam west.

- One of the great
misunderstandings

of the Titanic disaster

is that she collided
with the berg, stopped,

and drank her death water,

her fatal fill of thousands
of tons of water.

Not at all.

They paused merely, and then
they got under way again

and drove water
against the damage.

- After the Titanic
hit the iceberg,

she carried on
for another 10 minutes,

and the captain eventually
had to stop the ship

because the water was creating
a lot of pressure on the hull

and making the water
flood into the ship.

- Titanic

was an extremely large ship,

and people think that
everything associated with it

was as large as imaginable.

And that's not exactly the case.

And unfortunately, it's the case

with the bilge
and the ballast pumps.

And they're plumbed
in such a way

that they're really meant
to deal with local flooding,

not flooding en masse
at the extreme end of the ship.

The pipes just are not
laid out that way.

- During the inquiry,

Edward Wilding,
who was the ship's designer,

was asked about
the rate of flooding.

And he calculated that Titanic

was taking on 500 tons
of seawater a minute.

[ Rumbling ]

- Shortly after midnight,
Thomas Andrews,

the builder of the Titanic
and a first-class passenger,

completes his review
of the damage.

His dire assessment is reported
to Captain Smith...

The Titanic has less
than two hours to live.

♪♪

Titanic

is taking on water
at an incredible rate.

And as the ship goes down,

she is guaranteed to take
hundreds of victims with her.

In the throes of desperation,
as the lifeboats are readied,

the wireless operators
pump out the S.O.S.,

pleading for any able ship
to come.

[ Morse code clicking ]

- This great hefty tome

is Lloyd's Register of
Shipping from 1912-1913.

And every ship gets a...

Sailing ships, as well,
and steam ships...

They all get
an individual entry here,

giving details of
their ownership and so on.

This rolls alphabetically.

We have thousands
upon thousands of ships.

Just illustrating
the vast forests of masts

that were going acrossthe
North Atlantic at that time.

- There were over 200 westbound
ships on the North Atlantic

at the time the Titanic sank.

Now, they were spaced
over the ocean,

and they weren't all
right in that vicinity,

but there very well
could have been several

that were in that vicinity.

- The amazing thing
about all this

in the midst all
this huge forest of pages,

is that those ships that
are listed as having wireless

consist of just this amount.

Just those few pages there.

So, prior to the advent
of wireless,

if you think about it,
ships were limited

to communicating only with
those ships they had in view.

The great thing about wireless

is that suddenly
you are broadcasting

over the curvature of the earth
and ships you couldn't see.

- Titanic's
mighty telegraph signal

splits the night
for more than 500 miles.

The S.O.S. reaches
Titanic's

sister ship,

the Olympic,

as well as the Mesaba,

theMount Temple,

Baltic, Frankfurt...

theCalifornian,

Virginian,

the Birma...

and the eventual rescue
ship, the Carpathia,

whose captain announces

they are lighting up
and coming at full speed.

♪♪

- It was the Board of Trade

that permitted the
Titanic to go to sea

with the inadequate number
of lifeboats.

The Titanic had lifeboats to
accommodate about 1,100 people

when the vessel itself
could accommodate 3,500 people.

- If every single seat
in every single boat

had been filled,
half of the people on board

were still destined to die.

Clearly, there was a situation

that would have lent itself
very well

to people becoming
panic-stricken.

The Titanic and the
Olympic, its sister ship,

had been equipped
with special davits,

the crane-like devices thatlowered
lifeboats over the side.

And those davits were designed

to handle
up to 4 lifeboats each.

So that meant,
with 16 sets of davits,

the Titanic could have
had 64 lifeboats on board,

which would have been
more than enough

to save everybody
on that ship that night.

- When my grandfather came down,

he said, "I've just
been up on deck," he said.

And he saw them
uncovering the lifeboats.

- The officer came and said,
"Go to these cabins"

and tell everyone in the cabin
that they must dress warmly,

"put life jackets on,
go up on deck."

And he was told to stay calm,
not create panic.

- So they went up the stairs,
and as they go through,

they saw all the ice
on the upper decks.

All the people there,
they were saying,

"She's not gonna go down.
She's unsinkable."

They kept saying that
all the time.

Then the order come...
"women and children first."

And the men had to stand back.

-"All hands on deck.

Report to your lifeboat
stations immediately."

- It was bitterly cold.

- People didn't want
to get into the lifeboats

because there was no obvious
sign that the ship was sinking.

People didn't want to leave
loved ones behind,

especially the men.

People didn't want to leave

everything they owned
in the world, their luggage

that they were emigrating with
to the new world.

No one believed that the ship
was actually sinking.

- They're on this ship.
- They'll be safe.

It's unsinkable.

They'll be great.
They'll get there.

- Around 12:15 a.m.,
passengers and crew

are given another reason
to be hopeful.

- When she eventually
came to a halt,

Boxhall thought
he saw some lights.

He got the binoculars out,
looked over in that direction,

and saw the red and port
starboard lights of a ship,

which indicated that this ship

was coming directly
towards Titanic.

The captain came up,

and he also saw these lights
through binoculars.

- Distance is hard to judge
at sea,

but Captain Smith
saw it as being close.

- And this ship is
the bowl of their salvation.

They invest everything in this.

And maybe people shrink back
from the boats.

And maybe that plays a role
in the fact

that many of the early boats
left ill-filled

and that people went
to their deaths as a result.

- With the clock
ticking off the two hours

shipbuilder Thomas Andrews
had predicted it would take

for the Titanic to sink,

the pressure to get lifeboats
launched is intense.

- They watched as number-12 boat
went down.

And as it was going down,
my mother could see

that that boat was half-empty.

You could've got more than
20 people in there, she said.

While she was looking up,
she saw a light,

a bright light in the distance.

♪♪

She said, "Look!"

That light, that ship
is coming to our rescue."

- And now they're
asking themselves,

"Do I need to trust my life
to this wooden cockle shell"

that's about to go down
into a crevasse of depth

on a dark night
when we might be lost?

When the ship might steam
later off to New York

"leaving us behind?"

- It was 70 to 80 feet
down to the water.

And then there was the matter
of getting into the boat,

which wasn't just
right next to the side.

It would certainly,
you know, cause you to think,

"I'm much safer
on the deck here,

and we'll just wait till theship
arrives and we'll be okay."

- As the first lifeboats
reach the icy waters,

the mystery ship can
still be seen in the distance.

- Must have been terrified
of what was going to happen

and whether that ship
was gonna come near them.

- The mighty vessel
is taking on seawater.

Officer Boxhall
and the telegraph operators

continue to reach out to
the ship seen off the port bow.

- The ship seen from the
Titanic was close enough

for the Titanic's officers
to use a Morse lamp.

- The Morse lamp
and the Marconi system

were both operated on Morse,
invented by Samuel Morse,

in the middle
of the 19th century,

except it took longer
for a Morse lamp

because you had to have
a long show for a dash...

and then needed a shorter pulse
for a dot.

Whereas if you had a key...

[ Tapping code ]

...you were pulsing it out

much faster
then using the long form.

- Who actually sent
and received these messages?

When the Titanic sank,
it was Officer Boxhall.

He estimated the distance
about 5 miles.

- They were using the lamp,

and they thought they were
communicating with the ship.

Of course, they were desperate
but still think that they felt

that they had some some hope
of raising a light.

- Boxhall said
he'd asked for the rockets

to be brought up to the deck.

And they started
to fire them off.

[ Explosion and sizzle ]

- Rockets were being fired
about every 5 minutes.

But in those days,
rockets used to do that

with other ships
as an identification.

It wasn't a distress signal
at all.

- Witnesses, crew, survivors
have said

that they had seen the ship
on the horizon

that should have come
to the rescue that didn't.

♪♪

♪♪

- To Captain Smith,
it seems impossible

for the unresponsive ship

to have missed
or ignored the rockets,

the flashing Morse lamps,

and the S.O.S. messages
pulsing through the night.

But it remains
far off in the distance.

It isn't coming.

The Californian's
captain, Stanley Lord,

is a dour-faced man who looks
much older than his 35 years,

the very antithesis
of a rock-star captain.

At 10:20 p.m.,
the Californian encounters an ice field,

and Captain Lord decides
to stop the ship until morning

when he can determine
the safest passage.

- Evans switched off his
apparatus, and, unfortunately,

he never again
went to his machine

until somewhere after 5:00
in the morning.

♪♪

- Titanic's

officers anticipate

the loading process
will be chaotic

and that pandemonium
will ultimately set in.

[ Passengers shouting ]

Before leaving the bridge,
they are issued revolvers.

[ Passengers shouting ]

- The Titanic was in trouble.

The lifeboats
were being prepared.

The sound of boats
being deployed outward

on the ship's davits.

Ropes squealing and pulleys
and all kinds of confusion.

And noise from
the passengers themselves,

in many cases
who had come out on deck

having absolutely no idea
what they were going to do

or what the ship
was going to do.

So we have this tremendous
babble of voices.

- There's some bad sounds here,

and you're realizing
for the first time

that you are going to descend
70 feet to the water.

- People were beginning to panic.

[ Passengers shouting ]

♪♪

- Far below,
in the belly of the beast,

there was a grim procession
of steerage men

coming from forward
where they were housed.

They were shunting and grumblingtowards
the stern of the ship...

then ascend to the deck
that they have been allocated,

which is the shelter deck, aft.

And from there, they must look
up, and they see the boats.

But they know that those areboats
that don't belong to them.

There are no boats

at the shelter deck level
where they are.

- Some will have no choice
but to jump from the decks.

Many won't survive the fall.

- And there, a kind of
a hidden flaw in the design

of these life jackets
manifested itself.

If you jumped,
these cork panels,

both in front of you
and in back of you,

would rise up under your chin...

and very probably
break your neck.

- If you have self-possession
enough to gather your senses,

you are now
in the horrible position...

And somebody has put you
in that position...

Of realizing
you have to wait a full hour

before your appointment
with a bone-chilling death.

♪♪

♪♪

- I think that the captain

made the correct decision
at the time,

because he knew
what situation he was in.

- Titanic

was a ship that was sinking.

It was sending flares
900 foot into the air.

It was trying to Morse the ship.

The passengers,
the crew could see the ship.

- It's possible the Titanic's
reputation of being unsinkable

keeps the mystery ship
that's seen on the horizon

from coming to her rescue.

- Whether the mystery ship
thought Titanic would not sink,

whether it thought that Titanic
was sort of gonna stay afloat.

AndTitanic

was obviously
portrayed as being unsinkable.

It was its own lifeboat.

Why would he put his ship
in danger

to a ship
that wasn't gonna sink?

- The master of vessel would be
required to render assistance

to another vessel at sea,

even if that vessel
was an enemy vessel,

to the extent
that it was practical to do so

without endangering
your own vessel.

Now, that leads us,
of course, to the discussion

about whether
going into an ice field

that has already claimed
one vessel

would be a prudent
course of action.

- Scattered around the now
bow-down sinking behemoth,

the lanterns in the lifeboatscan
be seen bobbing in the dark,

certainly visible
to the lurking ship.

Yet, they are ignored.

- A couple of officers
decided that these lifeboats

went their way
had to have lanterns.

And a lamp trimmer
called Samuel Hemming

went down to the forecastle
and fetched lanterns...

Hurricane lights
about so high...

And handed them individually
into each lifeboat.

- As lifeboats are lowered
and float away,

panic and the fight for survival
set in aboard the Titanic.

[ Passengers shouting,
water splashing ]

- Late in the evening,
you actually see evidence

of the crowds pushing forward
towards the lifeboats.

It got so bad that the crew
actually had to form a circle,

locking their arms,

and allowing only women
and children to come through.

- And now there's real panic
on the way.

Passengers trying
to climb into lifeboats

are told to get out
or to face being shot.

- One of the men
in the group said,

"There's nothing
for you now here, lad.

It's every man for himself.
You best jump. Good luck."

Um...

But the attraction of the boat,
which still had lights on,

was far more comforting thanlooking
at the black, icy water.

And where would he swim to?

♪♪

- People were throwing things
over the side.

There were barrels, doors,
everything that could float.

They were jumping over.

♪♪

- Still visible
from the lifeboats,

the lights of the mystery ship
start to fade,

leaving the desperate Titanic
passengers nowhere to go,

abandoned.

- Those lifeboat lanterns

were snuffed out one by one,
I feel sure...

as people inside those boats
realized

with the slumping and sinking
and loss of the RMS Titanic

that soon
a thrashing horde of swimmers

would be on their way
to their lifeboat.

[ People shouting ]

♪♪

♪♪

- What we know of the ships
in the area,

it seems like the Titanic

was on the eastern side
of the field of ice,

and some of the other ships
were on that western field,

and the western field
was apparently

just simply thicker
and more visible

and was dangerous.

- Which, again, would demonstrate

that this ship was
not the Californian,

because we believe
the Californian

was more than 20 miles away
during this time.

- There were other ships
in the area,

and there were other suspects
for the mystery ship.

Mount Temple

was one.

The captain of the Mount
Temple was told by his company

not to go into the ice field
under any account,

otherwise, his ship,

he would be held personallyaccountable
for any monies lost.

- The Mount Temple was bound west
for Saint John, New Brunswick,

in the Canadian Maritimes
built in 1901.

She was always a workaday ship.
That was her role.

She was to ferry immigrants.

She was of 8,790 tons,

some 6,600 tons net,

in comparison to the Titanic,

about just under
8 times smaller.

She had four masts,
single funnel, yellow.

There wasn't much luxury
orprestige about the Mount Temple.

- James Henry Moore is
master of the Mount Temple.

At 52 years old,
with 13 years as captain,

he is well-seasoned,

a company man working for
the Canadian Pacific Line,

sailing with
the specific instructions

not to cross the ice,
but to go around it.

- He had more passengers
on board the Mount Temple

than the Titanic did.

So much for the idea of the
Titanic

being the wonder ship,

Ship of Dreams, the largest.

She certainly wasn't
the most filled that night.

TheMount Temple
would have won that award.

She had some 1,400
in her steerage alone.

Captain Moore
was taking no chances,

unlike the steaming,
charging Titanic

which had been heading
at 22 to 23 knots

towards an ice field.

- We're not gonna go in
and imperil our own ship

and risk our own lives

and the lives of our passengers
to go deeper into an ice field

that has already damaged
the greatest ship ever built.

- The Mount Temple got

the Titanic's distress
signals that night.

Her operator,
John Oscar Durrant,

was staying up late
when he heard this dread news

flashed out to the ether
that the Titanic was sinking.

- There were rules that
were given to these captains

as to what they did in ice,

and at that time,
you answered to your boss.

- In his own ledger of messages
received and transmitted,

Durrant writes
that he tried to reply,

but the Titanic
could not hear him.

I say "received and
transmitted," but, in fact,

a curious feature of this
saga is that the Mount Temple

never transmitted a further
wireless message that night.

- Observing the unfolding horror,

the mystery ship ignores
Titanic's

pleas for help,

but remains visible
from the lifeboats and decks.

- Boxhall could see not only mast
headlights, but green and red.

He could even see portholes
in her hull.

How tempting that prospect
of salvation must have been.

- The fate of the remaining
passengers and crew

aboard the Titanic is sealed...

They will go down with the ship.

- The first boat
goes off at 12:45,

and by 2:20 a.m.,
the Titanic sinks.

And those last two boats
that leave the Titanic

literally float off the ship
as it goes down.

♪♪

- We have evidence from
the passengers who went out

in the lifeboats...

They were speaking
about her eight decks of light,

eight decks
one on top of the other.

She was festooned with light.

- The mystery ship,
and the passengers

in the ill-fated liner's
lifeboats,

witness the Titanic's remains
sinking to the ocean floor.

♪♪

- And they withdrew their oars,
and they just watched

as the Titanic was
slowly sinking.

♪♪

♪♪

- One lady in the boat said,
"By God, it's gone.

Just like that,
the Titanic's gone!"

♪♪

- How could any ship
leave a ship,

especially of Titanic's
size, in distress?

Nobody can explain it,
and I don't know if anybody ever will.

- When they're on the lifeboat
waiting for rescue,

he said the screams
and the cries were awful.

[ People screaming in distance ]

He could do nothing to help.

They couldn't help anybody.

But as the hours went on,

the worse than those cries
for help was the silence,

when they knew those people
had lost their struggle.

- The saddest number
of that night is that

although Titanic hadlifeboat
space for 1,178 people,

there were nearly 500 seats
that were sent away empty.

♪♪

♪♪

- As dawn breaks, Evans,

theCalifornian's
telegraph operator,

hears Titanic's distress
cries from hours before

and alerts Captain Lord.

The captain
immediately readies his ship

and sets course for the location
given in the S.O.S. message.

- This position
was to the south and west

of where the
Californian was stopped.

- Hours earlier,
the nearby Carpathia

set course for the Titanic,
posting additional lookouts

and sailing full speed
through the ice field.

At 4:00 a.m.,
lifeboats are spotted

nowhere near
the reported S.O.S. position.

♪♪

♪♪

- Lord went first west

and to the site, to the point

where the distress signals
were reportedly from.

He realized that there was...

He was in the wrong position

and actually had to go back

through the ice field again

at full speed to the Carpathia

where they were picking
the lifeboats up.

On the way, he actually passed
a stationary Mount Temple,

who was not making any effort
to go to Titanic's aid.

- Captain Lord arrived
at the Carpathia

right around 8:30 a.m.
when they were getting

the last of the survivors,

but he exchanged messages with
the captain of the Carpathia

and said he would stay and
search for any other survivors,

which he did
for another good two hours.

- But he finds none.

Meanwhile, without word or
aid from the Mount Temple,

the 700-plus survivors
of the Titanic

sail to New York City
on board the Carpathia.

The Californian
carries on to Boston,

and the Mount Temple
steams home to Canada...

while in New York,
an inquest into the sinking

must be initiated.

Someone has to be blamed.

And Senator Alden Smith
will see to it.

- It is remarkable to think
that the hearings,

the American hearings,

began the day following
the docking of the ship.

This is an unheard-of speed
on the part of any legislature

to get to an inquiry so quickly.

♪♪

- The launching of the American
inquiry was probably reasonable

in the circumstances,
considering that this was

ultimately
an American-owned vessel,

although British-flagged,

considering that
many of the passengers

that lost their lives
on board were American,

considering that the vessel
was bound

for the United States
of America.

- The U.S. inquiry begins
in New York on April 19th,

just four days
after the sinking.

The Smith Inquiry,
which can apportion blame

but not render consequences,

calls 80 witnesses
to determine who is at fault.

Based on the testimony,
the committee quickly concludes

the Californian
was the only ship

the Titanic crew and
passengers could have seen,

and Captain Lord
comes under suspicion.

- Captain Lord had been
interviewed by the inquiry

as a witness to assist them
in their findings,

and then they very soon
honed in on him

and on his own ship's
responsibility

and alleged inactions.

- The fact that they were
concentrating on Lord

meant that they weren't
concentrating on other things

that obviously might be
to the detriment

of the White Star Line.

- As soon as something
is decided by officialdom,

then most people
are willing to go with that

and not to look beyond it.

- Captain Lord's,
you know, situation

is that he was probably
the wrong man

at the wrong place
at the wrong time.

♪♪

- Steaming from the reported
sinking site of the Titanic,

Captain Moore got
the Mount Temple

to the docks of Saint John.

- She made her landfall.

The ropes were thrown ashore
and secured to capstones.

She berthed normally.

But she was already a ship

that was seething
with rumor and dissension.

A lot of anger on board
about the alleged happenings

on the night the
Titanic went down.

- After disembarking
on April 19th,

many of Mount Temple's
crew and passengers

seize the opportunity
to tell their stories.

Curiously, Mount Temple's
logbook contains no mention

of the details
in the passengers' accounts.

- Despite the fact
that they had come across

an extraordinary incident,

there's no mention at all made
in the log of the Mount Temple

for anything after
April the 14th, 1912.

That's the fateful Sunday.

There's something even morestrange
about that official log.

There are pages missing
in the Mount Temple log,

and it looks as if
it's been re-stitched,

as if pages
have been introduced.

- The mystery of the missing
notes in the ship's log

is compounded
by an additional detail,

obviously added later,
discovered in the Marconi log.

- Why this additional detail

that didn't seem to be there
originally was added,

particularly after a casualty
has happened

and people are investigating
as to why it happened,

it is a question mark as to
why did this occur, who did it,

and what was the motivation
in doing it?

It does make you wonder why
any logbook would be altered

after

the casualty occurs.

In my own practice in advising
the ship-owner clients,

I would say that
you don't go back

and try to change
entries in the logbook

that have already been made.

- Dr. Friedrich Quitzrau

takes his shocking account
to the press

and details what happened
on board the Mount Temple

as the Titanic sank.

- Dr. Quitzrau told
the Toronto Star

that the Mount Temple had
been in sight of the Titanic,

had turned to her aid,
had reached the ice field,

and had seen the Titanic,
the hull of the ship herself.

And he said the captain
had lost his nerve,

had failed to enter
the ice field.

The journalists were astounded
at this story,

and naturally they sent
to Saint John offering comment

to Captain Moore, who was there,

and he cabled back
a furious denunciation.

♪♪

- On the same day,
in two countries,

Dr. Quitzrau's statements
in Toronto

would be substantiated...

First, at the U.S.
inquiry by Titanic officer Boxhall,

and in Canada,

as the Mount Temple
crew's claims emerged,

two them particularly damning.

- One of them was the ship's cook
who said that the Mount Temple

could see the hull
of the Titanic

and could hear the noises...

The lowering of lifeboats,

the cries of passengers,
he said,

could even see lifeboats
in the water.

- Meanwhile, there was an
officer, Arthur Henry Notley,

who left the Mount
Temple, as well,

as soon as she made landfall.

- Third Officer Arthur
Notley of the Mount Temple

was so incensed
at what went on in that ship

that he refused
to serve in it any longer.

- As the U.S. inquiry
pushes forward,

Senator Smith never pauses
to consider the reports

from the Mount Temple
passengers and crew.

His keen focus remains
on the Californian,

and he calls
her captain and crew

to testify about what they saw
and heard that night.

- The Californian men testified

that they saw rockets
towards the southeast.

The S.O.S.
position from the Californian's

computed position
was to the southwest.

- By accepting that the Titanic's
reported position was correct,

the unwitting admission
of seeing rockets

becomes the foundation
of Senator Smith's case

for putting the blame and shame
on Captain Lord.

- When he was called
to the inquiry,

I don't think he had
any significant knowledge

that he was going to be grilled
or scapegoated as he was.

- He was already being vilified
in the press

as being master
of the mystery ship,

which was taken to be
theCalifornian.

- The news traveled,

and prior to the commencement
of the British inquiry,

it is clear
Senator Smith determined

that if Lord had come to
the rescue of the Titanic,

1,500 lives
would not have been lost.

- The British inquiry followed
on from the American inquiry.

You know,
why reinvent the wheel?

They just took
whatever they had found

and used it
in their own inquiry.

- The British hearings
follow suit,

discounting and ignoring the
Mount Temple's

possible role,

while targeting the
Californian's Captain Lord.

♪♪

- "Had she done so,
she might have saved many,

if not all of the lives
that were lost."

[ Rockets exploding ]

- If the Californian saw rockets

to the southeast,

the Titanic could not have been

where it said it was.

Both details cannot be true.

♪♪

- The actual positions
of the Titanic

and the Californian
weren't known precisely.

The Titanic's position
was an estimated position,

and the Californian
had been stopped,

so she had time
to take star sights

and get an accurate position.

- The American investigation

disregards the Californian's
reported position,

choosing to believe
it saw the rockets

to the southwest, a location
Titanic

never reached.

This decision allows
those in charge of the hearings

to conclude the mystery ship
that abandoned the Titanic

could only have been
theCalifornian.

- You can add it
to the bucket of whitewash

that was pulled over
the whole inquiry.

- The Titanic's
position was proved

after they found the wreck
to be miles out.

[ Rockets exploding ]

- So it was the British inquiry
that had it wrong,

not the Californian
officers observing.

- And there were other details,

witnessed from the deck of the
Titanic that night in 1912,

that should have ruled
out the Californian

as the mystery ship.

♪♪

- Fourth Officer Boxhall
saw masthead lights,

two of which
were close together.

- To the trained maritime eye
of Boxhall,

the mystery ship's
most visible characteristic

were those two front masts.

This singular description
of the ship lay dormant

until an obscure note
in the World War I files

of the German National Archives,
the Bundesarchiv,

corroborates
Boxhall's statement.

- We have two mariners separated

by less than five years
in the distance of time

seeing a ship

and describe the most
noticeable feature about her

as being the fact
that the masts appear

to be very close together.

♪♪

- On December 16, 1916,
a German navy merchant raider

sighted the Mount
Temple in the Atlantic.

It is this fateful
chance encounter in history

that will expose
the mystery ship.

- When she saw the
Mount Temple approaching

that December of 1916,
her course was described

in what's known
as the Kriegstagebuch,

which is a German war diary,

the war diary of the SMS Moewe,

the German raider that sank
theMount Temple.

- The war diary
was submitted here,

to the Imperial Navy Office
in Berlin.

- And up here,
we have the words "Ganz Geheim."

"Very secret" or "top secret."

And in here is mention
of the Mount Temple.

And as she's being watched,
theMount Temple,

through field glasses,
the captain notes...

And it's here...
That she had masts

that were very close together,

exactly the same phrase
used by Boxhall.

"Ganz dicht beieinander."

The same phrase.
The masts "close together."

♪♪

- The German notes
match Boxhall's description

of the ship
he saw four years earlier

from the decks of
the sinking Titanic.

It's another piece
of circumstantial evidence

supporting the idea

that the mystery ship was
really the Mount Temple.

♪♪

And on September 1, 1985,
the wreck of the Titanic

is found
at her true final position,

vindicating Captain Lord.

♪♪

- When they discovered the ship,
the wreck of the ship,

Lord's calculations,
his navigation all matched.

And they eventually
realized that the Titanic,

the signals were wrong,

that his navigational skills
were spot on

and he was where he said he was.

- It was in the 1992 MAIB report
where they again reexamined it

with the finding
that the Titanic

was not where people hadoriginally
believed it had been,

and therefore,
to the suggestion that the Californian

was not this mystery ship
that the passengers

on board the Titanic saw

when they were...
When the ship was sinking.

- The arrogance documented
by two inquires

that the master of the Titanic
could not have been wrong

falsely maligned a superior
captain for a lifetime.

- This really is Captain Lord

signed, sealed, and delivered
as sacrificial victim.

Scapegoat.

- Captain Lord bore his
sort of cross with dignity,

you know, all his life.

- The responsibility
for the Titanic disaster

was the officers of the Titanic.

They were the ones
running the ship at that time.

I don't think we can lay
the blame on any other ship.

- Captain Lord was one
of the great scapegoats

in maritime history.

- Two captains... Lord and Moore.

One now finally vindicated,
and one understood to be guilty.

But of what?
Simply being the mystery ship?

Moore's decision
that he could not safely

render aid to the Titanic

does not make him responsible
for those who died that night.

Captain Smith, who received no
blame from the British inquiry

and had a statue
erected in his honor,

was and is
ultimately responsible

for the loss of the Titanic
and the 1,500 deaths.

- The 1,500 people that lost
their lives in the Titanic

did not lose their lives
entirely in vain.

The legacy of what's
happened from the Titanic

is the reforms
that have happened

in terms of safety of life
at sea.

So probably tens of thousands
or more have been saved

over the 108 years
since it happened

because of the reforms
that were made to maritime law

as a result of it.

-♪ It was sad, it was sad

♪ It was sad, so so sad

♪ It was sad when that
great ship went down ♪