In every case, the people and institutions mentioned provided me with information or support—or both—of some kind, which makes me responsible for how I used it. If I have done so erroneously, the fault is entirely mine.
GLOSSARY
aft: referring to the rear or toward the rear of a ship.
after: also used to refer to the rear of the ship.
after deck: the section of upper deck aft of the superstructure.
amidships (midships): refers to the general area of the center of the ship.
astern: in the direction of the rear of the ship, or if in reference to a ship’s motion, going backward.
bosun: a contraction of boatswain (the term boatswain is never used, except by landlubbers); the bosun is the senior seaman on board a ship.
bow: the front of the ship.
bulkhead: a structural (i.e., load-bearing) wall in a ship. A nonstructural wall is called a partition.
collapsible: a now-obsolete form of lifeboat, which had a rigid wooden keel and collapsing (folding) canvas sides, which were held up by iron or steel stays. Collapsible boats were made redundant by the invention of inflatable life rafts.
condenser: a large machine that cools the steam that has passed through a ship’s engines and condenses it back into water, so that live steam is not being vented from the ship. Alternatively the water can be fed into the boilers again.
davit: a curved arm that supports a lifeboat while it is being filled, raised, or lowered. The lifeboat’s falls are connected to the davits by means of pulleys.
displacement: a measure of a ship’s size, expressed by how many tons of water she displaces when she is afloat; in order for a ship to float, the amount of water she displaces must be greater than the actual weight of the ship.
double-ended boiler: a boiler having fireboxes (furnaces) at both ends.
fall: the lines by which lifeboats are raised and lowered.
fantail: an open area at the very stern of a ship.
fo’c’s’le (forecastle): an ancient term used to denote the forward area of a ship in general, and often identifies the crew’s quarters in that area.
fore: a shortened form of forward.
foredeck: a raised section of deck at the forward end of a ship.
forepeak: the forwardmost compartment of a ship.
forward: toward the front of a ship.
funnel: the nautical term for a smokestack—properly speaking, ships never have smokestacks, only funnels.
gangway: a large double-width doorway in the side of a ship’s hull.
hawse pipe: an opening in the deck or hull of a ship through which mooring lines or anchor chains are passed.
keel: the very bottom of the ship; immensely strong, the keel is the main structural member of a ship’s hull.
knot: a unit of speed and distance; a knot in speed is 1.15 land miles per hour; a knot in distance is 2,000 yards.
lead line: a length of manila rope attached to a lead weight and marked off in feet and fathoms, used to determine water depth either inside or outside a ship.
masthead light: a white light carried high up on a ship’s mainmast, used along with sidelights to allow ships to determine each other’s bearing, course, and speed at night.
poop deck: a raised deck structure at the very stern of a ship.
port: the left side of a ship.
reciprocating engine: a steam-driven engine which has large pistons that are driven up and down by high-pressure steam, moving much like the pistons in an automobile motor, which turn the propeller by means of a crankshaft.
screw: another term for a propeller.
sidelight: a running light located at the side of a ship’s bridge; sidelights are red for port, green for starboard, and allow ships to determine each other’s bearing, course, and speed at night.
single-ended boiler: a boiler having fireboxes (furnaces) at only one end.
starboard: the right side of a ship.
stay: a heavy cable used to support a funnel or mast.
steerage: a common term for Third Class, originally referring to the location of the Third Class accommodations, which were located in the most cramped and undesirable parts of the ship, often around the steering gear.
stern: the rear of a ship.
superstructure: that part of the ship that is built on top of the hull, which is the actual load-bearing structure of the ship.
turbine: a type of marine engine that consists of a large rotor covered with blades onto which steam is directed, causing the rotor to turn, which then turns the propeller by means of a shaft.
upper deck(s): the deck or decks that are exposed to the open air, i.e., there are no decks built above them.
well deck: a section of an upper deck that sits at a slightly lower level than the deck area fore and aft of it. Usually found between the superstructure and the fore or after decks.
NOTES
CHAPTER ONE
1 John Malcolm Brinnin, The Sway of the Grand Saloon, 361; Don Lynch, Titanic, an Illustrated History,. 16, 19.
2 The Shipbuilder, Special Number, Midsummer 1911, 7-16; Brinnin, 362- 63 ; John Eaton and Charles Haas, Titanic. Triumph and Tragedy, 17-18.
3 Michael Davie, Titanic, the Life and Death of a Legend, 32; Triumph and Tragedy, 18.
4 Brinnin, 242-44; Davie, 115-18; Walter Lord, A Night to Remember, 82; Wynn Craig Wade, The Titanic, End of aDream, 32.
5 Brinnin, 316.
6 Humphrey Jordan, Mauretania, 18.
7 Brinnin, 325; Geoffrey Marcus, The Maiden Voyage, 31; Wilton J. Oldham, The Ismay Line, 365-88; Wade 34.
8 Colin Simpson, The Lusitania, 12-13; Wade, 33-34.
9 Brinnin, 322-23, 336-37; Simpson, 13-15.
10 A great deal of ruckus has been raised over the years about the name of the third ship. When launched she was given the name Britannic, an old and respected name in the White Star Fleet, and many historians have maintained that this was always intended to be the third sister’s name. But authoritative contemporary accounts, including New York Times, Scientific American, and Lloyd’s Register all identify the ship as the Gigantic. Moreover, at least one former manager at Harland and Wolff has gone on record saying that Gigantic was indeed the proposed name for the third sister. Most convincing of all though is that when taken together the three names, Olympic, Titanic, and Gigantic, all convey a sense of enormous power, size, and grandeur, something that Britannic, however dignified, does not—it just doesn’t fit. After the loss of the Titanic, when sheer size was no longer a drawing card for passengers, the more subdued Britannic was substituted for the name of the third vessel. White Star felt it best not to tempt fate again.
11 The Shipbuilder, 17-43; Thomas Bonsall, Titanic, 10-11; Lynch, 19-22; Triumph and Tragedy, 20-21.
12 The Engineer, 3 March 1910, 209-15; The Engineer, 4 March 1911, 678-81; Engineering, 26 May 1911, 678-81; The Shipbuilder, 19-43; Scientific American, Supplement #1850, 17 June 1911; 380-83; A Night to Remember, 36; The Night Lives On, 29-33; Triumph and Tragedy, 20-29.
13 A legend persists to this day in some parts of Ireland that the ship sank because of a “secret message” contained in her hull number, 3909-04: when viewed in a mirror, the number spells out the words NO POPE-provided some liberty is taken with the 4. The liner was doomed, so the legend goes, because of the number the heathen Protestants in Ulster assigned to her. Unfortunately for this theory, which would make good copy for the National Enquirer, the only numbers ever offcially assigned to the Titanic were Harland and Wolffs Hull No. 401, and her Board of Trade number, which was 131,428. The author wishes to thank Tommy McCluskey of Harland and Wolff and Bosun Matthew McLean of the British Merchant Marine (Ret.), for sharing this story.
14 Eighty years later, a popular myth would grow up around these plates, and the quality of the steel used to make them, when tests performed on samples of the plates would reveal that there were impurities in the steel. When compared with modern steels now required by shi
pping regulations, the Titanic’s hull plates were found to be brittle and subject to fracturing when struck. Some sources would imply that Harland and Wolff had used inferior-quality plating in order to save money, and that false economy would contribute to the loss of the Titanic. The truth, as is often the case, is far more mundane: metallurgy, though having made great strides in the half century since the mass production of steel had been developed, was still a far-from-precise science, and exactly how different impurities affected the molecular structure and physical properties of steel were imperfectly understood. In point of fact, the steel in the plates used to construct the Olympic, Titanic, and Gigantic was pretty much standard in the shipbuilding industry, and similarly impure steel could be found in the hull plates of almost every ship on the North Atlantic at the time.
15 Shan Bullock, Thomas Andrews, Shipbuilder, 17-21.
16 Bullock, 21-23.
17 Though the stories are today sometimes doubted by laymen, professional astronomers confirm that in the spring of 1910, when Halley’s comet missed striking the earth by less than a half-million miles, the night skies were indeed brightly illuminated by the comet’s tail. On some nights the light was almost bright enough to read by, and the weirdly glowing sky caused many people to believe that the end of the world was approaching.
18 The Engineer, 2 June 1911, 575; The Shipbuilder, 129-34; Bonsall, 12-13; Lynch, 22-23; Triumph and Tragedy, 20-29.
19 All technical details of the Titanic’s machinery are taken from The Shipbuilder, Special Number, Midsummer 1911.
20 The Shipbuilder, 68-69.
21 By way of contrast, the author questioned an agent for Cunard about the cost of a one-way passage in the finest suite available in the Queen Elizabeth II; the price was just over $15,000 for a four-day voyage.
22 All details of the Titanic’s accommodations are taken from The Shipbuilder, 69-107; John Maxtone-Graham, The Only Way to Cross, 121-28; Oldham, 238-45; The Night Lives On, 94-95.
23 Bonsall, 33; Triumph and Tragedy, 44-50; Wade, 38-39.
CHAPTER TWO
1 Lawrence Beesley, The Loss of the SS Titanic, 11; Marcus, 26.
2 The Night Lives On, 35.
3 John Keegan, 1914, Opening Moves, 3.
4 Marcus, 21-23.
5 Richard O’Connor, Down to Eternity, 35.
6 Although Arthur Ryerson didn’t know it, there was another Ryerson who would also be traveling on the Titanic: a dining saloon steward by the name of William E. Ryerson. The two men were distant cousins, though no one knows for sure if either man was aware the other was on board.
7 Marcus, 20; Wade, 141-42.
8 Walter Lord, The Good Years, 269; Lynch, 29-41; Marcus, 17-23, 35-36, 50-51; Tuchman, 245-47; Wade, 141-42.
9 Lynch, 29; Wade, 48.
10 There are few more enlightening experiences than visiting the coal mine at the Summerlea Industrial Park and Museum outside of Glasgow, Scotland. Located on the site of an old ironworks, there is a coal mine nearby, long abandoned but now restored as an educational exhibit. Here visitors are taken some forty feet underground and allowed to see firsthand the appalling conditions coal miners had to work under as late as the first quarter of the twentieth century. The author’s guide during his visit happened to be his father-in-law, James Lang of East Kilbride, a retired electrical fitter and amateur historian who had worked for several years at Summerlea on various restoration projects.
11 The Daily Mail, The Edinburgh Review, The Glasgow Herald, The Illustrated London News, The London Times, The Southhampton Times: coverage of the Coal Strike was continuous in these newspapers from the beginning of the strike to its settlement, in the case of the London papers due to their extensive circulation, in the others due to the direct effect the strike was having on local economies. Walter Lord, The Good Years, 320-30; William Manchester, The Last Lion, Vol. I, Visions of Glory, 61-74; Marcus, 23-24; Tuchman, 351-69.
12 Destination: Disaster, 68-69.
13 The Southhampton Times, 9, 10, 11 April 1912; Triumph and Tragedy, 55, 72; Wade, 45-46.
14 Brinnin, 375; Marcus, 37; Triumph and Tragedy, 71-72.
15 Charles Lightoller, The Titanic and Other Ships, 218-19.
16 The Shipbuilder, 125-26; A Night to Remember, 106; The Night Lives On, 83-84.
17 British Inquiry (Br. Inq.), Nos. 21280, 21281; The Night Lives On, 87-88, 89-90.
18 David Hutchings, R.M.S. Titanic, a Modern Legend, 21; A Night to Remember, 50.
19 Marcus, 91-92; Triumph and Tragedy, 73.
20 Marcus, 37; Triumph and Tragedy, 73-74.
21 J. A. Fletcher, Travelling Palaces, 139-40.
22 Beesley, 15-16; Marcus, 42; Triumph and Tragedy, 76.
23 Southampton Evening Echo, 21 June 1967; Southampton Times, 11 April 1912; Liberty Magazine, April 23, 1932; Logan Marshall, ed. The Sinking of the Titanic, 32; Hutchings, 21; Lightoller, 220; Lynch, 33-35; The Night Lives On, 36-37; Triumph and Tragedy, 76-77; Wade, 242-44.
24 In his book, The Loss of the SS Titanic, Lawrence Beesley maintains that the whistle blasts were actually sounded to signal to an Isle of Wight paddle steamer to get out of the Titanic’s way. Despite being a careful and dedicated researcher, Beesley was an incurable “wet blanket,” as well as something of a snob, to whom Captain Smith’s acknowledgment of Beken would be unthinkable. Actually, Smith saluting the photographer with the Titanic’s whistle was entirely in keeping with the captain’s nature.
25 Southampton Evening Echo, 21 June 1967; Southampton Times, 11 April 1912; Beesley, 22; Destination: Disaster, 84; Marcus, 46-47.
CHAPTER THREE
1 Br. Inq., No. 12326-12330; Marcus, 47-48; The Night Lives On, 43-44.
2 Bullock, 61-62; A Night to Remember, 33.
3 American Inquiry (Amer. Inq.), 72, 584-85.
4 Charles Pellegrino, Her Name, Titanic, 204-206; Triumph and Tragedy, 92-94.
5 Br. Inq., No. 12621-12623; Marcus, 51; The Night Lives On, 47-48.
6 Lightoller, 206.
7 Marcus, 81.
8 A Night to Remember, 37; Marcus, 39; Wade, 65.
9 Lightoller, 214; Brinnin, 364-65; Marcus, 39-41; A Night to Remember, 36-37; The Night Lives On, 38-41.
10 Destination: Disaster, 93-94; Marcus, 70-71; A Night to Remember, 52.
11 Estelle Stead, My Father, 342.
12 Lynch, 38; Marcus, 59-60.
13 A Night to Remember, 110; Destination: Disaster, 90-91; Lynch, 38; Triumph and Tragedy, 100-101.
14 Lynch, 39.
15 Destination: Disaster, 89-90; Triumph and Tragedy, 101.
16 Destination: Disaster, 89-90; Marcus, 60; Triumph and Tragedy, 101.
17 Marcus, 58.
18 Ibid., 58 and 81.
19 Amer. Inq., 220-21, 270-71, 369; Marcus, 83.
20 Hutchings, 28.
21 A Night to Remember, 110; Marcus, 30.
22 The Night Lives On, 48-49.
23 Col. Archibald Gracie, The Truth About the Titanic, 19-20.
24 Colliers, 4 May 1912, 10-14.
25 Gracie, 5-6, 10.
26 Colliers, 4 May 1912, 10-14.
27 Wade, 48.
28 Lynch, 40; Pellegrino, 181-82.
29 Lynch, 77; Marcus, 108.
30 A Night to Remember, 47; Lynch, 138.
31 Marcus, 105.
32 Gracie, 8-9; Marcus, 150; Triumph and Tragedy, 114.
33 Marcus, 106; Triumph and Tragedy, 114.
34 A legend that has persisted for decades about the Titanic’s maiden voyage is that Ismay was pressuring Captain Smith to make a record-breaking crossing. This is not true. However high-handed and arrogant his behavior might be, Ismay could not alter the laws of physics. The Olympic-class ships, which displaced over 46,000 tons, had engines generating some 55,000 shaft horsepower (shp), which were capable of driving the Olympic and Titanic at a maximum of 24 ½ knots. In contrast, the Lusitania and Mauretania, which at the time were routinely trading speed records, displaced only 33,000 tons, but were driven by turb
ines which generated 68,000 shp. This gave the two ships a top speed of 26½ to 27 knots, clearly speeds the Olympic or Titanic could never attain. Additionally, the Lusitania and Mauretania, besides being lighter and having more powerful engines, had much superior hull forms, thanks to Admiralty assistance with their designs, a feature which may have added as much as a knot to their top speed.
35 Am. Inq., 963-64; Br. Inq., No. 18828-18840; A Night to Remember, 82; Marcus, 116; The Night Lives On, 60.
36 Transcribed from the original in the possession of the Southhampton City Museums.
37 Marconigraph, June 1911; Karl Baarslag, SOS, 20 and 30.
38 A Night to Remember, 37; Lynch, 71-72; Baarslag, 24-46.
39 Amer. Inq., 393, 825, 963-64; Br. Inq., No. 8943, 15689, 16099, 16122, 16176, 18828-18840.
40 Br. Inq., No. 16791.
CHAPTER FOUR
1 Br. Inq., No. 17704-17709.
2 Amer. Inq., 963-64.
3 Br. Inq., No. 13611-13635; Lynch, 79-80; Triumph and Tragedy, 115.
4 Marcus, 109.
5 A Night to Remember, 178.
6 Beesley, 46-48; Lynch, 77-79; Marcus, 108; Triumph and Tragedy, 115.
7 Amer. Inq., 937; Br. Inq., No. 13707-13724, 16918-16922; Lightoller, 222-23; Triumph and Tragedy, 115.
8 Amer. Inq., 902; Br. Inq., No. 2401-2408, 13656-13671, 17250-17280.
Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic Page 38
