Sinking of Titanic
Deafening Silence
It was not the collision but the silence when Titanic’s engines were stopped which alerted those passengers still awake to the fact that something was amiss. A sudden panic did not break out, probably because passengers felt they were in a floating town on a calm sea on a starry night. But the ship was holed and down below, the sea was pouring in and boiler rooms were under threat.
Before long, telegraphs were ringing, watertight doors were coming down, the firemen and engineers were struggling to keep the steam pressure up, the pumps working and the lights lit.
Captain Smith sent for Thomas Andrews who went below to inspect the damage. His verdict was as chilling as the night around them. The ship could not keep afloat for more than a couple of hours.
- View video footage of what survivors of the Titanic saw on the night of the disaster
A Grave Situation
Time passed before passengers realised the seriousness of the situation and their holiday appearance - dressed in pyjamas or kimonos, tuxedos or evening gowns, or carpet slippers – added to the unreality of the scene, “like a play that was being enacted for entertainment,” as one survivor recalled. But it became deadly serious when the lifeboats were lowered, filled with women and children, or half-filled, as investigation later proved, and sometimes with men instead of women.
Panic
There was later evidence of panic on board and of some incompetence among the crew. Meanwhile, wireless messages of distress were sent out repeatedly from the Marconi shack, CQD, the general distress call and then the newly adopted SOS (Save Our Souls). They make poignant reading. The messages went on from a quarter past midnight, April 15th until 2.17.a.m. when Virginian heard Titanic call CQD and replied, but apparently to thin air. At 1.40a.m. Olympic had messaged from 500 miles away: “Am lighting up all possible boilers as fast as can”. But it was too late. Those in the lifeboats watched the ship tip and tilt, hang vertical and motionless for several minutes, her immense stern upright against the sky, then slide under until she vanished. Titanic foundered at 2.20a.m.