Rare Titanic photos and letters

[raju]

Rare Titanic photos and letters

This thread is dedicated to one of the most talked about disaster of modern world, with real Pictures and Stories

[raju]

TITANIC :The complete story

RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City, and sank on 15 April 1912, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

The largest passenger steamship in the world at the time, the Olympic-class RMS Titanic was owned by the White Star Line and constructed at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. After setting sail for New York City on 10 April 1912 with 2,223 people on board, she hit the iceberg four days into the crossing, at 11:40 pm on 14 April 1912, and sank at 2:20 am the following morning. The high casualty rate resulting from the sinking was due in part to the fact that, although complying with the regulations of the time, the ship carried lifeboats for only 1,178 people. A disproportionate number of men died due to the "women and children first" protocol that was enforced by the ship's crew.

Titanic was designed by experienced engineers, using some of the most advanced technologies and extensive safety features of the time. The sinking of a passenger liner on her maiden voyage, the high loss of life and media frenzy over Titanic's famous victims, the legends about the sinking, the resulting changes in maritime law, and the discovery of the wreck have all contributed to the enduring interest in Titanic.

[raju]

Name: RMS Titanic
Owner: White Star flaga.svg White Star Line
Port of registry: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Liverpool
Route: Southampton to New York City
Ordered: 17 September 1908
Builder: Harland and Wolff, Belfast
Yard number: 401
Laid down: 31 March 1909
Launched: 31 May 1911
Christened: Not christened
Completed: 31 March 1912
Maiden voyage: 10 April 1912
In service: 1912
Identification: Radio Callsign "MGY"
UK Official Number: 131428
Yard number: 401
Fate: Sank on 15 April 1912 after hitting an iceberg in northwest Atlantic Ocean

[raju]

Titanic C Deck

The Titanic's design and construction featured luxury and opulence. There was a telephone system, a lending library and a large barber shop on the ship.The First-class section had a swimming pool, a gymnasium, squash court, Turkish bath, Electric bath and a Verandah Cafe.

Gymnasium aboard Titanic


First-class common rooms were adorned with ornate wood panelling, expensive furniture and other decorations while the third class general room had pine panelling and sturdy teak furniture. The Café Parisien offered cuisine for the first-class passengers, with a sunlit veranda fitted with trellis decorations.

[raju]

Titanic Turbine Rotor


The ship incorporated technologically advanced features for the period, including three electric elevators in first class and one in second class. She also had an extensive electrical system powered by steam-driven generators and ship-wide wiring for electric lights and two Marconi radios. One 5,000-watt set was manned by two Marconi Company operators working in shifts sending and receiving passenger messages. First-class passengers paid a hefty fee for such amenities; the most expensive one-way trans-Atlantic passage was £875 (equivalent to £64,204 as of 2011), or $4,375 ($99,237 as of 2011).

[raju]

Titanic on her way after the near-collision with SS New York. On the left can be seen Oceanic and New York.

The vessel began her maiden voyage from Southampton, bound for New York City on 10 April 1912, with Captain Edward J. Smith in command. As Titanic left her berth, her wake caused the liner SS New York, which was docked nearby, to break away from her moorings, whereupon she was drawn dangerously close (about four feet) to Titanic before a tugboat towed New York away. The incident delayed departure for about half an hour. After crossing the English Channel, Titanic stopped at Cherbourg, France, to board additional passengers and stopped again the next day at Queenstown (known today as Cobh), Ireland. As harbour facilities at Queenstown were inadequate for a ship of her size, Titanic had to anchor off-shore, with small boats, known as tenders, ferrying the embarking and disembarking passengers to and from the ship. When she finally set out for New York, there were 2,240 people aboard.

[raju]

Titanic embarking on its first and last voyage on April 10, 1912

John Coffey, a 23-year-old stoker, jumped ship at Queenstown by stowing away on a tender and hiding amongst mailbags destined for shore. A native of the town, he had probably joined the ship with this intention, but afterwards he said that the reason he had smuggled himself off the liner was that he held a foreboding about the voyage. He later signed on to join the crew of Mauretania.

Notable TITANIC Passengers

On the maiden voyage of Titanic some of the most prominent people of the day were travelling in first class. Among them were millionaire John Jacob Astor IV and his wife Madeleine Force Astor, industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim, Macy's owner Isidor Straus and his wife Ida, Denver millionairess Margaret "Molly" Brown (known afterward as the "Unsinkable Molly Brown" due to her efforts in helping other passengers while the ship sank), Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon and his wife, couturière Lucy (Lady Duff-Gordon), George Dunton Widener, his wife Eleanor, and son Harry, cricketer and businessman John Borland Thayer with his wife Marian and their seventeen-year-old son Jack, journalist William Thomas Stead, the Countess of Rothes, United States presidential aide Archibald Butt, author and socialite Helen Churchill Candee, author Jacques Futrelle and his wife May and their friends, Broadway producers Henry and Rene Harris and silent film actress Dorothy Gibson among others. Banker J. P. Morgan was scheduled to travel on the maiden voyage, but cancelled at the last minute. Travelling in first class aboard the ship were White Star Line's managing director J. Bruce Ismay and the ship's builder Thomas Andrews, who was on board to observe any problems and assess the general performance of the new ship.

[raju]

One of the Titanic lifeboats being drained of water aboard the Carpathia.

For her maiden voyage, Titanic carried a total of 20 lifeboats of three different varieties:

Lifeboats 1 and 2: emergency wooden cutters: 25 ft (7.62 m) 2 in long by 7 ft (2.13 m) 2 in wide by 3 ft (0.91 m) 2 in deep; capacity 326.6 cubic feet (9.25 m3) or 40 people.
Lifeboats 3 to 16: wooden lifeboats: 30' long by 9'1" wide by 4' deep; capacity 655.2 cubic feet (18.55 m3) or 65 people.
Lifeboats A, B, C and D: Englehardt "collapsible" lifeboats: 27'5" long by 8' wide by 3' deep; capacity 376.6 cubic feet (10.66 m3) or 47 people.

Almost all of the lifeboats were stowed securely to the boat deck, connected to davits by ropes. All of the lifeboats, including the collapsibles, were placed on the ship by the giant gantry crane at Belfast. Those on the starboard side were odd-numbered 1–15 from bow to stern, while those on the port side were even-numbered 2–16 from bow to stern. Lifeboats 1 and 2, the "emergency cutters", were kept swung out, hanging from the davits, ready for immediate use while collapsible lifeboats C and D were stowed on the boat deck immediately in-board of boats 1 and 2 respectively. Collapsible lifeboats A and B were stored on the roof of the officers' quarters, on either side of number 1 funnel. However there were no davits mounted on the officers' quarters to lower collapsibles A and B, and they weighed a considerable amount empty. During the sinking, lowering collapsibles A and B proved difficult as it was first necessary to slide the boats on timbers and/or oars down to the boat deck. During this procedure, collapsible B capsized and subsequently floated off the ship upside down.





In the design stage, Carlisle suggested that Titanic use a new, larger type of davit, manufactured by the Welin Davit & Engineering Co Ltd, each of which could handle four lifeboats. Sixteen sets of these davits were installed, giving Titanic the ability to carry 64 wooden lifeboats—a total capacity of over 4,000 people, compared with Titanic's total carrying capacity of about 3,600[citation needed] passengers and crew. However, the White Star Line, while agreeing to the new davits, decided that only 16 wooden lifeboats (16 being the minimum required by the Board of Trade, based on Titanic's projected tonnage and passenger manifests from Olympic's 1911 voyages which were usually no more than 1100 people per passage) and four collapsibles (folding lifeboats) would be carried, which could accommodate only 1,178 people (one-third of Titanic's total capacity). At the time, the Board of Trade's regulations required British vessels over 10,000 tons to carry 16 lifeboats with a capacity of 5,500 cubic feet (160 m3), plus enough capacity in rafts and floats for 75% (50% for vessels with watertight bulkheads) of that in the lifeboats. In principle, the White Star line could even have made use of the exception for vessels with watertight bulkheads, which would have reduced the legal requirements to a capacity of 756 persons only.Therefore, the White Star Line actually provided much more lifeboat accommodation than was legally required.




Since 1894, when the largest passenger ship under consideration was the Cunard Line's 13,000 ton Lucania, the Board of Trade had made no provision to increase the existing scale regarding the number of required lifeboats for larger ships, such as the 46,000 ton Titanic. Sir Alfred Chalmers, nautical adviser to the Board of Trade from 1896 to 1911, had considered the matter of adjusting the scale "from time to time", but because he not only assumed that experienced sailors would need to be carried "uselessly" aboard ship only to lower and man the extra lifeboats, but also anticipated the difficulty in getting away a greater number than 16 boats in any emergency, he "did not consider it necessary to increase [the scale]".

Carlisle told the official inquiry that he had discussed the matter with J. Bruce Ismay, White Star's Managing Director, but in his testimony Ismay denied that he had ever heard of this, nor did he recollect noticing such provision in the plans of the ship he had inspected.[19][36] Ten days before the maiden voyage Axel Welin, the maker of Titanic's lifeboat davits, announced that his machinery had been installed because the vessel's owners were aware of forthcoming changes in official regulations. However, Harold Sanderson, vice-president of the International Mercantile Marine and former general manager of the White Star Line, denied that this had been the intention.

[raju]

An original 3" x 5 1/2" photo, taken from the deck of the Carpathia, shows the icy ocean

On the night of Sunday, 14 April 1912, the moon was not visible in the clear sky (being two days before new moon), the temperature had dropped to near freezing, and the ocean was flat calm. Captain Smith, in response to iceberg warnings received via wireless over the preceding few days, had drawn up a new course which took the ship slightly further southward. That Sunday at 1:45 pm,[note 3] a message from the steamer Amerika warned that large icebergs lay in Titanic's path, but because wireless radio operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were employed by Marconi, and paid primarily to relay messages to and from the passengers, they were not focused on relaying "non-essential" ice messages to the bridge. Later that evening, another report of numerous large icebergs, this time from Mesaba, also failed to reach the bridge.

An original 3" x 5 1/2" photo, taken from the deck of the Carpathia, shows an iceberg in the distance.

At 11:40 pm, while sailing about 400 miles (640 km) south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee spotted a large iceberg directly ahead of the ship. Sounding the ship's bell three times, Fleet telephoned Sixth Officer James Moody on the bridge exclaiming, "Iceberg, right ahead!". First Officer Murdoch, hearing Moody repeat the message, gave the helmsman, Robert Hichens, the order "hard-a-starboard", using the traditional tiller order for an abrupt turn to port (left).

An original 3" x 5 1/2" photo, taken from the deck of the Carpathia, shows the icy ocean

Moody, stationed behind the helmsman, confirmed to Murdoch that his order had been carried out correctly. Murdoch adjusted the engines (ordering through the telegraph for either "full reverse" or "stop" of the engines; survivor testimony on this conflicts)

[raju]

Photograph of an iceberg in the vicinity of RMS Titanic's sinking taken on 15 April 1912 by the chief steward of the liner Prinz Adalbert who stated the berg had red anti-fouling paint of the kind found on the hull from below Titanic's waterline

The iceberg which the titanic struck causing it to sink. Rumors of paint being seen on the iceberg were circulated but never confirmed.

The ship made its fatal collision at an estimated 37 seconds after Fleet sighted the berg. The iceberg scraped the ship's starboard (right) side, buckling the hull in several places and popping out rivets below the waterline over a length of 299 feet (90 m). This opened the first six compartments (the forward peak tank, the three forward holds and Boiler Rooms Nos. 5 & 6) to the sea; the ship was only designed to remain afloat with just the first four compartments flooded. The entire impact had lasted approximately 10 seconds.