By Dallas Sherringham As an eight-year-old I sat in our local country cinema enthralled by the original-and arguably the best Titanic movie - called 'A Night to Remember'. Ths fact that it was made in large tank in an English studio using giant models and all the other tricks of 1950s postwar B&W movies never crossed my mind. Great actors like Kenneth More playing Great Characters in Dramatic stories was what British movies were all about. The rather laid back, lame title is because it was based on a book by Walter Lord. The movie still rates 7.9/10 on IMDB and won a Golden Globe for best English langaguage Foreign Film. So, moving on, I recently came across some of the final radio messages between Titanic and surrounding ships which were fascinating to me. Here they are:
RADIO MESSAGES: At 9:12 a.m., a wireless message from Cunard’s Caronia came in, which read: “[MSG] Captain Titanic. West-bound steamers report bergs, growlers, and field ice in 42* N, from 49 to 51 W. April 12. Compliments. [Captain] Barr.” The message was sent directly to Captain Smith, whose response was sent at 10:28: “Thanks for the me and information. Have had variable weather throughout - Smith At 11:47, a message from the Holland-America liner Noordam came, relayed from the Caronia: “[MSG] Captain SS Titanic. Congratulations on new command. Had moderate westerly winds, fair weather, no fog. Much ice in lat. 42* 24’ to 42* 45’ and long. 49* 50’ to 50* 20’. Compliments. [Captain] Krol.” Smith responded at 12:31 p.m.: “Captain Noordam. Many thanks. Had moderate variable weather throughout. Compliments. Smith.” The ship’s run was calculated to be 546 miles since the previous 24 hours with an average speed of 22.06 knots, thus confirming Bruce Ismay’s expectations, and lifting the hopes that Titanic would make an early arrival on Tuesday evening. Ismay would later state that there was a plan to push her at full speed some time between Monday and Tuesday for a few hours. Some of the Officers, including Charles Lightoller, were also keen on seeing just what the Titanic could do. Two more notable messages were sent around lunch time, the first coming from the Amerika: “To the steamer ‘Titanic’ [MSG] via Cape Race to the Hydrographic Office, Washington, DC ‘Amerika’ passed two large icebergs in 41* 27’ N 50* 8’ W, on the 14th April. [Captain] Knuth.” While John Phillips and Harold Bride passed on he message on to other ships, there is no evidence that it was delivered to the bridge, let alone of what happened to it. Just five minutes later, White Star’s Baltic sent this message: “[MSG] Captain Smith, Titanic. Have had mod var winds and clear fine weather since leaving. Greek steamer Athinai reports passing icebergs and large quantities of field ice today in lat. 41.51’ N, long. 49.52’ W. Last night we spoke German oil-tank steamer Deutschland, Stettin to Philadelphia, not under control, short of coal, lat. 40.42 N, long. 55.11’ W. Wishes to be reported to New York and other steamers. Wish you and Titanic all success. Commander [Ranson].” The message was sent to Captain Smith, who handed it to Bruce Ismay, having done so on previous voyages. Smith sent a response at 2:57: “ComBaltic. Thanks for your message and good wishes. Had fine weather since leaving. Smith." Bruce Ismay was a complex character, and while he came across as condescending or strict to those who didn’t know him well, he was a very sensitive man with a genuine heart towards other people. Having learned that First Class passenger Emily Ryerson was mourning the loss of her son, who was killed in an automobile accident not long ago, Ismay offered an extra stateroom and steward to her traveling party in Cherbourg, which they accepted. On the 14th, as the sun began to set, he came across Mrs. Ryerson and Marian Thayer up on deck, stopped, and said to Mrs. Ryerson: “I hope you are comfortable, and are all right.” Ismay sat down and the three began a conversation, even though Mrs. Ryerson didn’t truly feel like talking. Ismay then told them they were “in among the icebergs” before showing them the Marconigram containing the Baltic’s message. Ryerson asked what they would do about the Deutschland, to which Ismay replied that they wouldn’t be doing anything, but instead were going to “get in and surprise everybody.” The Titanic made her last major course change at 5:50, where she turned just three nautical miles from “the corner,” facing her bow directly toward the entrance to New York Harbor. The ship’s last three double-ended boilers came online at 7:00, and the ship’s speed increased again. At 7:37, Harold Bride wrote down and sent a message from the Californian, which had been communicating with the Antillian at the time, to First Officer Murdoch, then Officer of the Watch: “MSG to Captain Antillian, 6:30 p.m. in apparent ship’s time; lat. 42* 3’ N., long. 49* 9’ W. Three large bergs five miles to the southward of us. Regards. [Captain] Lord.” After a prestigious party in the à la carte Restaurant, Captain Smith came to the bridge at 8:55, aware that his ship was among ice, and met with Second Officer Lightoller, who had relieved Wilde as Officer of the Watch. They noted how cold it was, the lack of wind, and the immense calm of the sea which, Lightoller noted, would make spotting icebergs more difficult. All the same, both men agreed that they would be able to spot icebergs from a safe distance. Smith added that if it became at all “hazy,” they would have to “go very slowly,” as he had done during Olympic’s maiden voyage. It should be noted that going at high speed, even when ice was about, was by no means unique to Titanic or even Captain Smith; the idea was to get out of the danger zone as quickly as possible, and to counter the time that would be lost from potential poor weather, as was often the case off the Grand Banks. Smith himself had done this for decades, and spoke up about it while commanding White Star’s Britannic I: if an accident were to occur at high speed, the time it would take to sink would have been of little difference compared to one at slow speed. It was a common navigational practice that was simply based on different mindsets. At 9:52, another message, this time from the Mesaba, was acknowledged by Jack Phillips: “Ice report. In lat. 42 N. to 41.25 N. long. 49 W. to long. 50.30 W. Saw much heavy pack ice, and great number large icebergs, also field ice. Weather good, clear.” Then, at 11:07, an ear-bursting message came through his headset, from the Californian: “MGY [Titanic] MWL [Californian]. I say, old man. We are stopped and surrounded by ice.” Phillips, who had been working a backlog of messages from Cape Race after the Marconi apparatus broke down the previous day, told the cargo ship’s operator to ”shut up,” which was not considered rude among wireless operators at the time. Around this point up to 11:40, the Titanic was making 22.5 knots, the fastest she had ever gone throughout the voyage. Source: ”On a Sea of Glass: The Life and Loss of the RMS Titanic”
Titanic critically ignored 'ICE ADVICE' As we have seen, North Atlantic Ships routinely gave each other safety information - and the Titanic received detailed advice about the location of icebergs - or "bergs, growlers and field ice" as one ship's captain described them. Investigations after the sinking would never satisfactorily establish why these warnings had been ignored. The senior wireless operator, Jack Phillips, had still been sending passengers' messages when the ship struck an iceberg. The collision was described as sounding like the tearing of calico. With only enough room in the lifeboats for half the passengers and crew, the Titanic's captain turned to his only lifeline - the wireless - and asked the two Marconi operators to call for assistance. The distress signal used by Marconi operators - CQD - boomed out over the Atlantic. The wireless operators joked they may as well also try another new distress signal that had been introduced - SOS - because they might never get a chance to use it again. While the lifeboats were lowered, with awful goodbyes between husbands, wives and children, the wireless operators stuck to their task. "Come at once. We have struck a berg. It's a CQD, old man," the Titanic called to another ship, the Carpathia. "We have struck an iceberg and sinking by the head," she told a German ship, the Frankfurt. The Titanic's messages caused consternation and disbelief among other ships. They called back to the Titanic struggling to grasp what was happening, then urgently forwarded the distress signals in the hope that someone would be near enough to help. It was like trying to organise a rescue by Twitter, with operators trying to make sense of the stream of sometimes contradictory information. "We are putting passengers off in small boats. Women and children in boats. Cannot last much longer. Losing power," said the Titanic as the situation grew ever more desperate. "This is Titanic. CQD. Engine room flooded." The Titanic's captain Edward Smith gave the orders for the distress signals to be sent out In response her sister ship, the Olympic called back: "Am lighting up all boilers as fast as we can." There were also flashes of anger in the confusion. "You fool... keep out," the Titanic barked at a ship almost 200 miles away who had interrupted to inquire: "What is the matter with you?" The last recorded messages are increasingly desperate and fragmented - although a shore station officer following the exchanges reported there was "never a tremor" in the Morse tapped out by Jack Phillips. "Come quick. Engine room nearly full," was sent from the Titanic only a few short minutes before the ship finally sank. When the Titanic fell silent, the chasing ships carried on calling out for news, co-ordinating the rescue of the survivors. And the wireless became the only way for survivors to contact their families. "Meet me dock with two hundred dollars, underwear, cap, big coat - am well but slightly frozen," messaged one survivor from the Carpathia rescue ship. "Completely destitute, no clothes," said one another. Words cost money - and a masterpiece of brevity reported: "Safe, Bert." These poignant, first-hand reactions to the disaster had been gathered in an archive by John Booth, a Titanic historian and expert on old prints. But many were sold off at auction in the early 1990s. Jack Phillips did not survive the sinking. But his heroism, staying at his post after being released from his duty by the captain, became an enduring part of the Titanic story. Not least because one of the most influential templates for all future Titanic stories came from Harold Bride, his junior wireless operator. Bride survived on an upturned lifeboat and then sold his story to the New York Times. His story was a global media sensation, setting the tone of heroic self sacrifice, with the first accounts of the band playing while the ship sank, with tales of selflessness and cowardice. And he commemorated the role of Jack Phillips, unflinching, even when he knew better than anyone else that there was no chance of a rescue ship arriving in time. "I will never live to forget the work of Phillips during the last awful 15 minutes," said Bride. "I suddenly felt a great reverence to see him standing there sticking to his work while everybody else was raging about."