Today is the 96th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. :mourn:

Did you all know that today, is the 96th anniversary of the sinking of the passenger cruise ship: Titanic. :mourn: I hope all those lost souls, are Resting in Peace.

 

I'll be picky here and say that the RMS Titanic wasn't a 'cruise ship' - in those days, it was 'the only way to cross' which is one of the reasons it met with its fate.....

 

Oh lordy-lordy-lordy-lord...Please let us NOT make the same mistake as the Guiness World Records Book.

The RMS Titanic is NOT a cruise-ship! Never was, never will be. The Titanic was an ocean-liner, designed for crossing oceans, not jumping from here to there between tropical islands. What is the difference, some people ask. They're big ships all the same.

A cruise-ship is like a shuttle-bus. You get dropped off every here and there. An ocean-liner is like a long-distance coach. You get on and you don't get off until you are THERE.

I am very passionate about the story of the Titanic and this being the 96th year after its sinking...let us hope that the story of this tragedy will never die.

As of April, 2008, there remains one living survivor of the sinking of the Titanic. Miss Milvina Dean. Born in February, 1912, she is currently 96 years old and is active (although somewhat inhibited by age) in the Titanic community.

 

my great great great aunt was on the ship. A tragic loss of much life.

 

May I ask who she was? I'd like to check her up on the passenger lists

 

Sure Shangas, she was the unsinkable Molly Brown. I forget the direct relation but according to my parents it was through a Mary or Minnie Brown but I think Minnie was a nickname.

 

What!? You're joking, right? Wowzers...The heroine of lifeboat #6.

 

Err, Shangas, for those people who are not so well clued-up on the Titanic (not me of course, just trying to help others...), could you tell the story please?

 

The only extra thing I know about the Titanic, is that during the evacuation of British and French Soldiers off of Dunkirk Beach, Mr. Lightholler and his Sons, used their pleasure craft to help out with those evacuations.

As im not much into correct (of the times) terminology, thanks Martin etc, for the correction. I could not think of what else to sall that ship at the time of making the posting. ;-)

 

'Heroine' is probably not the right word, but she was pretty close.

Lifeboat #6 was lowered, as with many others from the Titanic - Half-full. This boat contained as its commanding seaman one Quartermaster Robert Hichens. Hichens, the man at the wheel of the RMS Titanic when it hit the iceberg, was something of a pessemist and control-freak. The moment the boat was in the water, he took control of everything from the rowing to where they rowed, how fast and in what direction and for how long.

After the ship sank, Molly Brown wanted to turn the boat around and row towards the site of the sinking to pick up survivors. Hichens refused to steer the boat in that direction for fear of being swamped by desperate drowning men. This caused such a moral uproar that everyone in the boat (28, I believe) rose up against Hichens. He **EVENTUALLY** let them go back. They didn't find anyone alive. Throughout the night he did nothing but sulk, while Molly Brown did her best to keep the people in her boat in high spirits, rowing around to keep them warm and telling them that rescue was imminent.

Hichens tried one last time to gain control of his boat, but when he did, he met with Brown, who exploded at him and threatened to throw him overboard if he didn't shut up with his constant and irritating whining.

At 3:30 am, the Carpathia arrived on the scene. Hichens said the ship was there to pick up dead bodies and that it would soon sail back to New York. It was not their rescue ship. Brown had had enough by now and ordered the ladies to start rowing towards the Carpathia despite Hichen's constant outbursts that it was a fruitless endeavour. The women in the boat set their hats on fire to create smoke-signals and eventually reached the side of the Carpathia. Lookout Fredrick Fleet catches a towline and the boat is pulled up alongside the ship and made fast.

I called Brown a 'heroine' because she managed to keep up everyone's spirits and never lost hope or courage, despite everything that Hichens did to her.

---

C.Evans, the Titanic's full 'title', is the R.M.S Titanic. That stands for 'Royal Mail Steamer - Titanic', meaning that the Titanic was licensed to transport international mail of the British Royal Mail. An alternative title might be the SS Titanic (SteamShip Titanic). It was not a cruise-ship, as I explained earlier, but an ocean-liner. It was constructed for one reason only - to steam the transatlantic route.

Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller was the most senior officer of the ship who survived the sinking. He escaped on Collapsable B, along with baker Charles Jouglin, junior wireless-operator Harold Bride and Jack Thayer junior, who was one of the first people to claim that the Titanic broke in half. Lightoller's boat the 'Sundowner' was used by him excessively during the Evacuation of Dunkirk

 

Thank you Shangas but, i've already been chastised enough on the foux paux of not giving the correct title of this ship that was also used to carry a few passengers on so the chastising can stop now thank you.

Well, this ruins a displaced Norwegian-Cherokee's attempt at bringiing to your attention the anniversary of the date of a terrible tragedy.

 

Thanks Carl, I forgot all about this. A tragic loss.

(also sorry your thread was somewhat hijacked)

 

Hi Scott, thank you, and thank you ;-))

Im not speaking about what Martin said, but anothers remarks. I got a bit irritated that I had to be reminded of the fact about my error at least 3 times-which wasn't necessary.

 

Its up there with the rest of the ship tragedies

 

Gee, I wonder what would be said if I talked a little about the great Wilhelm Gustloff tragedy? This tragedy in numbers of dead, could put the Titanic tragedy, in a shadow. Again, speaking of the numbers of people who died in that tragedy.

 

Anywhere from 9,000-10,000 people died, I think. But then the Gustloff sunk during WWII. There were dozens of ships being sunk every single day, one more didn't really make much of a difference.

What made the Titanic so...memorable...was that it was such a huge loss of life during peacetime.

 

You are correct in saying at least 9-10,000 people died on the W/G-and quite possibly up to 15K. I also know the Gustloff was sunk in WWII by Captain Mariescu (SP? or something like that?) who was CO of a Russian Submarine. Also, he claims he did not know that it was a hospital ship full of refugees-I don't buy that for a second. This Capitan had to know that that ship was full of refugees who boarded it I think in Riga. Sinking a Warship is another matter but, sinking a Hospital ship is totally uncalled for. This guy also claimed that the Russian high command ordered the torpedoing of such ships, when in fact, this Capitan was dishonored and basically drummed out of service. This could also be a classic case of; fingerpointing-he said she said.

Now, to compare this to the sinking of the Lusitania by Kapitan Walther Schwieger, he knew that that ship was most likely transporting valuable war supplies so-he sank that ship and was doing his duty. I believe that had he known there were many passengers on that ship, that he would not have fired his torpedoes. This Russian Capitan, was looking for glory but instead, he was disgraced.

 

The Wilhelm Gustloff was not a hospital ship at the time of her sinking. In fact, she hadn't been a hospital ship since 1940, when she was converted into a barracks ship for the U-boat arm of the German Navy.
At the time of her sinking the Wilhelm Gustloff was painted kriegsmarine grey, armed with light AAA and carrying, along with the refugees, over a 1000 uniformed Kriegsmarine officers and men of the U-boat arm. By the stardards of submarine warfare in WW2, the Wilhelm Gustloff was a totally legitimate target.

Kapitan Walter Schweiger had already fired at a marked hospital ship before he sank the Lusitania, In February 1915 he had knowingly attacked the British hospital ship ASTURIAS, claiming that since it was sailing out of England it could not have been carrying wounded .
The outrage over the Lusitania was due to the fact that the captain sank her without warning. The fact she was carrying war materials is irrelevant, the naval laws of the time stated that warships must stop the ship and allow passengers to escape by lifeboat before sinking her.

His disgrace had nothing to do with this incident, a fellow Soviet submarine commander who sank another liner with an equally horrific loss of life went on to become a Rear-Admiral in the post-war Soviet navy, his disgrace was due to his chronic alcoholism

 

Titanic, Lusitania , Gustloff .........

Domherr the ...Railway Traveler

 

Whether the Gustloff was called a Hospital ship in 1945 or not, is neither here nore there. The fact remains, that Submarine Captain, knew exactly what he was doing and knew what the target was involved in. I can't remember the name of the book I read it in but, that captain was quoted saying he knew that ship had been evacuating wounded and civilians. I THINK the book I read this in was written by Walter Lord. The Russian Sub Co's disgrace was at least partly due to the sinking of the Gustloff-again-I refer to Lord's book.

About that other Russian Sub and it's incident-I do not know anything of it and if you could please tell me sources for further info on it, i'd be greatly obliged.

About SChweiger, the carrying of war materials is relevant, but again, I had not known his previous record of sinking that other ship. Redcoat, you almost seem to think that I am taking sides and saying that Schwieger was fully in his rights as well as that Russian Capt-im not if it has to do with the killings of civilians. Now, if someone is to be blamed for the Lusitania-I think Woodrow Wilson should have been blamed.