The Titanic
'Unsinkable' 'it will never go down!' The safest ship in the world! 'A palace on water!'
Those were some of the words used to describe the Titanic before she sailed on her fist journey on 10 April 1912. She had more than 2,220 people on board when she left Southampton in England for New York in the USA.
The Titanic was indeed a special ship. Her rich first - class passengers enjoyed furniture and rooms that were like those in a palace. There were libraries, restaurants, sitting rooms, reading rooms, and swimming pool on board. Like all big passenger ships, the Titanic had radio, which was used by Captain Edward Smith and the crew to keep in contact with the land. Later in the journey, of course, radio would help to save hundreds of lives when it was used to contact other ships.
Not all the Titanic's passengers were rich. Many second - class and third - class passenger were hoping to start a new and better life in the USA. The poor third - class passengers had very small rooms deep down in the ship, and their living conditions were very basic.
On Sunday 14 April, after five days at sea, the Titanic was in the freezing north Atlantic, about 2,000 kilometres east of New York. It was springtime, and Captain Smith knew that ice sometimes appeared in the sea at this time of year. But he was confident that ice was not a real danger. After all, the Titanic was unsinkable!
As it was Sunday, the passengers and crew went to church in the morning, then they returned to their normal routine. Men played cards, and ladies laughed and talked, while they enjoyed beautiful music. Rich passengers sent radio messages to their friends in New York and London. Captain Smith was invited to a dinner party.
During that cold evening, the Titanic received seven radio messages warning of the danger of ice. The captain heard at least one of the warnings, but he ordered the ship to continue straight towards New York.
Later that night, the look - out boy saw an iceberg - a great mountain of ice in the sea. He rang the alarm bell immediately and at last
The captain and the crew took the warning of
Ice seriously. The captain immediately tried to
Turn the Ship away from danger. Too late! The
attempt was hopeless. The Titanic was huge and heavy:268 meters long,32 meters high,and over 47,000 tonnes.There was simply not enough time to turn ship and avoid the iceberg.
A few minutes before midnight, the Titanic crashed into the iceberg, and a hole 90 metres long appeared in the ship' s side. When the captain went to see the hole and saw water entering the ship, he immediately ordered the crew to get the lifeboats ready - although he knew that there were only enough lifeboats to save just over half the people on board. At 12.15 a.m. The first radio messages went out, asking for help.
There was so much music and noise board the Titanic that the passengers did not at first notice that the engines were strangely silent. It was half an hour before the first - class passengers realized that anything had happened. The crew went down the stairs to warn the poorer passengers, who then desperately tried to find their way up to the lifeboats. For some people, the long journey up through the ship took more than an hour.
When the lifeboats were ready, women and children were ordered to get in first. Many families were separated, and many children never saw their fathers again.
Edith Brown, aged fifteen, was with her rich parents Thomas and Elizabeth Brown, who had decide to start a new life in the USA. Before the journey, her father had had a bad dream about the idea, but her mother had decided that they must go. Thomas Brown's face was white as he boarded the Titanic at Southampton, and again he looked white when he entered the family's room that cold night. He told Edith and Elizabeth to put on warm clothes, because the ship had hit an iceberg. The family left all their valuables on the ship. 'I'll see you in New York,' Thomas said, as Edith and her mother escaped to a lifeboat, but Edith never saw her father again.
From their lifeboat, Edith Brown saw one end of the ship sink into the freezing water. Suddenly all the lights went out, and where there had once been laughter and light, there were only screams and darkness.
As the sun rose the next morning, Edith, her mother, and the other survivors saw a sea full of bodies and icebergs. She and her mother were picked up by the Carpathia, the ship that received the Titanic's radio calls for help. In the early hours of 15 April, the Carpathia saved 705 people from the cold Atlantic waters.
Edith Brown's experience of the Titanic disaster changed her life for ever. For a long time she had terrible dreams about that night in the Atlantic. Five years after the disaster she married Frederick Haisman, and together they had ten children. At the age of ninety - nine she travelled by ship with one of her daughters to the help place where the Titanic sank, and she dropped a rose into the water as she remembered her father. She died in 1997, aged 100.
No survivors of the Titanic ever forgot their experience of the disaster. Five -year-old Lillian Asplund was traveling with her parent and her four brothers. They were in third class, where only twenty-three out of seventy-six children survived. When they reached the top of the ship, most of the lifeboats were full,so the family decided that they would die together. However, one of the crew separated them, and he threw Lillian and her smallest brother into a lifeboat. Lillian's father pushed his wife in with them, but then the lifeboat was lowered into the water. When Lillian's mother looked around, she only saw Lillian and her little brother. She never saw the rest of the family again.
Lillian, her little brother, and her mother stayed together for the rest of their lives. Her mother died on 15 April 1964, exactly fifty - years after the Titanic sank in 1912. Neither Lillian nor her brother married.
Over 1,500 people died in the Titanic disaster. Many woman and children survived, but many men died, both passengers and crew . Among the dead passengers were three extremely rich Americans - millionaires J. J. Astor, Isidor Strauss, and Benjamin Guggenheim. Together, their fortunes were wroth 600 million US dollars in 1912!
Captain Smith was among those who died. After the disaster, it was agreed that Captain Smith had been too confident, and not prepared for danger. A few years later, an international organization was started, so that ships would be better informed about icebergs. And after the Titanic disaster, all ships were ordered to carry enough lifeboats to save all the people on board.
The Titanic is still remembered today. There have been many books, films, and Tv programmed about the story, and if you use your computer to search for the name Titanic you will find millions of results.
Many people searched for the resting place of the great ship, ship nearly four kilometres under the sea. The Titanic was finally found in 1985 by Dr Robert Ballard. Since then there has been much discussion and argument about what should be done with all the beautiful things that were on board. The families of survivors have been very angry that other people want to make money from all the things that were discovered with the ship at the bottom of the sea.
Yet nearly all the people who remember the ship, its journey, and its passengers have died, and so the arguments and discussions have quietened down. In January 2008 just one passenger who survived the sinking of the Titanic - Millvina Dean- was still alive and living in England. And as time passes, what remains of the great ship slowly falls apart, deep down on the Ocean floor. The sinking of the Titanic will always be a powerful story, but when there are no more living survivors, it will be part of history.