Last Hours of the Titanic - Titanic: A Dead Reckoning - Documentary

Less then 2 minutes into this and I get a ad for cruise holidays, talk about a twisted joke

0:30 One New England newspaper said "Ismay survived to tell the courts how 1,500 people under his care and on his ship perished while he escaped"

A quite interesting story I've heard about Ismay is that around the time "A Night to Remember" was published in November 1955 Walter Lord got a letter from England about the "remarkable finish" at the 1913 Derby in Epsom Downs. Craganour, the favourite, crossed the line first and was escorted to the winners' circle. Then, without a protest from anyone, it was disqualified and the race was awarded to second-place Aboyeur. Craganour, Lord's correspondent said, was owned by Bruce Ismay, and I guess the inference is clear: the establishment would never let an Ismay-owned horse win the hallowed Derby. Walter Lord then went to check the story. Everything turned out to be accurate except for one important detail. Joseph Bruce Ismay didn't own Craganour. His younger brother, Charles Bower Ismay, did. Still, Craganour remained disqualified. The reason? Craganour's original jockey had been replaced by an American one, Johnny Reiff. I don't know why that was but the move was immensely unpopular, and the discussions the judges are (apparently) supposed to conduct at the end of the race before announcing the winner presented them with the golden opportunity to discredit Reiff. Walter Lord, though, said he still got letters afterwards still linking Bruce (not Bower) Ismay and Craganour together

Just a minor point: The distress call was received by Olympic, Frankfurt, Mount Temple, Carpathia, Masaba, Baltic, Virginian, Burma, but it wasn't received by the Californian. Her wireless operator was asleep at the time.

3:54 The soundtrack composer of that film, "A Night to Remember", was alive for only ten more days after Robert Ballard's expedition found the Titanic's wreck. His name was William Alwyn, and he died on September 11 1985 .

2:29 The world and that "time of wealth confidence and new beginnings" were to be stirred to their foundations

If ismay thought that lifeboats weren’t important then why hop into one when his ship was going down

I like the old movie footage at 27:07 when people who have managed to get into a lifeboat decide to jump into the sea anyway.

8:08 It was an "extraordinary night" not only for Lord but I guess also for Lightoller. I still can't believe the answer Lightoller gave to question 14197 at the British inquiry Can you suggest at all how it can have come about that this iceberg should not have been seen at a greater distance? - It is very difficult indeed to come to any conclusion. Of course, we know now the extraordinary combination of circumstances that existed at that time which you would not meet again once in 100 years; that they should all have existed just on that particular night shows, of course, that everything was against us. That's not a ship's officer, that's a teen. He was the 2nd officer so we're talking someone with vast experience on the North Atlantic. What an example to set to the junior officers. The court wasn't impressed either and the message seemed to be, as Walter Lord put it so well, that the accident was of the one-in-a-million variety. Friend of mine said to me one time that the accident was of the "preventable variety."

YES the captain of the titanic is to be blamed if you have to blame captains, but the other ship captain could have helped. this is the first time i'm hearing about the temple mount ship

As all accidents it was several reasons it sank, no Binoculars for the lookout, speeding, fire in the boiler room, poor rivets, not enough life boats etc etc

0:58 That Californian could've really come to the rescue too. Just like Rostron Capt Lord could've made changes and accommodations for the survivors. It would've earned him and his crew big-time recognition, just like the Carpathia. Also, things would've been faster with two rescue ships at the scene

And to think that it took less than 10s for that iceberg to doom the ship....

41:40 Lord Mersey was tough during the inquiry proper but his report according to quite a few was very restrained. "It was colorless timid and cautious" they complained and they added "We had expected more backbone in Lord Mersey"

2:48 Exactly because she was #2 of the superliner trio the Titanic never got as much publicity as the Olympic; by the time she sailed it was all old news

12:04 Rather, the impact brought Cpt Smith back to the bridge; only ~2.5hrs earlier he had a talk about the approaching ice with Lightoller who was then still on duty on the bridge

Is that the animations from titanic honor and glory?

19:57 The crew were afraid the lifeboats would buckle and break if they filled them right up. And in turn it was a fault of duty on part of Cpt Smith to allow lifeboats to leave less than full

some bad combovers and hairpieces also a tradgedy

4:21 She may've been performing well but apparently not quite to Cpt Smith's satisfaction. On her way to Cherbourg and Cobh (Queenstown at the time) Cpt Smith ordered a few lazy S turns to test the ship around (adjust the compasses among other things). You don't do that during a voyage with people on board Capt you do that during sea trials; that's what sea trials are for. That's not the approach of an experienced sea captain that's the approach of a teen. So once again Capt Smith how much did you really know about the vessel under your feet??