The Titanic Essay -- essays research papers

The large - History of a DisasterOn April 14,1912 a great ship called the large sank on its maiden voyage. That night there were many warns of deoxyephedrinebergs from other ships. There seems to be a conflict on whether or not the warnings reached the bridge. We may neer know the answer to this question. The greatest tragedy of all may be that there were not enough lifeboats for every whizz on board. According to Walter Lord, author of The Night Lives On, the Titanic could have been saved in the very beginning of the crisis when the iceberg was first reported to the bridge. If First Officer Murdoch had steamed right at the iceberg preferably of trying to avoid it, he might have saved the ship. The author feels there would have been a loud crash and anyone within the first one hundred feet would have been killed, but the ship would have remained afloat (82). This view was entirely speculation and we will never really know if this would have happened. In contrast, Geoffrey Marc us, author of The Maiden Voyage, suggests that the bridge did not receive warning of the ice from the very beginning. One of the messages received was from the Masaba warning the Titanic of a mass of ice lying straight ahead. According to Marcus, the message never reached the bridge, but instead was shoved under a paperweight (126). At 1030 p.m. that evening, a ship divergence the opposite direction of the Titanic was sighted. This ship, the Rappahannock, had emerged from an ice field and had sustained damage to its rudder. The vessel signaled the Titanic about the ice and the Titanic replied that the message was received (Marcus 127). At 11 p.m. another ice report was received. This one was from the Californian. This liner had passed through the same ice field that the Rappahannock had reported to the Titanic. Like all the other warnings, this warning never reached the bridge though it was known to both of the Titanics wireless operators (Marcus 128). By the time the bridge realiz ed the ship was about to realise an iceberg, it was too late. Quartermaster Hitchens tried to turn the wheel hard to the starboard. Twenty seconds later, he had an order for full speed astern but the iceberg was too close. The starboard side hit the iceberg, bringing a block of ice onto the deck (Pellegrino 21). After the collision bumpred, there was only one thing open for Captain Smith to do. It was close midnight a... ...ion,thereby opening up the ship to the sea. Another major discovery wasthat the stern of the Titanic had wrenched itself away from the restof the ship in its descent to the bottom. (Ward 186) The coda survivorof the Titanic recently died in her home in Massachusetts. With herdeath, many of the unanswered questions of the Titanic may have alsodied. Hopefully, a tragedy bid this will never have to happen again.As stated before, ships are now expected to have enough lifeboats foreveryone on board. Ships also route their lanes further to the southduring iceber g season. Hopefully, in some small, way this will make adifference if such an accident at sea should ever occur again.---Work CitedEaton, John P., and Charles A. Haas. Titanic Triumph and Tragedy. NewYork W. W. Norton & Company, 1986. PP 152-184.Pellegrino, Charles. Her Name Titanic. New York McGraw-HillPublishing Company, 1988. PP 20-21.Marcus, Geoffrey. The Maiden Voyage. New York The Viking Press, 1969.PP 35-128.Lord, Walter. A Night To Remember. Mattituck American House, 1955. PP152-170.Ward, Kaari, ed. Great Disasters. Pleasantville The Readers haveAssociation, Inc., 1989. PP 180-87.