The Titanic has been a source of fascination to the public since the headlines came out that the ship had been lost. How could a ship this well built, with every safety feature available at that time sink so suddenly. The Titanic went down in 12,500 feet of water in just two and a half hours with a loss of life of 1500.
The Titanic was the Flagship of the White Star Line.
But there is a part to this story that the general public is not aware of. There actually were two ships, the Titanic and the Olympic. These ships were called "Sister Ships" and were of the Olympic Class. They were both almost identical, although the Titanic was considered the more luxurious of the two.
Both ships were what are considered "Heavy Auxiliary Cruisers". This means the ships were constructed using the strongest materials and design available. These ships were designed to handle almost any situation at sea and also were equipt with one of the first Morse code systems using the SOS code for emergencies.
The Olympic was the first of the two ships to go into service in 1910 with Captain Edward Smith on board . Smith was the Commodor of the White Star line and was the highest paid Captain in the world at the time.
The Olympic had been in two serious accidents, one with the destroyer the HMS Hawk and also with a sunken wreck which damaged the bottom hull and propellers of the Olympic. Smith was the Captain of the ship on both accidents. Some maritime engineers felt the ship had been so badly damaged she would have to be dismantled. This would have bankrupted White Star.
The White Star line was owned by a man named J.P. Morgan , a business man with a less than honest reputation.
Morgan was booked first class for the maiden voyage of the Titanic, but three days before the voyage he cancelled his reservations and was found three days later on the Riviera with his mistress...
The Titanic left on her maiden voyage on April 12, 1912 with Captain Smith in command. On board were over 2000 people some of whom were considered some of the wealthiest persons in society. This included John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenhiem, Also J. Bruce Ismay the director of White Star.
Both Astor and Guggenheim chose to go down with the ship like Gentlemen and made no attempt to enter a lifeboat allowing women and children first. Where as Ismay survived under less than honorable
Circumstances. Ismay came to regret having taking a seat in a lifeboat, especially since more children died in the steerage section of the ship than weathly men in first class.
It was in the Grand Banks area where the ship ran into trouble. It had been a mild winter and the ice had broken earlier and was further south than usual.
Some sources claim the Titanic was attempting to break the speed record for crossing the Atlantic, however this is doubtful. The Lusitania was much faster than the Titanic and held the record for the crossing for years.
According to witnesses the ship struck an ice berg at almost full speed supposedly shearing through the hull on the starboard side of the ship. However after Robert Ballard discovered the Titanic the team found that there was no opening on the side of the ship.
Some source's feel the ships were switched with the Olympic going down instead of the Titanic and written off as an insurance loss. If anyone was capable of this it was Morgan.
Logically, could ice have penetrated 2 inches of tempered steel. The ships also had a double hull design, so even if the outer hull failed the inner hull would have held at least until help arrived.
Could the valves in the lower part of the ship been opened and the ship "Scuttled" being written off for the insurance.
The Olympic stayed in service until the 1950's as a hospital ship and was quietly scraped. Why would someone destroy an exact copy of the Titanic. The tourist value alone was worth a fortune. Not to mention the back engineering value of studying the ship.
The ship went down in such deep water it took almost 75 years to find it. By then all the people involved were dead and the ship in a complete state of disintegration. Was this intentional.
It is safe to say this accident will probably never fully be solved.
by
Ken Lafler
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