The sinking of the RMS Titanic is one of the most famous disasters in maritime history, or indeed in world history. What made the Titanic so famous? Why was it not just lost to history like so many other maritime disasters and why does it continue to overshadow more recent or more tragic catastrophes at sea?

Probably because the events of the night of the 14th of April, 1912, were so intricately and minutely documented. Because the Titanic was a symbol of progress which literally vanished overnight. Because of the number of famous people onboard who lost their lives. Mr. and Mrs. Straus, Benjamin Guggenheim, John Jacob Astor, who were the Bill Gates’ and Donald Trumps of the the Belle Epoque.

But what really happened on the night of the 14th of April? Who lived? Who died? And what happened onboard the decks of the Titanic as people fought to survive? This posting will be an in-depth look at the events of that infamous night on the north Atlantic. All care has been made to keep this as factually accurate as possible…

Sunday, April 14th, 1912.

10:00pm.

The RMS Titanic ending the fourth day of an expected seven-day crossing to New York City from the port of Southampton, in southern England. Onboard ship, everything is calm. Officers go about their rounds, stokers shovel coal into the boilers and passengers relax in their cabins, or in the ship’s many public rooms, enjoying drinks, jazz and classical music or playing cards, before bedtime. 2nd Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller ends his watch and is replaced on the bridge by 1st Officer William McMaster Murdoch. It is freezing cold and the temperature is dropping fast. It’s already at freezing-point. 32F, or 0C. Up in the crow’s nest, lookouts Fredrick Fleet and Reginald Lee replace the previous two lookouts. They are warned to keep a sharp lookout for icebergs.

10:50-11:00pm.

In the ‘Marconi’ wireless radio room, head wireless-operator Jack Phillips is busy sending telegrams to the wireless land-station located in the lighthouse at Cape Race, Newfoundland, several hundred miles away. He is interrupted in his transmissions by wireless operator Cyril Evans of the S.S. Californian…

“I say old man. We are stopped and surrounded by ice”.
“Shut up, shut up, I am busy. I am working Cape Race!”

Evans, failing to properly prefix his message with the standard “MSG” (Master Service Gram, which would indicate a telegram to be sent directly to the captain), is brushed off by an overworked and frustrated Phillips. He has a massive backlog of messages to hammer out on the telegraph-key, due to the wireless-set breaking down the day before. Phillips disregards Evans’ message and continues transmitting to Cape Race. Evans shuts off his radio and goes to sleep about 11:30pm.

11:39pm.

Up in the crow’s nest, lookouts Fleet and Lee spot something large in the distance. It’s enormous, dark blue, and almost impossible to see in the moonless night. It’s an iceberg, less than half a mile away. The Titanic is steaming right for it, at nearly top speed. At 21kt (about 25mph), the Titanic would take up to 850 yards to come to a complete stop. The iceberg is barely 400 yards away. Fleet strikes the crow’s nest bell three times, to signal an obstruction in front of the ship. He picks up the telephone and contacts the bridge. 6th Officer Moody answers the call.

“What do you see?”
“Iceberg, right ahead!”
“Thank you”.

1st Officer Murdoch has already spotted the iceberg. He bellows the order “Hard a’Starboard!” into the wheelhouse. The helmsman, quartermaster Robert Hitchens, turns the wheel hard over, as far as it will possibly go. Murdoch grabs the handles of the two engine-order telegraphs and wrenches the indcator arms to the position: ‘Astern – FULL’. The bells ring and down in the engine-room, the ship’s engineers rush to engage the reversing gear. This isn’t as easy as you might think. The Titanic’s propellers must first come to a complete stop, before the gear is engaged. Steam-pressure has to be built up again before the propellers will start spinning in reverse. This interruption slows down the ship, but also makes it harder to turn. Murdoch activates the switches which close the watertight doors below deck. The ship slams into the side of the iceberg and scrapes past on the starboard side. Below the waterline, the rivets buckle and pop under the force of the impact with the iceberg. The steel, made brittle by the freezing Atlantic Ocean, opens up and water comes gushing into the Forepeak, the three forward holds and boiler room #6. Five compartments are breeched. Few passengers are awakened by the collision, which is but a barely-noticable shudder.

Murdoch then orders ‘Hard a’Port’, to swing the Titanic’s stern free of the iceberg to prevent further damage. At this point, Captain Smith comes out on deck. Murdoch explains the situation. Smith orders the engines ‘All Stop’. He orders 4th Officer Joseph Boxhall to go down below to assess any damage. Boxhall comes back up saying that nothing is wrong. Smith sends for the ship’s carpenter and for master shipwright Thomas Andrews to sound the ship (check it for damage). The water is rising very fast. Captain Smith orders the ship’s pumps to be turned on. The pumps are insufficient to cope with the amount of water pouring in, but they buy a few precious minutes of time.

Monday, April 15th, 1912.

12:15am.

By now, the water is pouring into the ship. Capt. Smith orders Jack Phillips, the wireless operator, to radio for help immediately. Phillips puts on his headphones and sends out the following message:

“CQD DE MGY 41.44N / 50.14W”

“Calling All Ships. Distress. This Is. Titanic. (Position).”

12:17am.

Phillips sends out another radio message. He includes the new distress-code, ‘SOS’, for the first time in his life. The Titanic was NOT the first ship to send out an SOS distress-call, however:

“CQD CQD SOS DE MGY 41.44N/50.14W”
“Calling All Ships. Distress. Calling All Ships. Distress. SOS. This is. Titanic. (Position)”.

SOS was selected as the radio distress-signal because it was easy to remember and distinctive in Morse Code. In case you ever need to use it, it is:

… – – – … (three short, three long, three short).

By now, two ships have responded. The S.S. Frankfurt and the R.M.S. Olympic, the Titanic’s sister-ship. They are 170 and 500 miles away, respectively.

12:20am.

By pure luck, Phillips manages to contact his friend and fellow wireless-operator, Harold Cottam on the R.M.S. Carpathia, eastbound out of New York City, steaming for the Mediterranean. Cottam was very nearly about to go to bed. He had put on his headphones to listen to the radio while undressing when this message came over the airwaves:

“Come at once. We have struck a ‘berg. It’s a CQD old man. Position 44:41N/50.14W”.

Stunned, Cottam radio’d back:

“I say old man. Do you know that there is a batch of messages coming through for you from MCC?”

(MCC was the callsign for the land-station at Cape Cod, Mass.).

“CQD, CQD!”
“Shall I tell my captain? Do you require assistance?”
“Yes! Come quick!”

Cottam ran out of his cabin to find 1st Officer Dean of the Carpathia. Together, they ran to find Capt. Arthur Henry Rostron. Rostron orders the ship turned around and to head northwest at full speed (17kt). He orders Cottam to send a radio-message back to the Titanic to find out as much as he can and to tell Phillips they’re coming as quickly as possible. At 58 miles away, it will take the Carpathia up to 4 hours to reach the Titanic.

At the same time, the Titanic’s lifeboats are uncovered, swung out and lowered level with the Titanic’s boat-deck. Passengers are ordered out on-deck. Capt. Smith orders “women and children first” into the lifeboats. The order “women and children first” was meant to be that women and children entered the boats first, and any remaining men were to head in afterwards to fill in the gaps. Unfortunately, some officers misinterpreted the order as “women and children ONLY”, which possibly led to the needless deaths of men later on. The Titanic has 20 lifeboats – 16 wooden ones and 4 collapsable ones with canvas sides.

12:32am.

The Carpathia has turned around and is steaming towards the Titanic as fast as possible. Cottam wires back to Phillips:

“Putting about and heading for you”.

12:35am.

The first lifeboat (starboard boat #7) is loaded with people. The 65-seat boat is loaded with only 28 passengers. The order is given to lower away at 12:45, one hour and five minutes after the sinking began. Every other boat is loaded and launched thereafter, at roughly ten-minute intervals. At 12:55, the second boat (starboard #5) is lowered. 5th Officer Harold Godfrey Lowe is interrupted by the White Star Line’s managing director, Joseph Bruce Ismay, who insists that the boats must be loaded and lowered as quickly as possible. Lowe, already on-edge and irritable, loses his temper at Ismay and shouts:

“You want me to lower away quickly!? You’ll have me drown the lot of them!”

12:55am.

On the port (left) side of the Titanic, lifeboat #6 is being lowered away. It contains such notables as Fredrick Fleet, the lookout, Robert Hitchens, the quartermaster and helmsman at the time of the collision and Margret ‘Molly’ Tobin Brown, the ‘Unsinkable’ Molly Brown. Halfway down, it’s noted that there aren’t enough sailors in the boat to row it. Canadian major Arthur Peuchen, an expert yachtsman, offers his services. Lightoller, the loading-officer, looks at Peuchen a bit skeptically.

“Are you a seaman?”

Lightoller asks.

“I’m a yachtsman”.
“Well if you’re seaman enough to go down those falls, you can go”.

Peuchen grabs hold of the falls (the ropes which lower the boat down the side of the ship) and climbs down safely into boat #6.

In the early stages of the sinking, many boats left the Titanic half-full. Passengers were unwilling to board the boats. For an explanation about why the boats were launched half-full, see “Questions and Statements about the Titanic”.

1:00am.

Lifeboat #1 (starboard) is lowered. Only twelve people occupy a boat meant to hold 40. Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, Lady Duff-Gordon, his secretary, seven crewmembers and another two first-class passengers were all that were to be loaded into this boat. For the rest of his life, Sir Cosmo would try unsuccessfully to clear his name from cowardice and accusations of bribing the members of the crew in the boat, from going back to the site of the sinking to rescue survivors in the water.

The Titanic continues to sink faster and faster. More boats are lowered with more passengers now.

1:30, 1:35am.

Lifeboats #13 & 15 (starboard) are lowered. Both of them are fully-loaded. The discharge-pipe which is forcing out water from inside the ship threatens to fill boat 13 with water. Crewmembers push the boat away from the side of the ship with their oars. When they land in the water, the discharge-water from the ship sends the boat sliding underneath boat 15. Quick thinking and a sharp knife to cut the falls prevents a disaster. Lifeboat 13 rows away just in time and boat 15 lands safely in the water alongside it.

It is now obvious that the Titanic is sinking. Passengers begin to panic. 5th Officer Harold Godfrey Lowe lowers lifeboat 14 on the port side. He fires his revolver at least three times to maintain crowd-control as angry and terrified male passengers try to swarm his already fully-loaded lifeboat.

As the night goes on, distress-rockets are fired. Phillips continues to radio desperately for help. The ship’s band, the Wallace Hartley Quintet, plays ragtime and classical music to try and calm the passengers. Mrs. Ida Straus gets into a lifeboat. When her husband tries to get in and is pushed back by the loading-officer, Mrs. Straus gets out of the boat, famously proclaiming to her husband:

“Where you go, I go”.

Mr. and Mrs. Isador Straus, owners of ‘Macy’s’ department-store in New York City, drown on the Titanic.

In the radio-room, Phillips continues to transmit Morse Code over the airwaves. His latest message:

“Women and children in the boats. Cannot last much longer”.

1:40am.

Collapsible C is lowered. White Star Line’s Joseph Bruce Ismay boards this boat, an action that will destroy his reputation for the rest of his life.

1:45am.

Two hours and five minutes after impact. Water covers the Titanic’s nameplate. It pours onto the deck and the bow plunges deeper. Water pours into the foward well-deck. Time is beginning to run out. Phillips transmits the following message to Cottam on the Carpathia:

“Come as quickly as possible, old man! Our engine-room filling up to the boilers!”

(Captain Smith had recently informed Phillips of this fact, having gone down a few minutes before, to check on the water-level inside the ship).

The Titanic has just over half an hour left afloat. Master shipwright Thomas Andrews urges passengers to put on their lifebelts and to board the lifeboats as quickly as possible.

2:00am.

Lifeboats continue to be lowered at roughly 5-10-minute intervals. The Titanic starts a noticable list to port. The water onboard ship is causing it to lose its center of balance.

2:05am.

Collapsible D is launched from the Titanic. She is the last lifeboat to be successfully lowered. Water is pouring into the promenade area on A Deck. The ship starts sinking even faster. Soon, water makes it to the wheelhouse and the forward boat-deck. Officers begin to panic and try desperately to launch collapsible lifeboats A and B, stored upside down on the roof of the officer’s quarters. Seamen try to slide the boats down on planks propped up against the walls, but the port list makes this difficult at best. Collapsible B falls over upside down. Passengers manage to get Collapsible A upright and partially loaded. The rapidly rising water causes the boat to be flooded and it floats off with about two dozen people onboard.

2:15am.

The ship’s electrical generators are beginning to struggle. The Titanic’s electricians run around trying to stop the generators from short-circuiting from the water. Phillips continues to hammer out Morse Code messages on his now, barely-functioning wireless-set. The current is weak and his messages are garbled and broken up. He sends:

“SOS SOS CQD CQD DE MGY. We are sinking fast. Passengers are being put into boats.”

Outside, passengers climb down the empty lifeboat-falls into the water and swim for nearby lifeboats. Survivors in the boats help swimmers in and watch, horrified as the ship’s stern rises out of the water. The rudder and the three propellers are now clearly visible. Passengers who jump from the ship wearing lifebelts risk broken necks as they hit the water. Their downward momentum sends their bodies down into the water, but the boyant, cork-padded lifebelts pop upwards, hitting them on their chins, whipping their heads back and breaking their necks.

In the First-Class Smoking-Lounge, a steward escaping the rising waters, finds Mr. Thomas Andrews, the Titanic’s shipwright, standing in front of the fireplace, staring at the painting over the mantelpiece, “Approach to Plymouth Harbour”. The steward asks Mr. Andrews if he’s even going to make a try for it. Andrews, who isn’t even wearing a lifebelt, probably suffering from shock and wracked by guilt, doesn’t respond. The steward flees, leaving Andrews to his fate.

2:17am.

Phillips continues to transmit. His last message:

“CQ…”

At this point, the wireless-set finally packs up. Try as he might, Philllips cannot get it to turn back on. According to Bride at the inquest, Phillips had intended to send:

“CQD DE MGY”
“Calling All Ships. Distress. This is. Titanic.

With the wireless set dead, Phillips and Bride turn to flee. They beat up a stoker who sneaks into the wireless-room, trying to steal Phillips’s lifebelt. Both men put on their belts and run out of the room. Bride helps the crew and 2nd Officer Charles Lightoller in launching Collapsible boat B. Phillips heads aft. The forward smokestack collapses into the water. It kills several struggling swimmers and it washes lifeboats A and B clear of the ship. Struggling to hold onto the slippery, overturned Collapsible B are about 30 men, a mixture of passengers and crew.

2:18am.

1st Class Passenger Jack Thayer Jnr (aged 17) and his friend, Milton Long, jump from the Titanic’s upper decks. Thayer never sees Long ever again. Jack swims through the frigid, 28F, -2.2C water until he reaches Collapsible B, which was overturned by the wash from the falling forward smokestack. He is met by wireless operator Harold Bride, who helps him aboard.

2:20am.

The lights flicker once and go out. The Titanic breaks in two, right down to the keel. The stern falls back and the bow plunges down. As the bow sinks, it pulls the stern vertical. It detataches and then sinks like a stone. The stern floats for a few seconds before finally filling with water and plunging down into the sea. The Titanic is gone. Over 1,500 passengers are still thrashing in the freezing water, begging for rescue. Most are dead within 20 minutes.