When the Titanic sank in the early hours of the 15th April 1912, the world knew that there had to be someone to blame for this loss of over 1,000 lives – but who?
RMS Titanic took her final plunge at around 2.20am on the 15th of April 1912. The rescue ship RMS Carpathia had brought the survivors into the New York harbour at around 9:15pm on the 18th of April and on the very next day, the 19th of April, the U.S. inquiry began. It was lead by Senator William Alden Smith and was set out to answer the question that everyone was asking – who was to blame for not only the sinking of the Titanic, but also for the loss of so many lives.
Let’s start with one of the biggest questions surrounding the sinking of the Titanic – the mystery ship that had been sighted by many crew members and passengers. Many people aboard the Titanic had reported having seen a ships lights and masts out across the ocean however were horrified when they realised that it wasn’t coming to save them. Of course, this means that should that ship have come to Titanic’s rescue, many lives may not have been lost. This is why so much attention was put towards finding the ship that had been seen and on one ship on particular that had been in the area – The SS Californian.
So, the Californian was said to have been within about 5 nautical miles of the Titanic which is plenty close enough to be able to see any amount of distress signals.Upon being questioned, the Californian crew had stated that they had been 20 nautical miles (37km) from the Titanic but had her in their sights. However, they said that she appeared too small to be the towering Titanic and anyway, to them it appeared that the ship was moving. They said that they had attempted to contact it via morse lamp but that it was un-successful. They said they had seen the distress rockets and did alert the Captain of the Californian, Stanley Lord, to them. Captain Lord had then controversially asked them to carry on trying to contact them via morse lamp rather than turn on the radio to listen for distress messages. They reported that at around 2:00am, they lost sight of the ship and thought it had sailed away. Of course now we know, Titanic didn’t sail away – it sank. This is why the court were almost certain about Captain Lord and the Californian’s guilt in the sinking of the Titanic as perhaps if they had turned the radio on, they would have heard many more messages from the Titanic. They could have also gone over to help her after clearly seeing the distress rockets. However, there was another ship in the area probably much more likely of being this mystery ship – SS Mount Temple.
Upon being questioned, the crew of the Mount Temple and the Captain Moore reported that they had seen Titanic’s distress signals but that they considered the ice field too thick to pass through safely. This explanation could well fit the description of the ‘stationary ship’ that passengers and staff on Titanic saw. Not to mention the fact that passengers and crew on the Mount Temple reported having seen Titanic and even hearing the screams and cries from drowning passengers.
Then, in World War One, a most interesting thing happened. In WWI, SS Mount Temple was being used as a cargo ship and was on her way to Britain when she came across the German cargo ship – SMS Möwe. The Mount Temple fired at it and the Germans fired back killing 4 crew members before escorting the rest of the crew and passengers off before setting up explosives to destroy her. The peculiar thing that happened was that the description that one of the German crew who were on board Möwe gave was exactly the same as that described by the crew and passengers aboard the Titanic of the mystery ship.
All of this evidence points right to SS Mount Temple being the mystery ship but remember that the inquiries, U.S. and British, both took place before WWI meaning that they didn’t have this new information. Besides – they were all so stuck on the idea that it was the Californian that was the mystery ship that they didn’t pay all to much attention to the theory of the Mount Temple.
This, I think, was one of the flaws of the inquiries – they spent so much time trying to figure out who the mystery ship was even though once they had found out who it was, they couldn’t really blame them. Yes, that ship should have come to the rescue and if they had done that, then many less lives would have been lost but is it really all their fault? They were not the ones who were in control of Titanic when she was sinking they could not make the desicions about what action to take. If we follow this logic, then it leads us to a whole other set of people. The Officers and Captain of the Titanic.
No one had really thought about how it could be the people on board the Titanic how were the ones to call guilty? There is ample evidence to back it up after all . For example, if Titanic had not kept on going for around 10 minuets after she struck the iceberg then she would not have taken on quite so much water and wouldn’t have sunk so fast meaning more people could have been saved. Then there are the lifeboats which, in my opinion, were the biggest cause of death. Not in the way they were manufactured or used but in the way that they were handled and in the way that they were loaded. Not only did the Officers not load the first couple of lifeboats to anywhere near their maximum but even if they had and every seat in every boat had been filled then still only half of the passengers would have had a seat. This is because Titanic had taken pretty much the bare minimum of lifeboats for a liner of her size and that if they were to sink (which remember no-one thought would happen as she was the ‘un-sinkable ship’) the lifeboats would just be used as a transportation device to take passengers to a nearby ship, drop them off and then go back for the rest of the passengers. This means that should there have been more lifeboats, not nearly as many people would have lost their lives. The handling of the lifeboats was also quite a mess as there was never a lifeboat drill and no-one really knew how to best lower them. We also know that a warning was never sounded meaning it took far longer for many crew members and passengers to even realise the danger they were in and out on the open sea on a sinking ship, every minute is crucial. Then there was the fact that the ship was travelling far too fast than it should be through known icy waters which is very dangerous and increases the chances of striking ice.
So what was the conclusion of the inquiries? Well, they concluded that it was solely the collision with the iceberg that caused Titanic to sink and not any flaws with the design or manufacturing of the ship. They said that the collision was caused by the ship travelling dangerously fast through icy waters. It also found that the amount of people on lookout at one time was inadequate considering all of the hazards that Titanic could come across. They said there were too few lifeboats available and that they had not been properly filled or manned by trained seamen however they had been lowered correctly.
So, so far, its looking like they have concluded with a lot of the points that we have been discussing and these were indeed understandable and correct. Let’s continue with the rest of their statement.
It also concluded that the Californian could have and should have pushed on through the ice and aided the Titanic and that if she did then many less lives would have been lost. They even went to such lengths that the Board of Trade Representative suggested that a formal inquiry be made into Captain Lord and his “competency to continue as Master of a British ship”. No action ended up being taken against Lord.
So now we see the court turning on the Californian and its captain not really even knowing for certain that the mystery ship was the Californian. We know from what we have already discussed that it may well have even been the Mount Temple so the fact that Capt. Lord almost had his job taken away from his is quite appalling.
Now for my conclusion using the new evidence that we have been provided to us over the 100 years that the case has been closed:
The mystery ship was likely SS Mount Temple as we have plenty of evidence to prove this theory. However the inquiries both thought that the Californian was most to blame leaving a likely wrongly accused Captain Lord in disgrace for the rest of his life. This means that SS Mount Temple may well have been the ship that watched the awful even unravel and never once came to help. However the crew, officers and captain of the Titanic and their handling of the situation probably lead to many more deaths than there should have been.
Despite all of these people and factors that could have contributed to the loss of so many lives and that were discussed in the inquiries, I think it is still wrong that we have to find someone to blame. After all there is counter-evidence to all of the factors that I have suggested. For example, the mystery ship didn’t want to come to the Titanic’s rescue as then to would be risking its own crew and passengers’ lives and that anyway, the Titanic wasn’t meant to sink and the crew of Titanic hadn’t really been given much instruction in the way of what to do in a situation like this as no one ever thought that it would happen. So I have come to this conclusion: It may not have been the fault of an onlooking mystery ship or the crew onboard. It may be the belief of the designers and public and advertised by the White Star Line that Titanic couldn’t sink that eventually lead to her demise.
What Really Happened 