RMS Titanic Facts: True Stories of the Disaster
Of course there is an old adage that the captain always goes down with his ship. However, the fate of Edward John Smith, the Captain of the Titanic, has never been 100% certain. There are three different versions of what happened to Captain Smith according to witnesses on the ship. First, there are people who maintain that during the final few minutes the Titanic was above water Captain Smith went to the Bridge and held onto the ship's wheel as the ship plunges into the depths of the ocean. Second, there are other individuals on the boat who claim the Captain jumped into the water with a life jacket on at the last minute. Finally, there is at least one witness - a young boy - who claimed he saw Captain Smith put a gun to his head and then "fell down." His body has never been found.
One of the legends of the Titanic disaster is that the band played on as the ship sank. In fact, this is more than a legend. It is an absolutely true story. The last song played as the ship completely slid under water is thought to have been "Nearer, My God, To Thee." All of the band members (eight men total) went down with the ship.
While the band members went down with the ship, the Managing Director of the White Star Line (the company that owned the Titanic) did not go down with the ship. The top officer of the company, who may have contributed or even caused the disaster by pressuring the Captain of the ship to engage the Titanic's engines at a speed the Captain felt imprudent slunk off the ship immediately after it collided with the iceberg. The Managing Director was a man named Bruce Ismay.
Despite the cowardly Ismay there were many true and inspiring heroes in the Titanic. Take for example Isadore and Ida Straus, owners of the iconic Macy's Department Store. Isadore refused to set foot on a lifeboat until all of the women and children were evacuated. After making this declaration, his wife Ida was overheard telling her husband that she would go where he would go. In the end, they were last seen sitting on deck chairs as the Titanic went down. They both perished in the disaster.
In considering RMS Titanic facts, many people automatically assume that the Titanic sunk because the ship hit an iceberg. In fact, that represents a simplistic conclusion as to why the Titanic went down. The true TMS Titanic facts reveal that the ship sank because of a whole set of coincidental circumstances that came together to spell disaster.
The following set of circumstances combined in the ultimate sinking of the Titanic: the speed of the ship at the time of the impact (some have contended that Ismay was prodding the Captain to keep the ship moving at a speed that was too fast for the circumstances); the angle of the ship at the time of the impact; the water temperature; the quality of construction of the hull of the ship (it has been surmised that lower quality materials then are available today); the unusual position of the ice field at that point in time; the placement and the number of punctures that occurred in the six forward compartments; and, finally, the actions and reactions of the Titanic crew.
