On The Anniversary Of The Titanic, Remember The Cruel Depths And Noble Heights Of Their Final Hours
Some men chose to stoically help their families into boats and then stand aside, assuring crying wives they would be right after them. They knew they'd never meet again.
By Christopher Bedford
April 15, 2021
On the morning of April 15, 1912, the survivors of the Titanic were pulled from the icy North Atlantic by the Carpathia. The night before, at 11:40 p.m., shipboard time, the ship had struck an iceberg in a glancing-but-fatal blow, tearing into six of her 16 compartments — two more than the greatest ship ever made could withstand.
Capt. Edward Smith, a man with four decades on the seas, immediately went to the bridge and then down below with the ship’s architect, Thomas Andrews, to ascertain the extent of the damage. By five past midnight, Smith would order the passengers brought to the deck and the lifeboats prepared. Twenty minutes later, Andrews gave him the terrible news: “the unsinkable ship†was going to the bottom.
What followed is a story of the heights and the depths of humanity. Rare virtues such as duty, honor, selflessness, and gentlemanly respect were on full display, as too were man’s based, beastial natures: selfishness, cravenness, and abandonment of duty. Pride, ignorance, and more than a little old-fashion stupidity walked hand-in-hand with both the rare and common reactions of that horrible night. What separated the two types of reactions was something different: courage.
In those last hours aboard the Titanic, confusion reigned both above and below the decks, with many factors involved. The night was bitter cold. The ship lacked a mass intercom, making communication among the crew and with the passengers haphazard at best.
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