Posted on 04/15/2016 6:07:39 AM PDT by artichokegrower
This Day in History – At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the British ocean liner RMS Titanic sinks into the North Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada.
(Excerpt) Read more at gcaptain.com ...
... was no "mystery ship" but the S.S. California. And she didn't respond to the wireless because her communications crew had shut down for the night after working Cape Race traffic. The few who observed the flares and rockets thought it was some kind of celebration. So she sat 10 miles away while 1,500 people drowned.
The Titanic was thought to be the safest ship imaginable, just about immune from any potential disaster at sea. Did overconfidence cause the crew to be less vigilent and less prepared than would normally be the case?
Captain Edward Smith was given the Titanic to command as his last ship before retirement.
My late father was on a small Coast Guard “ship” during World War II.
While in the North Atlantic, his skipper, ‘ole Blood and Guts as my father called him, spotted an iceberg off the port side of the ship and another one off the starboard side of the ship in the distance.
The skipper sailed between them. As we all know, 90% of an iceberg is below the surface. As it turns out, these “two” icebergs were actually one large iceberg.
When my father’s Coast Guard vessel hit the submerged portion of the iceberg, which was just below the waterline but not visible, the entire iceberg started to slowly roll over, lifting the ship at an angle.
The tiny Coast Guard vessel slid off the iceberg but remained upright, and the crew could see rust on the iceberg.
There was no apparent damage to the tiny “ship.” The skipper “gunned it” and got the hell out of there. It had a much better ending than the Titanic disaster...no one was hurt in this instance.
“The greatest lesson is that of overweening human pride and sense of self-importance that tells us we can build an “unsinkable” ship. It’s that same hubris that tells us we are so powerful that we can change the climate.”
Your comment: Californian reported seeing eight distress rockets being fired “from a large ship” but her captain did nothing.
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Sorry - I was being sarcastic ...... Madam Benghazi (Clinton) also heard distress calls and did nothing.
Today it would be called global warming that caused the iceberg to break off the polar icecap.
“..overweening human pride and sense of self-importance that tells us we can build an “unsinkable” ship.”
In the aftermath of the sinking, the world’s pulpits rang with sermons denouncing pride, hubris, and arrogance as the qualities which built the Titanic and so moved the Lord to righteously smite the vessel as He smote the tower of Babel.
Preachers in 1912 obviously didn’t anticipate the outbreak of world war in 1914.
An interesting article from The Atlantic, published in 1913, that I would re-title “Apologia For A Titanic Disaster:”
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1913/08/the-unlearned-lesson-of-the-titanic/308866/
Kind of spooky if you ask me. The details of the story included the passengers were famous people as well. The parallels are amazing.
Yeah. I've heard about studies that show that if Titanic had just rammed the iceberg head-on that it probably would have survived. But...it's human nature to react in a way to try to avoid a collision.
Well, the SS California did try and send Titanic a warning about the ice field they were stuck in when they saw Titanic appear on the horizon. The Titanic radio operator responded with “Shut up, shut up... I have traffic...” He was sending urgent passenger greetings via Newfoundland.
IMO the SS California crew blew them off. A brightly lit passenger ship at 10 miles on a calm ocean night is very visible not to mention their flares.
Look, not every thread has to be made into a political mud flinging experiment, ok?
Thanks in advance.
There are many Titanic films available for free viewing on You Tube plus clips from the Leo DiCaprio version.
The Jews did it.
I thought it was an iceberg.
Iceberg, Goldberg, Greenberg...what’s the difference?
wow
Thanks, I’ll skip Leo’s and look for the rest...
The only two good things in Leo’s version is that he drowns and Kate’s boobs.
Sometimes me wee little fingers have a mind of their own.
FRgards,
Jedi.
Titanic in Five Seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuSdU8tbcHY
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