“First off, I was a Titanic nut before they found it.”
As was I.
“In middle school I read the “Night to Remember” Bible of the disaster.”
I first read it in, I think, 7th grade. I’ve re-read it over the years.
I’ll tell you who was a big hero that night: The captain and crew of the Carpathia. I became almost as interested in the Carpathia as I was in the Titanic. Even after all these years (I am in my 70s), I still remember the page about the Carpathia feeding her boilers beyond anything that had previously been done, to build up speed to race to the rescue. The “old girl” shook and rumbled and creaked and groaned on her mad dash north. Anyway, one of the Carpathia’s officers was asked by a passenger what all the racket was, and why the ship had changed course. The officer told him about the Titanic’s distress call, and said, “We’re going north like hell!”
The Carpathia was sunk by a German U-boat in 1918, in WWI.
Yes, the Carpathia was something.
I was also impressed that sister ship, Olympic, turned around so far down the US coast to try to respond. It was too far away.
Another fascinating thing I ran across on 1 of those documentaries was about a German ship sending out messages about ice (IIRC). It apparently had run across this field and likewise as the Californian, had stopped and tried to signal.
I will say this for the CAian, as I recall (I used to be so into this but I’ve forgotten many things, so forgive errors), they tried to send out warnings. The Titanic wireless operator ignored it and even put them off as just being in the way of his telegraphs. So I have some hard feelings for the wireless guys.