Gareth Russell on the Sinking of the Titanic, 112 Years After It Happened

On April 15, 1912, the RMS Titanic—a British ocean liner operated by the White Star Line—sank in the North Atlantic Ocean after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. The loss of life was devastating—of the 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, about 1,500 died, making the Titanic the deadliest sinking of a single ship up to that time, 112 years ago. Titanic had aboard her some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of immigrants seeking a new life in the United States and Canada. The Titanic was deemed “unsinkable,” which perhaps accounted for its disturbing lack of lifeboats. The ship was capable of having 48 lifeboats aboard; it only had 20 in actuality. Of those 20 lifeboats, 1,178 lives could have been saved in them, roughly half of the number of passengers on board. When the Titanic sank, the lifeboats lowered were only filled up to an average of 60 percent, which has always troubled me. She set off on her maiden voyage on Wednesday, April 10, 1912, and was due to arrive at New York Pier 59 one week later, on April 17. As played out in the blockbuster 1997 film Titanic directed by James Cameron and starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, you can see that the ship was the lap of luxury. At 11:40 p.m. on April 14, lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg immediately ahead, and alerted the bridge. First Officer William Murdoch ordered the Titanic to steer around the iceberg and the engines to be reversed, but it was too late. The starboard side of the ship struck the iceberg, creating a series of holes below the waterline, allowing water to rush in. It soon became clear that the ship was doomed. Between 2:10 and 2:15 a.m., a little over two-and-a-half hours after the Titanic struck the iceberg, her rate of sinking increased suddenly as the boat deck went underwater; as her stern rose out of the water, exposing the propellers, the ship broke into two. The bow was now underwater and the stern remained afloat and buoyant for a few minutes longer, rising to a nearly, and terrifyingly, vertical angle with hundreds of people still clinging to it, before foundering at 2:20 a.m. All of the remaining passengers and crew were flung into water at a temperature of 28 degrees Fahrenheit, or -2 degrees Celsius. Only five thrown into the frigid waters were helped into the lifeboats, though the lifeboats had room for almost 500 more souls. Women and children survived the disaster at rates of about 75 percent and 50 percent, respectively; because of the “women and children first” policy, only 20 percent of the men aboard made it out alive. Today on the show I have one of my favorite interview subjects ever: Gareth Russell, the author of 2019’s The Ship of Dreams: The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era. As you’ll hear, he is an expert on the Titanic, and there’s no one better to honor those lives lost and to remember her than him; to me, anyway, this is the absolute definitive book on the Titanic—no questions asked.

The Ship of Dreams: The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era by Gareth Russell