Clarifying the Story of the Titanic

This is from Tommy Bruner's Facebook page. Tommy is a guitarist I've played with at the Whiskey Jo's Wednesday night jam sessions. I thought this would be a good post to start out 2023!

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For any of my friends who are interested in the story of the Titanic......or if you’re just really, really, REALLY bored:

It’s interesting that so much has been learned about the disaster since the 1997 movie. They did a pretty good job with the information they had at the time. But it’s become apparent from research since then that they got a number of things wrong. Here’s an interesting list of 10 things that were not depicted accurately in the movie according to what is known now:

1. #1. The movie depicts a man standing at the bow railing who starts to run away a second or so before the collision. When the real collision occurred no one was standing outside forward of the bridge except for the lookouts in the crow’s nest.
2. #2. The movie depicts the first officer giving the order “Hard a-starboard” (which at the time meant turn the ship to port) and “full astern” to try to avoid the collision. In reality the orders he gave were “Hard a-starboard” and “All stop.” The engines were never reversed at any time during the event.
3. #3. Subsequently, and unlike the movie, Captain Smith did not give the “All stop” order when he came on the bridge because the first officer had already given it. In fact the captain ordered “Ahead slow” and the ship proceeded forward again slowly for about 10 minutes while the damage was being assessed. He then ordered “Full Stop” only after he was informed that the ship had sustained unsurvivable damage.
4. #4. Contrary to the movie depiction there is no evidence at all that First Officer Murdoch either shot someone or committed suicide during the loading of collapsible lifeboat A, or at any point during the sinking. He was last seen standing on the deck right after lifeboat A was launched, but was probably engulfed by a wave of water that surged up the starboard boat deck as a result of the ship’s abruptly righting itself from a notable list to port. Second Officer Lightoller Who was standing on the roof of the officer’s quarters testified that he saw Murdoch engulfed by the wave. It’s also speculated that this abrupt shift was also what caused the forward funnel to collapse (see #5) By contrast, the scene depicted on the port side where Fifth Officer Lowe fires his revolver into the air to stop a rush on one of the lifeboats did actually happen.
5. #5. Unlike the movie depiction in which the forward funnel collapses to port, it actually collapsed forward and to starboard and obliterated the starboard wing bridge. It’s also what probably killed John Jacob Astor, who was last seen standing on the starboard wing bridge and whose body was later found terribly mangled.
6. #6. Unlike the movie depiction, after the ship broke in two the stern section did not tip completely vertical before it sank. It reached a maximum angle of only around 30° and rolled to port as it sank, only going vertical just as it’s aft end slipped underwater. As a result, and also unlike the movie, there was virtually no suction at all. Several survivors including the ship’s baker reported just stepping off the stern into the water as it disappeared.
7. #7. The movie, understandably, had to put a certain amount of light on the final minutes of the sinking so movie audiences would understand what was going on. In the actual event once the lights on the ship went out it was so dark that no one further away than a few yards actually saw the ship sink. All they would have seen was a black silhouette against the stars. This probably explains the decades of debate over whether the ship broke in two or sank in one piece. Virtually no one, certainly no one in the lifeboats, could see what was actually happening. The sound some interpreted as engines or boilers tearing loose and crashing forward was actually the sound of the ship breaking in two. Additionally, there were several battery operated emergency lights that stayed on on the stern section as it was sinking including one on the after-mast. But they were not enough to illuminate what was going on.
8. #8. The movie mirrors the assumption made in Walter Lord’s book ‘A Night To Remember’ that the ship’s designer Thomas Andrews was last seen in the 1st Class Smoking Lounge, staring blankly at a painting that hung over the fireplace, and also depicts Captain Smith retreating into the wheelhouse to await his fate. In reality survivor testimony indicates that a number of people witnessed Andrews standing with Captain Smith on the port wing bridge just as the water was about to spill over it at approximately 2:05 am, as the sinking was beginning to accelerate rapidly. The witnesses all recalled Smith turning to Andrews and saying, “There’s no use waiting any longer. She’s going.”, after which they both jumped into the water from the port wing bridge. Neither survived and their bodies were never recovered.
9. #9. The movie depicts the distress rockets being fired from the starboard wing bridge. In reality they were fired from the port wing bridge since the ‘mystery ship’ they were trying to get the attention of, later determined to be the SS Californian, appeared to be on the horizon off their port bow. The Californian was north and  west of Titanic when the collision occurred as Titanic was traveling west. But as the iceberg was abreast of Titanic’s bridge First Officer Murdoch ordered ‘Hard a-port’ to turn the ship to the right to prevent the berg from damaging the rear part of the ship (depicted accurately in the movie.) This means that from that point on through the rest of the sinking Titanic was facing north, which placed the Californian’s light off Titanic’s port bow, not starboard. Further proof of this is the fact that the bow section faces north on the bottom today, not west.
10. #10. The band and the last song. Both the 1954 and 1997 movies place the band on the port side boat deck near the entrance to the first class grand staircase during the sinking. But a majority of witnesses who testified before both the British and American investigations placed the band on the starboard side of the boat deck near the entrance to the gymnasium, located roughly abreast of the second funnel. It’s generally accepted that the last song the band played was the hymn ‘Nearer My God To Thee.’ But there are discrepancies in the testimony of survivors. While many claim it was the aforementioned hymn, many also testified that the band’s final song was an Episcopal hymn titled ‘Autumn.’  That song contains the line ‘nearer my God to thee,’ but the band would have been playing an instrumental version of it without anyone singing the lyrics. Still, that might explain some of the differences in what people thought they heard. We’ll probably never know for sure since none of the band members survived.

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