Dan Snow's History Hit - Myths of the Titanic

Episode Date: July 4, 2020

If you want to know anything about RMS Titanic, Tim Maltin's your man. He is one of the world’s leading experts on the Titanic and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of every nut and bolt secured in place in Belfast, and every moment of its terrifying submersion in the freezing waters of the Atlantic. Tim has recently chatted to me for our latest History Hit TV documentary, and his way of speaking was just so gripping that I had to invited him back to record a podcast. In this episode, Tim took me through every stage of this momentous event, from why this 'unsinkable' ship did indeed sink, to haunting eye witness accounts of the final minutes of that fatal maiden voyage. Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. You've all heard of the Titanic, you'll know what it's about, but trust me, what you know is wrong. We've got Tim Moulton on the podcast. I think he's just the greatest living authority on the Titanic. The guy just knows everything about that ship. He's just got universal knowledge. I've tried to catch him out, I've worked with him a few times, and I've asked him really random questions about rivets, about the third class menu on the second night of the passage. And unfortunately, he's always answered the question correctly. So he is to come on the podcast to talk about the Titanic and some of the myths surrounding it. It's the most famous maritime disaster in history, but it's also one of the most mythologized. If you want to know what

happened, check this out. But also please check out the documentary I made with Tim Moulton. what happened, check this out. But also please check out the documentary I made with Tim Moulton. I went from the waters of Southampton over to his remarkable house where he's got lots of Titanic related archive and memorabilia. And we talked about the Titanic, what it means, why he's obsessed with it, and what really happened that fateful night in April 1912. So please head over to History Hit TV to watch the documentary after you've listened to this pod. It's like Netflix for history. There's hundreds of history documentaries on there. There are all the back episodes of this podcast. And there's the latest documentary is Tim Moulton talking about the Titanic. So go and check that out. If you use the code POD1, P-O-D-1,

you get a month for free. And then you get one month after that for just one pound, euro or dollar. It's a pretty sweet deal, so go and check that out. Here's Tim Moulton. Enjoy. Tim, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. My pleasure, Dan. Well, you say it's your pleasure. I believe you, because I've never met anyone who enjoys talking about their subject more than you. I mean, you could talk about Titanic all day.

I'm afraid I could, so absolutely love the ship. Absolutely amazing. Because we're conducting this over Zoom, you're sitting in front of a great big portrait of Titanic. Is that as she left Southampton? That's absolutely right. Yeah, that beckon of cows photograph as she left Southampton. And Captain Smith actually hooted the horn, as it were, blew the whistle of Titanic as that photograph was taken. Captain Smith, are we talking a bit about him? It is the most famous maritime disaster in history, bar none. Is it misunderstood? Yes, I think it is extremely misunderstood, which is quite surprising really, Dan, because it's one of the best documented disasters in history. But in fact, it seems that sort of myth and mistakes have kind of taken over from the

actual story in a way that Chinese whispers get the story wrong. And so what I've been interested to do is actually go back to the testimonies of those who were there at the time and actually listen to what they had to say. Why has myth crept in? I think it's because, not to get too deep, but I think humans like narratives and easy story arcs that make sense. Like the captain was drunk, the rudder was too small, the metal was too weak. These are all things that immediately explain a catastrophe to us. The problem is the truth is much more complicated and the truth, Dan, is much stranger than fiction. When you say it's well documented, why was that the case?

Because it was relatively recent, things like sort of government hearings in the event of maritime disasters had become culturally more normal? That's exactly right. It was such a catastrophe. And because radio was a new thing in those days, it was one of the first disasters to go straight around the world. You know, within almost minutes it had gone around the world. And what that caused was such grief and such a sensation that immediately

the survivors docked in New York. Senator Smith ordered a full public inquiry into it, which was transcribed. So we have firsthand witness statements from about 150 important crew members from Titanic of exactly what happened within a week or within a few days of the disaster happening. And then the British didn't want to be outdone by the Americans. So when the survivors got back to the UK, I'm afraid the poor people had to go again and face another huge inquiry. And that gave us the most incredible documentary record of precisely what happened the incredible night the Titanic sank.

Even before she sailed, she was a celebrity, wasn't she? So tell me about some of the incredible night the Titanic sank. Even before she sailed, she was a celebrity, wasn't she? So tell me about some of the facts of the Titanic that already marked her out as an exceptional ship. Absolutely right. She was billed as the biggest ship in the world. In fact, she was the same size as her sister ship, the Olympic. But because they rearranged her accommodation, the White Star PR machine was able to say

that she was in fact the biggest ship in the world. And of course, her and her sister were much larger than any other ship that had gone before. So she was 882 feet long. She had a 92 foot wide dining room, which was the largest room afloat at the time. She had a swimming pool, which was extremely unheard of. She had a gymnasium. So in every sense, actually, and even looking at the picture of the Titanic behind me as you are, Dan, in a way she looks a bit like a modern liner to an extent.

And I think she was just that leap into the modern world. And she was so big that people believed that she was unsinkable. What precautions had been taken to make her very difficult to sink? Well, a number of them. She had 15 watertight compartments. But she wasn't just designed to float in the event of a breach in one had 15 watertight compartments, but she wasn't just designed to float in the event of a breach in one of the watertight compartments. She was also designed to float with a breach between two compartments, so even her two largest compartments could be

flooded. But even more than that, Dan, if her first four compartments were flooded, which was a huge area, probably 100 feet long or more, she could still float indefinitely. In fact, Captain Smith was boasting to passengers, as was Thomas Andrews, the designer, on the Sunday, and she collided on the Sunday night, that Titanic could be cut crosswise into three pieces and each piece would float. So she was practically unsinkable.

So the story of Titanic is not a kind of hubristic, arrogant boat builder. I mean, this was a stunning example of boat building, and she was almost unsinkable. That's right. She was incredibly safe, which is the irony. And in fact, the Board of Trade had wanted other ships to be as safe as the Titanic. So they'd actually allowed Titanic to have less lifeboats on the basis that she would only need a handful of lifeboats to ferry people from the stricken liner if her engines broke or if she was sinking

incredibly slowly or if she had a fire on board or something like that. And the idea was that the lifeboats were to ferry passengers from such a safe ship to another nearby ship on one of the Atlantic sea lanes which passed very nearby Titanic's Atlantic lane. So people really felt that she had more than enough lifeboats to do that job. What about the people on board? Sailed down from Liverpool to Southampton, what kind of people climbed aboard? Well, absolutely right. Her maiden voyage was from Southampton, as you know. So the Liverpool run was really just a skeleton crew, and they were still what they call shaking her down.

In fact, she came from Belfast. She was registered in Liverpool, but she was built in Belfast. So she left Northern Ireland with a sort of skeleton crew and they tested her. And one of the things they tested on the way was speed, actually. And interestingly, she was going faster. She went faster between Belfast and Southampton than she ever went before and when she collided. She actually got up to about 24 knots on that journey in the Irish Sea, which is quite interesting. Anyway, point being, she then left for Southampton and that is where the great and the good in the first class joined. They would have come down on the boat train from Waterloo, the first class boat train.

They would have then maybe stayed a night at the Southampton Hotel and then they'd have gone down onto Titanic. But as well as that, of course, there were 700 crew, many of whom were stokers. A lot of the poorest people in Southampton were also, you know, providing food preparation and boiler services for the rich and wealthy. And then, of course, there was a second-class element as well. And then when Titanic then went to France in Cherbourg, and then, of course, to Ireland, her last stop before the tragedy, she took on a lot of very poor immigrants,

some from the continent in France, some from Ireland, looking for a new life in the US. Should we think about the sort of segregation of these classes in stark terms? Well, yes, they were very starkly segregated, so much so, Dan, that in fact the American Immigration Board actually demanded that there were locked gates called Bertham gates, and they demanded that these shutters were locked between third class and second class. And the reason for that is not because the Edwardians were particularly horrible, it's because they wanted to stop the spread of

infectious diseases. So the rule was that the gates must be locked between the third class and the second class, except in the event of an emergency. And of course, what my research has actually shown is that they didn't realise there was an emergency officially until 47 minutes after the collision. And that's a heck of a long time to be sinking in the North Atlantic without alerting anyone. And during that time, the ship was stopped, the gates were locked,

and so a lot of third classclass people, quite understandably, were wondering, well, when are we going to be let out? And that's where the sort of myth comes of them being locked down. But in fact, as soon as the warning was given that she was going to sink, the gates were opened, and in fact, Captain Smith sent first-class stewards down to third-class to usher the third-class up to the boats. Let's come on to the crash in a second. Atampaging Cross the Atlantic. Were they going too fast? Were they trying to

break the record? Well I'm going to be controversial and saying no they weren't going too fast. Now obviously with hindsight if they hadn't left Southampton or hadn't been travelling at all then they wouldn't have crashed so you could argue they were going too fast but what you need to understand is that Titanic was built to go at a service speed of 22-23 knots and that's what she was doing. She wasn't going any faster than her service speed and she was not trying to beat the record. As some of your listeners will know she was not built for speed, she was built for luxury. The ones that were built for speed were the Lusitania and the Mauritania, and they could reach 24, 25 knot service speeds. So Titanic was there to be reliable and comfortable. So she wasn't trying to beat a record, and she wasn't going any faster than any captain would have gone in a similar vessel,

given the conditions. And it was a very clear night. Tell us quickly, Titanic was lucky to leave Southampton. There's almost a little collision there. You're absolutely right, Dan. In fact, the irony, or one of many ironies, of Titanic is that Captain Smith's experience and excellence actually allowed him to avoid a collision at Southampton because her huge propellers sucked the New York, who was a few years before herself the biggest ship in the world, sucked it into the side of Titanic and Smith very quickly put a little bit of forward thrust on Titanic's port propeller and that washed the New York away from Titanic and actually stopped her having to be evacuated following a collision in Southampton. So it was his excellence and quick thinking

in Southampton that actually allowed the ship to carry on and then eventually of course have the tragedy. Well that fateful night. Paint us a picture of the scene minutes before and leading up to the strike on the iceberg. Well, I'm glad you've asked me to do that, Dan, because it was utterly beautiful. It was one of the clearest nights in history. So imagine a really dark night when you're not near any sort of yellow town lights or anything like that. When you look up at the stars and on a completely clear night, people said that there were actually more points of starlight in the sky around them than actually black sky between the stars, if that makes sense. In other words, just a sort of complete milky way of stars right the way across from horizon to horizon. In fact, some of the survivors said

that they could see the stars rising on one horizon and setting on the other horizon. And the sea was so calm that the stars were actually reflected in the surface of the sea was like a mill pond. Actually, we now know that's because of how much ice was around. There was ice all around, but they couldn't see that in the dark. But what they were, they were in this kind of, if you like, snow globe of stars. This incredibly, incredibly beautiful night. There was a very slight haze on the horizon, but that was actually caused by the clarity of the air because they could see so far that night that they were actually seeing a little bit of light scattering

in the molecules of the clear air that they were looking through. So on paper, Dan, you could not have had a clearer and more beautiful night. But they didn't spot the iceberg. Now, would it have made a difference if the lookout had had binoculars? Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows,

where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows, or fascinated by history and great stories listen to echoes of history a ubisoft podcast brought to you by history hits there are new episodes every week well interestingly a lot of people say it would and again it's very easy because you know as soon as people realise that the lookouts didn't have binoculars, you know, sort of if you like a murmur goes around the courtroom, well, it must have been that. And again, it's very easy to latch on to that. But unfortunately, the truth, as I said, is stranger than fiction. And when you look into it, binoculars are not the best way to detect ice at night.

way to detect ice at night. The best way to detect ice at night is with the naked eye, because it gives you a broad field of vision which will show an iceberg up much more quickly. What velociraptors are very good for is inspecting objects that you have already detected, but of course that process would actually slow down the process of ringing the alarm. And what the officers wanted was the lookouts to ring three bells, which means object dead ahead, as soon as they detected anything that even might be an iceberg. So even if there was only a 50% chance it was an iceberg, they wanted that bell rung before people would mess around with binoculars to try and verify it.

So no, having binoculars in the crow's nest would not have meant that they would have avoided the collision. Speaking of that collision, the angles are fascinating, aren't they? Because it was the fact that the Titanic, as we all saw in that amazing scene in the film, it got ripped open like a can opener. And had he just kept steering straight at the iceberg, he'd just smashed the bows into it and you might have got away with it.

Yes, I mean, the extraordinary thing is that he would absolutely have got away with it. If Murdoch had gone straight ahead into the iceberg, it would have crumpled and it would have very sadly killed all the firemen who were off duty sleeping in the bow, probably killed about 80 firemen. And it would have stove in the first 100 feet of Titanic. But remarkably, Dan, because it was doing 22 knots, if you reduce from 22 knots in 100 feet, it wouldn't actually have thrown any passengers out of bed or anything like that. It would have just been a gentle sort of crumple zone, and Titanic would have floated indefinitely.

But of course, what you don't do, Dan, without the benefit of hindsight, you don't ram the largest and most expensive and newest ship in the world straight into an iceberg. You try and avoid it. Starboard helm or port helm? Both. He started off by saying harder starboard which was actually an order to move the helm across which actually would have the effect of

moving the stem actually to the port side so in other words moving to the south of the berg they were heading west at the time but then that actually had the effect of making the stem miss the berg at least making the stem miss the part of the berg that they could see that was above the water. But what it did is it presented to the berg, as it were, Titanic's stern section and also her starboard propeller. And of course, they didn't want that either. So then the second order was given, harder port. And that was in order to turn the tiller to port, turn the rudder to the north to starboard and turn the stem to the north and also to starboard and of course unfortunately the berg was so deep that

Titanic was pretty much on it by then and sort of rammed into it and the other thing to mention Dan is that the bit of the berg they could see above the water which they actually succeeded in missing wasn't the problem. The problem was there was a huge shelf that had been worn away by wave action erosion around the berg and in fact the shelf was called a spur and it was intact and that spur really titanic's flat bottom just ran over that spur like a great ledge and it caused damage to five watertight bulkheads and as you heard earlier that was the sort of achilles heel that was a sort of fatal amount of damage that would mean that it was not possible to save Titanic because the pumps they

had on board were not sufficient to be able to keep that rate of inflow down. So one less water tight compartment and they'd have survived. Absolutely right and I'm afraid Dan Titanic is full of those things it was like if it wasn't for this if it wasn't for this, if it wasn't for that, if a nearby ship hadn't been, you know, you know, there was so much going on. But actually, let me tell you, that luck actually worked in Titanic's favour that night as well. Because, for example, the rescue ship, the Carpathia, in fact, only picked up Titanic's distress signal by chance. They happened to be telephoning Titanic to say that she had some mail waiting for her at Cape Race. And had they not randomly telephoned Titanic out of the blue, they wouldn't have discovered that she was sinking. Second one there is when they were

racing to Titanic, Titanic actually gave a distress position that was 10 miles wrong because they made a mistake of one minute in transferring the positioning timing from the hack watch on the deck to the ship's chronometer time. So because of of one minute in transferring the positioning timing from the hack watch on the deck to the ship's chronometer time. So because of that one minute error, her distress position was 10 miles out. And it would have been possible for the rescue ship to have completely missed it. But it just so happened that the wrong position was between the rescue ship and the correct position. So therefore, they managed to actually save everyone. And a final bit of good luck is that if the weather hadn't been so calm,

all of the lifeboats would have been overturned and people would have been drowned in the morning and there would have been no survivors at all from the Titanic. She'd have been like the Mary Celeste. Let's speak about the lifeboats quickly. Did the rich people manage to escape and the third-class passengers were all left stranded on the ship? Well, it's easy to think that, and I suppose kind of not is the answer. For example a higher percentage of second class men died in the sinking of the Titanic than third class men just to give you an idea. So

obviously the deaths in third class were huge because there were so many people in third class but as percentages of class you were actually more likely to survive as a second class passenger as a man than a third class one the reason why so many and particularly so many women and children and very sadly 50 children drowned in the sinking of the titanic and the reason for that is that they chose that the women and parents of the children chose to stay together as a family unit because of course it was women and children first the women and parents of the children chose to stay together as a family unit because, of course, it was women and children first and women and children only at the beginning. And I'm afraid that women did not want to leave their husbands and older children

because on the Titanic you were a man if you were 13. So women were being asked to leave their 14-year-old children and older teenagers behind, leave their breadwinning in those days husbands behind, leave all theirwinning, in those days, husbands behind, leave all their possessions behind on the Titanic, and get into an open boat, which was regarded as probably more fatally dangerous than being on a stricken liner. And what about the sort of crowd control, rumours of officers shooting people and things like that? I mean, how orderly was that evacuation, or that abandoned ship process? It started being quite orderly, but after most of the lifeboats had gone

and when the deck was really leaning, obviously a little bit more panic did set in. And this was minimised in the court of inquiry, but there was significant panic. And I do believe certainly shots were fired down the side of the ship. It's quite possible that one or two third class may have even been shot by officers

who were all given revolvers. But what we do know is that the man in charge of Titanic at the collision, Mr Murdoch, we do think he did put a gun to his head as Titanic was sinking. You know, there's been a controversy about that because I'm not saying that he wasn't massively brave. I'm also not saying it was actually his fault only that the Titanic sank. But it does look from the records as though actually he did shoot himself. That sort of extraordinary process by which she sank where her stern went high in the air and then the stern section broke away I've often wondered why that stern section didn't float a bit longer because presumably it would have had watertight compartments in it as

well. That's right I mean in many ways it almost did it did float a longer, but the thing is that all the lights had gone out by that stage, so you couldn't see it, that it was floating a bit longer. But it probably floated for a minute or two. It actually did crash back down again. So after the heavy bow that was weighing it down had torn itself free of the keel plates that bound the two together, it did actually bob back, actually. But I'm afraid there was such a lot of tearing damage to the hull in the forward part of Titanic that it was a case that she would

gradually sink. But the stern section sank so slowly that one of the survivors actually was able to step off the back of Titanic without getting his head wet. He went into the North Atlantic and then made it to New York or North America without getting his hair wet. Well, I suppose, yes, I hadn't thought of that, that he made it to New York. But yes, his story, and it does seem absolutely possible to believe him, was that he just was able to step off the stern of the Titanic because obviously it sank very slowly. It was equalised with regards to water by that stage. And of course, she had this beautiful counter stern that was kind of rounded.

So his impression, at least his own impression, was that he didn't get his head wet it's such a remarkable story you have come on history hit tv to make a documentary with us about titanic and go into even more detail if people want to hear your brilliant new theory about exactly why it hit the iceberg they have to go and watch history hit. Head over there and do that now. The documentary is up and it's a very interesting theory. But Tim, just finally, why are you so fascinated with Titanic? Why do you think we're all just so obsessed with this one epic disaster? Well, I think you touched on it with the word epic there. I think that humans, coming back to narrative,

we like these grand, incredible stories. And really the story of Titanic encapsulates actually what the Greek and Roman tragedies were all about. It was all about the smallness of mankind, if you like, I mean, whether one's religious or not, the idea that man does his and her best to sort of make a life for themselves. And yet, compared to the awesome power of nature and the universe or religion, compared to all that, we are nothing and we are very insignificant. And I think Titanic's a perfect metaphor for that. She's the best that we could do. She's using our best technology.

And yet, you know, this dark iceberg, which is almost this sort of symbol of the awesome power of the universe, deleted her before she even completed her first voyage. And I think that itself is a bit of a metaphor for the human condition. Speaking of the hopelessness of the human condition against the power of nature, one day you and I are going to have a crowdfunder to raise the Titanic, aren't we, Tim? That's our big plan. Oh, I can't wait for that, Dan. We're definitely doing that and people can send in their subscriptions to you now, Dan, and we'll raise it and we'll bring it back to Belfast. That's where it belongs. That's where it belongs. And more on that and on, everybody. Tim, thank you very much.

Your brilliant books about the Titanic, where people buy them? Oh, that's kind of you. I've got a website called timmoulton.com, and there's some books on there. One of them is amusingly called 101 Things You Thought You Knew About the Titanic But Didn't, and it's a very good read and it's a good presence for children and parents alike.

It certainly is. Tim Moulton, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. My pleasure. Thanks, Dan. One child, one teacher, one book, and one penny can change the world.