I tend not to be competent enough of a Comtesse to plan anniversary facts but this one just happened to accidentally fall on the 103rd anniversary of the fateful dive of the R.M.S. Titanic.
Today’s Heroic Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
As the Titanic was filling with water and sinking on the early morning of April 15, 1912, although the captain had ordered some of the lifeboats to “stand by” in the water, most rowed away quickly from the ship for fear that “suction” would drag them under as the ship sank. Afloat in their tiny boats on the immense sea, lifeboat passengers watched as the Titanic’s lights blazed at an unreal angle and her bow plunged beneath the surface at 1:15. On board the sinking ship, as water crept up foot by foot, the gymnasium instructor was, incredibly, still helping passengers on the mechanical exercise equipment. The orchestra continued to calm the crowd with waltzes, ragtime, and music hall tunes, and last drinks were “on the house” in the first-class smoking room.
The reality of the disaster, however, was keener in the boiler and engine rooms below, where workers bravely stayed at their posts to provide enough power to keep theTitanic’s lights burning and the great ship’s wireless operating. In boiler room 5, a few firemen were helping two of their fellow crewmen, Herbert Harvey and Jonathan Shepherd, handle the pumps when Shepherd stumbled into an open manhole and broke his leg. The injured engineer was made as comfortable as possible while the others returned to their tasks. Suddenly, sea water rushed in as the bulkhead between boiler rooms 5 and 6 collapsed.Most made it up the safety ladder, but Shepherd and Harvey perished in the flood.
Culled from: Titanic: Legacy of the World’s Greatest Ocean Liner
Point of (dis)Interest: Titanic’s 29 boilers were each 15’9″ in diameter. See how big?
Titanic Trinkets
And of course, no anniversary of the Titanic sinking is complete without looking at some of the incredible artifacts that have been salvaged from the ocean floor. Here’s a lovely collection on Pinterest which includes this photograph of what surely was at one time human remains (though the body has long since rotted away).
