Extraordinary how this feature was published on 3/14, and the video is 3 hours 14 minutes long. Anyway...
"Titanic: An Interactive Journey" is somewhat unique, and calls for a different kind of introduction. I've been what you might call a Titaniac since I was 10 years old, and a lot of my media intake was related to the RMS Titanic in some way. In my time, the 1997 film broke box office records, and the year before, "Titanic: Adventure Out of Time" was the subject of much acclaim. I spent so much time playing that game, and although some of the set pieces therein are based on Olympic’s design, or in some manner inaccurate, you could actually walk around in it! The joy of roaming the decks of Titanic is something that wouldn't quite be sparked again until "Titanic: Honor and Glory" (and its sister, "Project 401"), over 20 years later.
I also had this CD-ROM, which, if I remember correctly, was handed down to me by my grandparents. Developed by HAVAS Edition Electronique in collaboration with RMS Titanic, Inc. and published in the UK by Europress Ltd., this is another software title I also spent a lot of time with.
If I had the big box, it would've told me on the front that PC Format called it "a multimedia triumph", and in a way it is. Strangely, there's not much information circulating about this title nowadays. There are a couple of videos on YouTube, including some from Spammals, the "Titanic Video Gamer", which do present the main parts of "An Interactive Journey", but as far as I can see, I'm the first to expose the little details of this piece.
As we tour this disc, there will be inaccuracies which I will point out and provide a correction. If I've missed anything, let me know via the comments.
🛟🛟🛟🛟🛟🛟🛟🛟🛟
Although "Titanic: An Interactive Journey" is hard to run on modern computers, it's easy if you install it in a virtual machine, as I did. I would say using PCem would be sufficient, but a. it stutters, which would not be fun to watch, and b. the QuickTime VR film causes the whole system to glitch out and freeze. Installing it on a Windows XP VM in Oracle VirtualBox is what I did for recording this. Now... I don't know what they did between 6.0 and 7.0, but in the latest version, you can't get any audio on any Windows VM. That just won't do, so I downgraded to 6.0, when it was still there.
As the program begins, narrator Jimmy Shuman introduces the RMS Titanic as "the greatest ship in the world" - and it was. Truly. Alas, "synonymous with disaster", too. Then the software package is introduced. Part one, "Inquiry into a Disaster", explores the tragedy from the perspective of New York City and the official inquiry that took place shortly after the RMS Carpathia returned to New York with the Titanic's survivors. Adorned with over 600 period pictures, and over 200 original illustrations from La Machine Productions, this semi-documentary is presented in a way that only multimedia productions of the mid-90s could do. Part two, "Dive onto the Past", is more interactive, allowing YOU to pilot a submersible around a model of the wreck site, with exclusive video footage, and hundreds more photographs of objects recovered from the wreckage. There's also a timeline tying the two parts together.
Every screen has the White Star Line flag at the bottom left corner of the screen, which takes you back to the menu screens. The default cursor also happens to be a tiny WSL flag too. Curiously, the program also has a save function, enabling you to save your current "visit" and load it again later - kind of superfluous, but handy if you're keeping track of everything you've seen on the disk.
PART ONE: INQUIRY INTO A DISASTER
Introduction
"Belgrave Square, London, one evening in 1907... [Bruce] Ismay, manager of the White Star Line, one of the great passenger lines, has just arrived at the home of Lord Pirrie, the manager of the Harland and Wolff shipyards, where all the White Star ships have been built... Ismay and Pirrie talk of the swift Cunard Line ships, and the great German liners. How to beat the competition?"
This oft-cited meeting is one of those stories which may or may not be true.
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| "At that second, everything is determined..." |
"At the very moment the mere idea of the ship takes form, the mountain of ice that will destroy it starts a five-year long trek towards their meeting place... the fate of so many men and women is sealed as of now."
The prologue of Daniel Allen Butler's retelling of the story, "Unsinkable: The Full Story of RMS Titanic", places the calving of the iceberg "sometime in the early weeks of 1912". When the calving took place exactly is anybody's guess, but this prologue does go into detail about its journey from the Iceberg Factory in Jakobshaven, Greenland, toward the ice corridor in the middle of the North Atlantic. By the time it arrives, it resembles the oft-cited photograph of the berg that may or may not have been the one. Strangely, this berg has a hook down the side, so as to tear the keel of any unsuspecting passerby. (an allusion to the 1953 film, perhaps?)
"The route between Europe and North America is so highly strategic that the companies wage war against one another to ravish the prize for the fastest crossing: the Blue Ribbon." (Wasn't that an unofficial accolade at the time?) "Ismay's idea: not to try and build the fastest ship, but the most luxurious, with roomy cabins... a true floating palace - on time, reliable, safe. Pure novelty!"
Now, I assume that was part of WSL's credo anyway. Indeed, their luxury-over-speed strategy was a hit from its 1897 launch with the SS Cymric, through into the Big Four (Celtic, Cedric, Baltic and Adriatic). It was the Lusitania that challenged this approach, with its beautifully appointed drawing rooms and plush lounges built by master craftsmen. The next step up would have to be a new level of grandeur.
They decide to build a trio of liners based on a new class of ship. Ismay makes a few sketches (I'd have thought this would've been the role for the ship's designer, Thomas Andrews), and picks three names - Olympic, Gigantic, and Titanic (the biggest of the three - considering the little differences between the ships, some variance in weight can be expected).
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| Men think they have control over their lives. How quaint! |
Five years later...
Monday 15 April 1912
Each part is split into several sections: an introduction, a scene with small "sequences", and a conclusion. Where there is more than one scene, there's another animatic that ties the two together. All these parts can be accessed in any order.
Each day also has a newspaper which can be perused by clicking on the medal or the date, as well as maps of the Atlantic and New York City. As the paper for today tells us, the Titanic has indeed hit an iceberg, but that's as far as the truth goes; it is believed that the passengers have been transferred to other ships... which, of course, is optimistic to say the least. Also available to read are stories of other worldly events pulled from period sources, whichever those are.
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| Best case scenario. |
Introduction
It's morning in New York City. As the newsboys shout about the weather and the baseball special, a gentleman makes small talk with a shoe-shiner about how great things are. Nobody yet knows about the horror that has occurred overnight.
The shoe-shiner rebuts the optimism of the gentleman. He mentions that the Titanic has hit an iceberg and is sinking "like a rock". Of course, denial is the first stage of grief; the gentleman claims that "the atmospheric interference has scrambled the radio messages", and shows him his paper: "All the passengers are safe and sound; the Titanic is being towed to Halifax..." The front page of The Evening Sun readily comes to mind. "The Titanic is damaged, but it cannot sink. Besides, icebergs no longer sink ships nowadays."
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| (Has nobody realised about water physics?) |
By the way, an image of the ship appears at the beginning and end of each of these parts, kind of like a cue to get ready to interact with the program.
The Titanic
This day is primarily focused on the Titanic itself: its construction, its fittings, and its launch. Here, there are words on the three Classes, as well as the crew and their accommodations, and even a side view which can be scrolled through with popups for specific rooms.
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| Titanic in all her splendour. |
First Class is offered "luxury that has never before even imagined" (which is funny because the Adriatic had a Turkish bath already). Second Class is "a revolution in itself". Third Class has the most important revolution, stepping up from dormitories to berths, amongst other things.
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| What candelabra? |
I don't know how they got this information mixed up. The "candelabra" they're referring to here is most likely the one in the D-Deck Reception Room, which had twenty-one bulbs, not twenty-one branches. I want to say it's some kind of mistranslation and that they actually mean the glass dome above the staircase, but I might be stretching the description a bit here.
"The trip will however cost no less than £800." Actually, it was only £30 for a First Class berth. The suites were priced at around £870. And speaking of ticket prices, Third Class is said to be "£12 per crossing", which is actually what Second Class tickets were priced at. In reality, Third Class was around £3 to £8.
Other than that, the data in these sequences seem to check out - in fact there's a couple of good titbits in there too, such as the Third Class passengers being provided three square meals daily, at a time when many ships forced their steerage travellers to bring their own provisions for the voyage. There's also the matter of the stokers being the worst off, being relegated to the stifling heat of the boiler rooms, with only the firemen's passage being their way to their dormitories.
Conclusion
The Titanic is launched on 31 May 1911. Its cost: £1.5 million (£150 million in 2019). A worker - poor old James Dobbins - is killed on the spot (actually he sustained mortal wounds; he died the next day). Nobody realises that he was "just the first of the victims!" (not accounting the dozens of workers who perished during the ship's construction?)
About a year is spent in outfitting, followed by a day of sea trials. The narrative overlooks this, going straight to the provisioning and loading of the cargo. "Cars, like the brand new 25 horsepower Renault" - I'm fairly sure that was the only one - "motion picture cameras" - cases of film and at least one camera was on there, according to the cargo manifest - "a revolutionary airplane engine powered by steam!" ?!?!?!? I have NO idea where they pulled this from. I even asked around. The closest explanation I can think of is that this was derived from a delivery being made by the Aero Club of America. The cargo manifest does mention that a case of machinery was being shipped to them, but it's so vague that it could've been anything.
"This is the post-Victorian era - the Golden Age." More accurately the Gilded Age, but close. "James Cameron's Titanic Explorer" goes into greater detail on this, but the maiden voyage of the Titanic took place in a time when the industrialised Western World enjoyed prosperity and progress on an unprecedented scale. People wanted to see results larger than life, nature be damned. And we all know how that turns out...
Tuesday 16 April 1912
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| An apology and a correction. |
"OVER 1,500 DIE AS THE GREAT TITANIC FOUNDERS" is the headline of the New York Herald. The article itself exposits the wireless operator's function during the disaster. It also spreads that old chestnut that "SOS" means "Save Our Souls", which it really doesn't. It's just a distinctive Morse code sequence that's easier to type out than "CQD". This story also claims "CQD" is an abbreviation for "Come Quickly, Danger", and that's also a brazen embellishment which the 1996 CBS miniseries tried to spread as well. In fact, "CQ" is phonetically "seek you" which calls for attention from all stations, with the "D" on the end for "distress". This software repeats this myth several times across the whole CD-ROM, and it really bugs me.
Introduction
Now, of course, 112 years ago, news didn't spread as quickly as it does now. Indeed, only now does news of the sinking of the Titanic reach New York. In the small hours, a crowd of people see it being written on the blackboard above Times Square. Chaos ensues. As morning comes, everyone is gathered outside the White Star Line offices, when a man comes out and makes an announcement to the effect that the ship has gone down with everybody onboard.
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| Nature has just put man back in perspective. |
New York worries
Both the Cunard Line and the White Star Line offices are swarmed, their phones (remember when phones had names like "Broad 3300"?) ringing off the hook. Insurance companies are having to deal with losses that amount to at least two Titanics - from extravagant sums: "$12,000,000 just for the diamonds" (the Lambeth diamonds?), down to Carter's Renault ($5,000), an autograph of Giuseppe Garibaldi ($3,000), to even concepts like Stuart Collet's college classes ($50) and Edwina Troutt's marmalade machine (priceless).
At the White Star office, the New York manager, Philip Franklin, is in a state of bargaining, stating that if the Carpathia has a third of the Titanic's contingent, the Virginian and the Parisian will have the rest. He even goes far as to gamble on the idea that people might have thought to cling to the icebergs themselves. (The Ninth Doctor found himself clinging to an iceberg, apparently, and it wasn't half cold.)
News of the Titanic's sinking is transmitted to Wanamaker's wireless station, and details are issued to the anxious crowds outside - a first for an American retail store. When Captain E.J. Smith is brought up, people also bring out his interview from 1907, when he was in command of the Adriatic. This is the interview where he says he never had any major collision during his time, just "storms and fog" (this was before the Olympic-Hawke incident). But there's another quotation worth mentioning... how the Olympic has only enough lifeboats for a third of its passengers. "The Titanic is not better off."
News travels
"If the powerful folks of the city have cancelled their excursions to the museums and the concerts, if the disappearance of so many wealthy industrial tycoons is paralyzing the country's economy, the news also rattles New York's poor districts."
The next scene takes place in a cinema on the poor side of town. Only 5 cents a ticket, and you could stay and watch silent movies all day! The popcorn probably only costs a penny, too.
At the movies
Here, the moviegoers trade rumours and stories in regards to the disaster. A few women talk about poems and stories in which ships hit icebergs and sink with half its passengers onboard. Life imitates art surprisingly well. One of them also talks about that legendary book "Futility", in which "everything is just like what happened... the size, the displacement, the speed, the 3,000 beds on board, the 2,000 passengers on the maiden voyage, the lack of lifeboats, the iceberg ramming the starboard side..."
People like to portray "Futility" as prophetic, but if you were to actually read the book, you'd find there's a major difference between the Titan and the Titanic: the Titan didn't sink on her maiden voyage. In fact, she made three return trips before her encounter with the iceberg on her fourth trip, which causes her to capsize and sink with only 13 survivors.
William T. Stead's story is also brought into the discussion. Not only did that story involve a real White Star Line ship, commanded by the same captain, that is sunk by ice... Stead happened to be on the Titanic when it went down. The mediums always said he would face dangers in "travelling by water", and he did.
Two Italian men read an English paper about the Titanic. One of them infers they built it just to sink it (ha, ha, ha).
A group of men talk about the coal strike that affected the Titanic's voyage. Though it was settled amicably, it took long enough that most ships were shored up, their coal transferred to the Titanic. And not just the coal, but passengers too, as well as sailors (apparently), and even cargo.
"Yeah! There's even a book that went under... I'm talking about the Rubaiyat, a Persian poem thing."
Yes, the Rubaiyat, stolen from Paris after its purchase by a very highly placed member of His Majesty's Government. It never actually went under: a Serbian stowaway left with it. The money garnered from its sale would fund the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. The Great War followed.
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| Yeah. "Adventure Out of Time", right? What a game. What a game. |
Another group of people chide Captain Smith for "steaming like a maniac to get the Blue Ribbon". The Blue Riband, as it's more properly called, did become an actual thing, but it was unofficial in the Titanic's time. According to one man, the winner is allowed to fly a blue pennant on the mast, "and all the rich guys want to take the ship that won so the company rakes in the dough." I assume here they're referring to the Blue Ensign. The Titanic was allowed to fly it because her crew was the pick of the Royal Naval Reserve.
On screen, newsreels are shown between the marathon of Chaplin pictures, represented here in a QuickTime video featuring what little footage there is of the Titanic, as well as her sister ship Olympic. The video also has clips of Captain Smith, wearing the white summer uniform.
Conclusion
"For once, on Tuesday evening in New York, the social gap is done away with. Rich and poor; men and women; young and old; Americans for several generations, or immigrants fresh off the boat, are all brought together by the tragedy. The parties and the debts are forgotten... only hope remains. Because everybody still hopes."
Alas, there's not much hope to go around.
Wednesday 17 April 1912
"NO HOPE LEFT; 1,535 DEAD". The New York Herald prints the official list of survivors, which here can be enlarged and scrolled through.
Introduction
The ships Virginia and Parisian have established radio contact. The Titanic's sole survivors are onboard the Carpathia. There's no way anyone else could've survived this long in the sea or air.
"As though the heavens themselves joined in the mourning, the sun went into hiding at noon..."
...except no, because...
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| Eclipses visible in New York, New York, USA – 17 Apr 1912 Solar Eclipse (timeanddate.com) |
New York saw a partial eclipse at most. This may have been an oversight as far as the narrative goes - France did experience the eclipse in its totality.
Meanwhile, Washington D.C. is on the move. An official committee is set up to conduct an inquiry into the wreck of the Titanic. Leading the inquiry is Senator William A. Smith (R-MI).
Back in New York, the crowds at the WSL office are demanding news of their loved ones. What is certain is that President Taft's friend and emissary, Archie Butt, did not survive. He died along with Francis Millet, Clarence Moore and Arthur Ryerson, spending the whole sinking playing cards with them in the First Class Smoking Room.
At the White Star Line
A White Star employee announces that a steamer, the CS Mackay-Bennett, has been chartered to pick up as many dead at the wreck site as possible, to bring some closure to their families.
Families from just about every country in the world had or knew somebody on the Titanic. In a lot of cases, their presence on the ship was the result of "pure fate". Buying a ticket to emigrate meant taking the first ship out. They must have thought themselves lucky to be on the cutting edge of modern technology... never realising they may never share that joy with others.
The Justice Department grill Philip Franklin for sending false statements about the Titanic. He, however, is only guilty of "mistakes and bad information".
A woman curses Captain Lord of the SS Californian for not "acting as a sailor". The role of the Californian and its crew is demonstrated to us (mistakenly marking 11:30pm as the time when "the tragedy begins"). One interesting point is that one of the Californian's officers is used to seeing red flares for distress. The idea of red flares for distress is alluded to in several films and series, but I'm not sure it was actually regulated at the time. Saying that though, the most internationally agreed method for signalling distress at night was rockets of any colour or description, fired one at a time, at one-minute intervals. Firing them at five-minute intervals as the Titanic did certainly didn't help.
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| CQD DOES NOT MEAN COME QUICKLY, DANGER! |
Conclusion
"...and there are the lucky ones: all those whose relatives cancelled just before the ship sailed... or who got off at Cherbourg or Queenstown."
We flash back to the departure of the Titanic on 10 April. Captain Smith and his crew arrive at the dock and line up ready board the Titanic.
But there's an IMPOSTOR! (no "Among Us" jokes, please.) Apparently, he drugged the real sailor the night before so as to steal his ID and assume his position. "We will never know who he was." Which begs the question: how did we know he was an imposter anyway? Something tells me this is one of those urban legends. There were so many crewmen on the Titanic, it's kind of hard to get their stories straight.
The boat train arrives from London, bearing Second and Third Class passengers. Edwina Troutt and the Harts have ticket numbers, but no one else does. Father Byles is erroneously called "Bylesoff", likely a slip of the tongue. There's also Louis Hoffman and his sons - or rather, Michel Navratil, an Austria-Hungary-born Second Class passenger who tried to run away with his sons. I'm sure I read about the Navratils in one of the many books I have on the Titanic. I definitely saw their pictures, anyway.
The First Class train arrives later. Along come the Futrelles, the Gracies, the Strauses. Special attention is given to the Strauses' fate: not only does Ida refuse to leave Isidor, but he refuses a seat on the lifeboats, turning down a favour other men would not receive, indeed a noble sentiment. Ironically, his testament begs Ida to enjoy life.
Some fifty last-minute cancellations include Henry Clay Frick, J.P. Morgan, and the Vanderbilts.
The Titanic sails forth on its inaugural trip, while a fire blazes in the coal bunker. It arrives in Cherbourg that evening, to take on a hundred Syrians, Croatians and Armenians, alongside Benjamin Guggenheim and Margaret Brown. (Important fact: Maggie Brown was never actually called "Molly" until the musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" came along).
The next day, the ship arrives at Queenstown, taking on its last passengers, and disembarking seven travellers, including Francis Browne, whose photographs will play a major part in painting a picture of what life on the Titanic was really like. One last man sneaks off the ship under the mailbags - fireman John Coffey, 23 (the software gives the wrong age), deserted the Titanic at Queenstown and joined the Mauretania shortly afterward.
Later, as the Titanic steams off into the Atlantic, it is reported that someone's head pops up from the last smokestack for some fresh air. Now, I know what you're probably thinking of...
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| "It's a man. Peering out from the last smokestack!" |
Actually, would the stokers have been allowed up the smokestack for any reason? It seems incredibly unlikely to me.
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| (Isn't that a picture of the Lusitania?) |
Back in the present, the news breaks out that the Carpathia is nearing the American coast, and will arrive in New York tomorrow night.
Thursday 18 April 1912
The disaster that took down the Titanic still calls for several articles in the Herald. Great mountains of ice are photographed near the wreck site, but I'd be surprised if any of them were the culprit.
Introduction
Cunard's Pier 54 is locked down by the police, and reporters try to gain passes to cover the Carpathia's arrival. The charities, too, are on the move, preparing to bring comfort to all in need.
New York is waiting
The WSL building intercepts three telegrams demanding that the ship Cedric be held up to take on the Titanic's crew, all signed "Yamsi", or "Ismay" backwards. Realising that he's preparing to skip town, Senator Smith heads to New York to personally arrest Ismay when he arrives.
The rest of the sequences here are in regards to where everyone is waiting for the survivors to land.
The Carpathia arrives
The Carpathia arrives in New York at 8:30pm, to much fanfare. She stops briefly at Pier 59 to unload the Titanic's lifeboats, before returning to Pier 54 to disembark her passengers. The process, however, is hindered by the paparazzi, who descend on the ship like condors to a corpse. The one reporter who manages to climb aboard is detained on the bridge by Captain Rostron.
The Greeting
This section adds a new element: flashback sequences wherein the survivors recount what they saw during the tragedy. There are two such sequences; the rest flavour the alighting of the passengers and the arrest of Ismay.
Harold Bride Flashback
Bride is still working in the wireless room when Guglielmo Marconi and a NYT reporter come to see him. If I'm not mistaken, this is a rewording of Bride's Account in the New York Times from 19 April. With the intro to this segment, that much seems to check out. A comparison between the two versions is quite easy. This version omits the Carpathia rescue, ending just as it arrives.
It should also be mentioned that Bride sustained injuries to his feet after clambering onto Collapsible B. Not only did another man sit on them, they were also mangled between the slats of the boat. Bride bravely put up with it, considering the circumstances.
Samuel Goldenberg Flashback
A canvas bag is found bearing the letter "G". First Class passenger Samuel Goldenberg comes forward, explaining that he brought it with him to carry his and his wife's clothes.
Immediately, this flashback mistakes Samuel's second wife Edwiga as the spouse who accompanied him on the Titanic. That distinction belongs to Nella Carlynne Goldenberg. In any case, they left the ship in Boat 5. What isn't mentioned, incidentally, is how he initially refused to board, only to be thrown into the boat by Ismay and a crewman, according to Mrs. Goldenberg's recount (New York Herald, 21 April 1912).
He sees Ismay argue with Officer Lowe, followed by Dr. Frauenthal and his brother leaping into the lifeboat, erroneously claiming that they fell on Mrs. Stengel (that was Elmer Taylor). From their boat, they see distress rockets firing, people amassing at the stern, Father Byles giving Absolution, and the band playing. After the ship sinks (ten minutes later than the accepted time), the man in charge of the boat, Officer Pitman, tries to save more people, but is stopped by several fearful women for fear of overturning the boat. So they just let the people in the water die? That's completely horrendous! But then, considering how little the people knew about the lifeboats themselves, I'm not sure what I'd have expected.
After picking up the lifeboats, the Carpathia searches for more survivors, only finding a single body. Mass is held over the wreck site, and several bodies are committed to the deep. Later, Mr. Goldenberg organises a fundraiser for the Carpathia's sailors, appointing Dr. Frauenthal as treasurer. Margaret Brown donated a lot (again, she wasn't called "Molly" until much later).
Conclusion
With all the passengers disembarked, the crowd disperses, leaving the Carpathia's crewmen onboard. The surviving Titanic crewmen are ferried to Customs, and then to the Red Star Liner Lapland. Meanwhile, souvenir hunters loot the Titanic's lifeboats.
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| People died in those boats - can't you little vultures leave them alone?! |
Friday 19 April 1912
The centremost headline introduces the inquiry at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, in which Ismay is quizzed on why he left the ship when there were still so many women to save. Above this is a story on memorials taking place in Britain, which will be touched upon later.
Incidentally, the paper keenly points out that the Waldorf-Astoria stands on a plot of land belonging to the late John Jacob Astor. As far as I'm concerned, that can't be a coincidence. The Astor dynasty has had a long-running impact on New York City - not just the famous Waldorf-Astoria, but there's an Astor Row, Astor Court, Astor Place, and Astor Avenue in the Bronx, and the neighbourhood of Astoria, Queens. The Astors were the "landlords of New York", and it just so happened that one of their number was on the Titanic when it went down. Seems like a good reason to hold the inquiry on Astor-named property in his honour! ...of course, I could be spouting nonsense, as I am wont to when faced with this kind of extensive knowledge.
Introduction
The United States Senate inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic opens at the hotel, with this first meeting in the East Room.
The Waldorf-Astoria inquiry
Bruce Ismay, of course, is called up first. The journalists have conflicting views: one makes a racist caricature out of him, and another illustration makes him look like Stalin. I'm not kidding. Anyhow, Ismay denies all the accusations against him, at one point attempting to shift the blame onto Captain Smith (by the by, no relation with the Senator). And while nothing can be pinned on him, there's still some explaining to be done.
Charles Lightoller, the most senior surviving officer, is also investigated. When he avoids the questions posed to him, Senator Smith presses him, pinpointing discrepancies in his testimonies, including on the lifeboats. Lightoller, of course, denies everything.
Sheriff Joe Bayliss, an assistant Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, has been summoned by Senator Smith to eavesdrop on crewmen and gossip, so as to uncover more information which may help the inquiry.
By the way, though they're not explicitly mentioned in the narrative, mention should be made of the other members of Smith's committee: Jonathan Bourne (R-OR), Theodore E. Burton (R-OH); Duncan U. Fletcher (D-FL); Francis G. Newlands (D-NV); George Clement Perkins (R-CA); and Furnifold McLendel Simmons (D-NC). The committee was composed to be as nonpartisan as possible, which is something that would never happen nowadays.
In England
The aforementioned memorials in Britain take place at the same time. St. Paul's Cathedral is jam-packed. The ceremony ends with a hymn, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past", which was also sung on the morning of 14 April onboard the Titanic. "O, hear us when we implore You for those threatened by the sea." Or, more correctly, "O hear us when we cry to thee / For those in peril on the sea." The hymn is also heard in the background.
Conclusion
Meanwhile, knowing the Americans would never get the English witnesses back if they let them go, Senator Smith subpoenas some 30 crewmen. Sheriff Bayliss spends the night rounding them up for their appearance in the morning.
Saturday 20 April 1912
The final paper shows us that Smith has accused Ismay of trying to hold up the Cedric so the Titanic's crewmen could be rushed back home (re: the three "Yamsi" telegrams earlier). Moreover, the Lapland departed Pier 61 at 10 a.m., only to be stopped three hours later per Government order, so as to disembark Quartermaster Robert Hichens and four other men. Hichens commanded the boat in which Maggie Brown left, and the two actively fought over going back for the others.
Introduction
The Senate reconvenes in the Myrtle Room, and Harold Bride is called upon. He confirms the existence of iceberg warnings via telegram, and also that he was the last to be invited onto Collapsible B, among all those crowding the overturned boat. Senator Smith weeps openly, and the session is suspended, with the inquiry to continue in Washington D.C. He orders the Lapland stopped, so that Sheriff Bayliss can extract more sailors to testify. Afterwards, the ship continues speeding the surviving crew home.
On the Lapland
In this final scene, a few of the Titanic's sailors trade rumours and stories. One recounts how lookout Frederick Fleet raised the alarm just moments before the Titanic hit the iceberg. It is also mentioned that there were no binoculars in the crow's nest at the time. (As we now know, they were in a locker, to which former Second Officer David Blair had the only key.)
Some didn't feel the collision, others did; still others were sent flying. Leading Fireman Frederick Barrett (there were actually two people on the Titanic by that very same name!) was among the first to see water pour into the boiler rooms immediately following the collision.
In one picture, a man is seen picking a piece off the iceberg as it glides past, to put in his whiskey. With how quickly it would've passed along the deck, it would be miraculous for someone to pick a tiny piece off of that thing with such pinpoint accuracy!
A few others stretch reality a little. One man says "The way things went, they weren't even able to get all the lifeboats overboard" - which is partly true, in that the last two collapsible boats were washed away when the water reached the boat deck. Another scoffs, "All this is a lot of horse crock!" before presenting some of his own. He says the Titanic's hull number at Harland and Wolff's was 390904, which, if written in a very specific way and placed in front of a mirror, reads "NOPOPE". The hull number story is nonsense, as Snopes will happily tell you. Unfortunately, the timeline tries to pass it off as a fact too, as we will find later. As far as I know, there wasn't an actual hull number for the Titanic - the two numbers that come close to such a distinction are her official Board of Trade designation (131428) and the yard number assigned to her by H&W (401).
The narrator also plays a sailor here, who claims his sister foresaw the calamity in the Titanic's astrological chart for her day of departure. This story, of course, is somewhat more nebulous in its nature.
One more man tries to explain away the Californian's involvement in the affair. According to him, both the Titanic and the Californian saw a ship five miles away that moved and left. The next morning, the Californian learns of the Titanic's fate ten miles away - thus, there must've been another ship in between the two. But if that's the case, what was this mystery ship, and how come it didn't respond to either the Titanic or the Californian? Was its entire crew asleep and the ship was drifting unmanned? Who knows? This isn't something I can readily pass judgement upon.
And then there are the real victims of the tragedy: the poor and the workers. 36 engineers kept everything running up to the end - all dead. 84 firemen were sent back to the flooding boiler rooms to keep the engines running - 76 dead. The postmen - all dead. And of course, there's much to be said of the Third Class, most of whom fell prey to a myriad of problems - being trapped behind locked gates, the language barrier, and the labyrinth of the lower decks, to name a few.
Conclusion
The committee hearings conclude with no one person being responsible for the accident, but with the fervent prayer that "the generations to come will be protected by new laws." And so they are. Apart from a total review of existing maritime laws, a commission will be set up to oversee the construction and outfitting of all sea-going vessels.
The International Ice Patrol is founded in 1914, designed to keep the North Atlantic shipping lanes free of floating ice, or at least to issue current and conclusive warning of impassible areas. In the years since this agency came into existence, no deaths have been attributed to floating ice in the area it monitors.
"The Ice Patrol would give birth to the American Coast Guard." Shouldn't that be the other way around, the International Ice Patrol being an agency of the U.S. Coast Guard? Anyway, they are described to drop a wreath over the approximate coordinates of the Titanic's wreck site every year. (Do they still do that?)
And with that, this part of the program comes to an end, sending you back to the main screen.
PART TWO: DIVE ONTO THE PAST
Post-Wreck History
This moderately short section picks out events between 1912 and 1985, as the Titanic's generation dies off, and searches for the wreck of the Titanic take place.
Less than a week after the Titanic sank, a salvage plan was already being drawn up. Vincent Astor spoke of blowing apart the wreck with a powerful explosive to release the body of John Jacob Astor IV, still trapped inside. He consulted with the Merritt Chapman Derrick and Wreckage Company, who agreed that such a project might be possible, save for one thing: the necessary deep-ocean search was well beyond the limits of technology of the time. When Astor's corpse was hauled aboard the Mackay-Bennett, this salvage scheme was rendered obsolete.
The Titanic was rumoured to be carrying a legendary fortune, including "Egyptian mummies carried in great secret", undoubtedly one of the strangest myths surrounding the ship. The art treasures that Maggie Brown was planning to donate to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science evolved into a strange fantasy that was published in a few New York papers. The story goes that the mummified remains of a long dead Pharaoh carried a curse, a supernatural influence which led the Titanic to her rendezvous with the iceberg. When the private collector who had brought the mummy aboard realised what was going on, he bribed crewmen to put it in a boat. The Pharaoh reached America, where it wreaked havoc on the life of its new owner to a point that the man had it shipped back, first on the Empress of Ireland, which also sank under tragic circumstances, and then again on the Lusitania, when she was torpedoed by a U-boat. We can all safely assume that the curse ended there in the Irish Channel, since it has never been accredited to any further shipwrecks.
Numerous plans to raise the Titanic are imagined, most beyond the limits of human technology, others just outright idiotic. As we later find, all of those plans would be impossible in any case; not only would the hull collapse under the sudden change in water pressure, but there's also the little problem of it being not intact.
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| Because it's stupid! |
As for the Titanic's sisters... the Gigantic, still in construction when the Titanic sank, was quickly renamed from the presumptuous Gigantic to the ever-patriotic Britannic, which was also the name of an earlier ship which did the line proud. When the Great War broke out, the Britannic was fitted out as a hospital ship. Her career was short and ill-fated, ending abruptly in November 1916 with a chance encounter with a mine in the Aegean Sea (it is said here that she was torpedoed, but the timeline, later on, says she was mined). As for "Old Reliable" Olympic, she sailed on, first as a troop carrier during the War, in which she brings down U-103, and then back as a passenger liner through into the Great Depression, which resulted in her decommissioning and dismantling in 1935, although parts of her fittings are now permanent fixtures around Britain, including in the aptly-named Olympic Suite at the White Swan Hotel, Alnwick.
Honourable mentions go to crew members Violet Jessop and Arthur John Priest, who both survived the accidents on all three Olympic-class ships. Priest also survived the wartime losses of the Alcantara and Donegal, afterwards being forced to retire because, apparently, no one wished to sail with him.
Ismay is dragged through the gutter, of course, not helped by that yellow journalism magnate, William Randolph Hearst, who was an opponent of him to begin with. Actually, Hearst isn't mentioned here, but I thought this was worth mentioning.
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| Revisionist history strikes again; now the ship was built entirely by this one man. |
The 1929 Grand Banks earthquake is inferred to have buried the wreck under the resulting submarine landslide. Considering how far away the epicentre of the event actually was, this is doubtful... but then, I'm not an expert on earthquakes.
The sinking was a financial disaster for the International Mercantile Marine Company, of which the White Star Line was part. Analysis of financial records shows that IMMC was over-leveraged and suffered from inadequate cash flow, causing it to default on bond interest payments. Its owner, J.P. Morgan, died a year later, and was resurrected in pop culture as the Monopoly Man.
President Taft is not re-elected. Senator Smith, however, is, and so he kept up the good fight for social welfare laws (remember, this was long before the Republican Party turned its back on human rights).
The first serious effort to find the wreck was a 1953 expedition, attempting to echo-map the ocean floor.
We are told that, in the 60s, there were rumours of the Americans, the Soviets AND the British spotting the wreck in the path of their nuclear submarines, but that the discoveries were all classified. They're probably just rumours, it would honestly be a surprise if any of it were true.
When World War II broke out, Charles Lightoller served his country at sea early on, later evacuating British troops from Dunkirk in his family yacht, giving the former Second Officer a chance at redemption after so notoriously allowing only women and children into the lifeboats under his command.
Stanley Lord was dismissed in disgrace, and spent the rest of his life trying to get his side of the story heard.
Frederick Fleet was apparently "the victim of a secret plot by British officers", which is debatable. None of the major sources I've checked mention any sort of conspiracy against Fleet. It beats me where this came from. He did, however, go on to be a paperman in Southampton after leaving the Navy. Much can also be said of his suicide in 1965; the death of his wife two weeks before was the catalyst for a downward spiral, during which he was evicted from his home by his brother-in-law, which certainly didn't help matters.
In the 1970s, a man named Douglas Wooley is said to have taken official possession of the wreck, to photograph and raise it, but he never even made it to sea, all because his vehicle of choice was run aground. I've had a hard time finding any information on this would-be expedition. I swear, there's more data on Jack Grimm's failed expeditions, and all they get here is a single sentence! Did you know Grimm sought Noah's Ark and the Loch Ness Monster? Neither of which have any, you know, proof of their existence?
Then there was the ALCOA Seaprobe accident in 1977, in which all of the equipment was lost at sea. Dr. Robert Ballard was on that expedition. His book, "The Discovery of the Titanic", explores this event, as well as his eventual discovery and investigation.
According to this history, IFREMER set up the whole expedition - the Woods Hole Oceanographic Research Institute is not mentioned until the timeline. Dr. Ballard, along with Jean-Louis Michel, set out in two ships: Le Suroit and Knorr (the latter of which is also not brought up until the timeline), scouring a 436 square mile area, with three deep-sea craft. Only Argo is mentioned. There was also SAR ("Sonar Acoustique Remorque") and ANGUS (Acoustically Navigated Geological Underwater Survey), the latter of which worked with Argo to bring the oceanographers their first sight of the Titanic: a boiler lying face down in the mud.
The wreck was discovered at last, but its location remained a secret until the publication of "The Discovery of the Titanic", and the world was spellbound.
The discovery also led to contention between IFREMER and WHOI on the subject of salvage. Dr. Ballard initially planned on recovering artefacts for historical purposes, but his up-close dives in 1986 changed his mind. This, after all, is a burial site, and should be treated as such. This applies for trying to raise the ship as well: exhuming one grave is one thing, it's quite another to dig up the entire graveyard.
But whatever your views on the ethics of recovering artefacts from the wreck of the Titanic, here you get to play witness to the 1987 dive, with George Tulloch and Paul-Henri Nargeolet (yes, the one who very recently died in the Titan accident), as they make the first salvage dive with IFREMER. This is the operation that will cause Congress to pass two laws discouraging American involvement in such ventures, and will lead to Dr. Ballard organising a reunion of survivors, historians and enthusiasts in protest against the salvage. Controversial though this expedition is, future salvor-in-possession George Tulloch insists, along with IFREMER, that the items retrieved be treated with respect.
The Expedition
Similar to the scenes in Part one, this scene serves to flavour the dive experience with introductions to George Tulloch and "P.H.", the ship Nadir, and the location of the wreck itself.
The Dive
After being guided though the specifications of the bathyscape Nautile, and its accompanying remote-operated vehicle Robin (analogous to Alvin's Jason Junior), the narration takes a descriptive turn not dissimilar to an RPG, wherein YOU are one of the main stars. And it does a fine job of setting the ambience for the quest on which you're about to embark. Props must be given at this point to the musicians, who crafted some quite ominous and moody pieces for this software.
Obviously, you won't be expected to wait for two hours in total darkness, so you jump straight there. On the screen, you see a model of the wreck as the Nautile slowly glides into position for the next part. Combined with the music, again, there's a certain moodiness to it. If you were to speed up the video, though, the morphing effects they use become more obvious. Quaint though it is, I can't help but admire it.
Inside the Nautile
Ah, remember QuickTime VR? It was everywhere in the late 90s and early 2000s, I swear. I get a certain nostalgic kick when I see one of these; not even the contemporary panorama viewers come close.
This is how the wreck model is presented to you. You click and drag the joystick (or the viewport itself) to move your viewpoint, and click in certain hotspots to bring up either another area or some video and/or photos. For the purpose of the video, I set it on "Auto Pilot" so you can see everything in sequence. Another feature which I neglected is the little map in the bottom left corner, which allows you to teleport to any of the hotspots in the VR film.
The new video footage here is a major selling point of "An Interactive Journey". Small and compressed video footage, especially compared to nowadays, but would you pass up the chance to look at never-before-seen video of the wreck of the Titanic?
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| Why is the bow mislabelled? |
Titanic's Objects
The more delicate debris, preserved for over 70 years under high pressure and deep-sea chemistry, would quickly degrade when brought to the surface. Minerals, bacteria, and the electrochemical action of saltwater can crystallize ceramic, crumble leather, and explode iron the moment air reaches it. With WSL property and passengers' personal effects being the only human-made objects ever to be salvaged from such a great depth, new developments in recovery and restoration were built around them. The French laboratories at Electricite de France and Atelier LP3 Conservation were commissioned to stabilize these precious items with electrolysis, chemical injection, freeze-drying, and fumigation, among other techniques. A range of items, all of which you see in this final area, were all successfully transferred from the ocean floor to your monitor screen.
Here, you may see close-ups of 100 of the objects retrieved from the seabed, along with speculation of what some of these pieces may have been used for.
PART THREE: Timeline
This last part is the smallest part, detailing the chronology of the Titanic's history, beginning with premonitions by W.T. Stead, leading all the way into the 21st century. As previously described, some of the details presented here are apocryphal - the Titanic's hull number, and the meanings of CQD and SOS, chiefly - but there are a few details that aren't mentioned in the main portion of the program. Some keywords are highlighted, which display an image pertaining to that keyword when clicked.
Actually, I must point another thing out here... it says that at 12:45 a.m. on 15 April, the Titanic sent out "the first SOS ever sent", which is blatantly untrue. In fact, it was the Cunard liner RMS Slavonia that is the earliest reported to have transmitted the SOS distress call, after being wrecked in the Azores in 1909. Up to this point, there was some resistance among Marconi operators to adopting the new signal, with CQD only dying out after the Titanic disaster.
I said before that "trivia holds no interest when it's wrong". But... I'm so sorry, I believed in this myself. Naturally, much research taught me not to believe everything at face value.
"The 21st century" informs us of the erosion of the wreck, projected to crumble into a pile of rust "in anywhere between 10 and 30 years". Surely, it's a testament to her construction that she's lasted this long. "After only two weeks at sea, she will have spent an entire century majestically resting deep under the waves." And, indeed, she has!
And then there's the matter of things that happened long after this software's publication. James Cameron's blockbuster film would grace the cinema screen only a year after. The "Big Piece" would be raised a year after that. George Tulloch would die in 2004, his last dreams of finding Atlantis unfulfilled. The last living survivor of the disaster, Milvina Dean, would die in 2009. In 2016, RMS Titanic, Inc. went bankrupt and had to sell some of its artefacts to cover its losses. "P.H." would die in the Titan submersible implosion which occurred only last year - an ignominious end to his career. The fact that history can repeat itself in such a way should tell us that man is no match for nature. It shouldn't have happened - was the Titanic not enough of a lesson for you people?! And did the rest of us really have to point and laugh at their misfortune? Five people died horribly and you're laughing!? What's the matter with you?!
I'm sorry, I get upset when I have to talk about it. It still disturbs me greatly. It put me off talking about the Titanic for a long time afterwards. It's probably best I end this review here, before things get really awkward.
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| "P.H." 1946-2023 |
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"Titanic: An Interactive Journey" is available on the Internet Archive, and will run on any 32-bit Windows system. As it represents a 90s understanding of the story, be prepared to take everything it says with a pinch of salt.
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