SS Californian was a British Leyland Line steamship. She is thought to have been the only ship to see the Titanic, or at least her rockets, during the sinking, but despite being the closest ship in the area, the crew took no action to assist.
The Californian was surrounded by icebergs and wireless communication was shut off by Titanic's wireless, so there was still NO way for it to hurry and save Titanic. Jokester Titan on April 27, 2017: F.Y.I.
When the Titanic was hit hard & started sinking it began sending out distress signals. There were three ships which were nearby before it sunk, “The Sampson”, “The Californian” & “The Carpathia”.
In inquiries after the sinking, the Californian's captain testified that his ship was more than 19 miles north of the Titanic when she went down. Dr. Ballard said yesterday that the Californian could not have been more than 10 miles from the Titanic.
Iceberg warnings went unheeded: The Titanic received multiple warnings about icefields in the North Atlantic over the wireless, but Corfield notes that the last and most specific warning was not passed along by senior radio operator Jack Phillips to Captain Smith, apparently because it didn't carry the prefix "MSG" ( ...
New York, April 17—Captain Smith of the Titanic had warning of the danger ahead of him in the giant iceberg that sent his vessel to the bottom of the North Atlantic. As a matter of fact, the Titanic relayed the warning to the shore.
The Infamous Captain Edward Smith. doomed passenger ship the Titanic, which went down in April 1912. Captain Smith was responsible for over 2,200 passengers and crew, more than 1,200 were killed that fateful night of April 14.
Most of the bodies were never recovered, but some say there are remains near the ship. What could have happened to the bodies? Some Titanic experts say a powerful storm the night of the wreck scattered the life-jacketed passengers in a 50-mile-wide area, so it's likely the bodies scattered across the seafloor.
Sunk by German U-boats, 9 November 1915, 61 miles (98 km) southwest of Cape Matapan, Greece.
If we take these statistics and assume all first-class passengers paid 30 pounds in berth fare, the total fare was 18,091 pounds or $90,455 in 1912. In today's money, it would equal 2.2 pounds or $2.75 million.
Final calls and sinking
Around 1:45 a.m., Cottam received Titanic's final intelligible message: "Come as quickly as possible, old man, the engine room is filling up to the boilers." He replied that "all our boats were ready and we were coming as hard as we could come" but received no further response.
The 2000 expedition by RMS Titanic Inc. carried out 28 dives during which over 800 artifacts were recovered, including the ship's engine telegraphs, perfume vials and watertight door gears.
Answer: That's wrong – it would probably have survived. When a ship hits an iceberg head on, all the force would be transferred back to the ship, so it wouldn't have ripped open, but crumpled round, so only 2-3 compartments would have been breached. It was built to survive with 4 compartments breached.
Oceanographers have pointed out that the hostile sea environment has wreaked havoc on the ship's remains after more than a century beneath the surface. Saltwater acidity has been dissolving the vessel, compromising its integrity to the point where much of it would crumble if tampered with.
Since its discovery in 1985, dueling visions for how to best save the memory of the ship have played out in international negotiations, courtrooms and on the ocean floor. "You can't 'Raise the Titanic,' " Ballard says, a reference to a critically panned 1980 movie based on that idea. Doing so "would destroy it."
The average lifespan of an iceberg in the North Atlantic typically is two to three years from calving to melting. This means the iceberg that sank the Titanic "likely broke off from Greenland in 1910 or 1911, and was gone forever by the end of 1912 or sometime in 1913."
The wartime sinking of the German Wilhelm Gustloff in January 1945 in World War II by a Soviet Navy submarine, with an estimated loss of about 9,400 people, remains the deadliest isolated maritime disaster ever, excluding such events as the destruction of entire fleets like the 1274 and 1281 storms that are said to ...
Captain Lord died on January 24, 1962, aged 84, almost half a century after the sinking of the Titanic. He is buried in New Brighton cemetery, Merseyside.
Then, as Titanic was approached, Californian would have slowed down to avoid accidentally running down Titanic's boats. Taking these maneouvres together it is likely that Californian would have taken at least 1.5 hours to reach Titanic, fifteen miles away.
Of the 337 bodies recovered, 119 were buried at sea. 209 were brought back to Halifax. 59 were claimed by relatives and shipped to their home communities. The remaining 150 victims are buried in three cemeteries: Fairview Lawn, Mount Olivet and Baron de Hirsch.
Here's the backstory
Unfortunately, since the wreckage and debris lie at a depth of about 12,500 feet, it is impossible to see the ship from Google Maps. But that shouldn't stop you from looking at how close she came to completing her journey.
On today's date in 1912, the body of James McGrady, a saloon steward aboard the RMS Titanic, was interred in Halifax, N.S., where he's buried at Fairview Lawn Cemetery. Recovered in the preceding weeks, McGrady's body was the last body recovered from the tragic sinking that took place about two months prior.
Captain Smith having done all man could do for the safety of passengers and crew remained at his post on the sinking ship until the end. His last message to the crew was 'Be British. '"
The sea's surface shone like glass, making it hard to spot icebergs, common to the North Atlantic in spring. Nevertheless, Captain Smith kept the ship at full speed. He believed the crew could react in time if any were sighted. (Related: go on the trail of Titanic in the UK.)
Stoker William Mintram inhabited a suitably Dantean inferno after the crime of killing his wife. He slaved in punishing heat to propel the souls aboard a White Star liner to a far-flung shore. AB George Francis McGough, on the other hand, sauntered the decks, almost rubbing shoulders with the passengers.