As lifeboats aboard Titanic were being lowered into the icy waters, a mystery ship, long believed to be SS Californian, could be seen in the distance by passengers, but did not sail closer to Titanic to offer assistance.
Meanwhile, the closest ship, Californian, didn't receive Titanic's distress calls at all. Its wireless operator had switched off his receiver and gone to bed after Phillips told him to shut up. Amateur radio operators also interfered with messages, making it difficult for Titanic to communicate.
Captain Arthur Rostron raced to the scene of the sinking saving those mentioned above and transporting them to New York. Exemplary as his actions were though, the Carpathia was simply too far away at the time of the sinking. Hypothermia can kill in as little as 15 minutes.
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.
At 12:38 Frankfurt sent its position to Titanic and was told by Phillips to inform his bridge and come to assistance. At this time the Frankfurt was between 120 and 150 nautical miles away from the Titanic. This already made it difficult for Frankfurt's wireless operator to hear and understand Titanic's calls.
American and British inquiries accused the SS Californian and its captain, Stanley Lord, of abandoning the Titanic. Decades later, the discovery of Titanic's wreck exonerated Lord and the Californian's role in the disaster, re-opening accounts that implicate another ship. RMS Titanic ready for launch, 1911.
As lifeboats aboard Titanic were being lowered into the icy waters, a mystery ship, long believed to be SS Californian, could be seen in the distance by passengers, but did not sail closer to Titanic to offer assistance.
Because of fog and icebergs, the Californian's captain, Stanley Lord, had halted his ship north of the Titanic, and his radio operator had broadcast a warning. The Titanic's radio operator, John George Phillips, told the Californian: ''Shut up, shut up!
According to Mr. Cooper, the author of a book on Captain Smith, Smith was not ignoring the ice warnings; he was simply not reacting to them. Ice warnings were just warnings that a ship sent saying that they had seen ice at a certain location (Kasprzak, 2012).
There are fears that during retrieval, the Titanic wreck would disintegrate into pieces, making it impossible to have something concrete by the time the remains reach the sea surface. There are documented reports that metal-eating bacteria has already consumed most of Titanic's wreckage.
In all only 337 bodies of the over 1500 Titanic victims were found, only one in five. Some bodies sank with Titanic. Winds and currents quickly scattered the remainder.
Joughin survived the sinking, swimming to upturned collapsible lifeboat B and remaining by it until he was picked up by one of the other lifeboats. He was rescued by Carpathia and arrived in New York on 16 April 1912.
Lillian died in her home in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, on May 6, 2006, at the age of 99. She was buried at the Old Swedish Cemetery in Worcester, alongside her father, mother, and brother. Her death left Barbara West Dainton and Millvina Dean as the last two living survivors of the Titanic.
After the disaster, Ismay was savaged by both the American and the British press for deserting the ship while women and children were still on board. Some papers called him the "Coward of the Titanic" or "J. Brute Ismay", and suggested that the White Star flag be changed to a yellow liver.
From the beginning, some blamed the Titanic's skipper, Captain E.J. Smith, for sailing the massive ship at such a high speed (22 knots) through the iceberg-heavy waters of the North Atlantic. Some believed Smith was trying to better the crossing time of Titanic's White Star sister ship, the Olympic.
He was branded a coward and received the unfortunate nickname of “J. Brute Ismay”, among others. There were many tasteless caricatures depicting Ismay abandoning the Titanic. One illustration shows a list of the dead on one side, and a list of the living on the other – 'Ismay' being the only name on the latter.
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.'"
Smith was accused of ignoring ice warnings from other ships and failing to reduce the ship's speed to fit the conditions at hand. The British inquiry essentially exonerated him, saying he did nothing other captains wouldn't have done. The American inquiry was only slightly harsher in its judgment.
Capt. Edward Smith was handed a note warning him that a mast from a submerged wreck in the Atlantic was “standing perpendicular, height about 10 feet,” The Guardian reported. The crumpled note was handed back to the messenger before the ship left Southampton on April 10, 1912.
The Titanic was about 20,000 times heavier and had the full momentum of all that weight driving it forward. Though the engines were immediately thrown into reverse and the rudder turned hard left, slowing and turning took an incredible distance because of the tremendous weight (or mass) of the ship.
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.
Captain Lord died on 24 January 1962, aged 84, almost half a century after the sinking of the Titanic. He is buried in Rake Lane Cemetery Wallasey.
As the half-filled boats rowed away from the ship, they were too far away for other passengers to reach, and most lifeboats did not return to the wreck due to a fear of being swamped by drowning victims or the suction of the ship sinking.
However, the ageing Isidor refused to board the lifeboat while there were younger men being prevented from boarding. Ida also refused to get into the lifeboat saying, 'Where you go, I go'. Her maid Ellen was put into the lifeboat and Ida gave Ellen her fur coat, saying she had no further use for it.