No maritime disaster in history has caught the attention of the general public than that of the R M S Titanic's disastrous collision with an iceberg in the mid-Atlantic resulting in the untimely deaths of 1,522 souls. With the benefit of hindsight the loss of the Titanic and those unfortunate enough to still be on board as she broke in two and slid beneath the icy waters could have so easily been avoided. Henry Threlfall Wilson founded the White Star Line in 1845, along with his partner, John Pilkington. The pair made their fortune taking immigrants to Australia and returning with rare goods. In 1857 Pilkington suddenly left and was replaced by James Chambers who, six years later, acquired his first steamship, the 2,033 ton Royal Standard. The Royal Standard set a trend for White Star owned vessels which was to eventually lead to the loss of the Titanic. No matter how one looks at it, ships owned by the White Star Line had an unenviable tendency of running into things and sinking! Ironically, the Royal Standard started the trend by running headlong into an iceberg returning from her maiden voyage to Melbourne but was able to limp to Rio de Janeiro for repairs.

Shortly after this the company went into liquidation and was sold for the paltry sum of £1,000 to thirty one year old Thomas Henry Ismay who planned to start a Trans-Atlantic shipping business with his friend and financier Gustav Schwabe, a Liverpool banker. The only condition Schwabe put on this was that their ships were to be made at Harland & Wolffs Belfast works. Perhaps they were given the multi million pound contract because Gustav Wolff was Schwabes junior partner.

In 1869, Harland & Wolff received orders to build six vessels by the Oceanic Steam Navigation Co Ltd, a subsidiary of the White Star Line. It was at this time that someone had the bright idea of naming all their vessels with names that ended in "ic". The first two were the Oceanic and the Atlantic. While these ships were being built, Ismay joined forces with William Imrie making the Oceanic Steam Navigation Co Ltd, the most prosperous shipping company on the North Atlantic run. It is perhaps fortunate that the owners of the company didn't travel by sea on their own vessels as they had terrible luck. In 1873 the Atlantic ran into a partially submerged rock off Halifax, Nova Scotia. Its Captain, James Williams had headed for Halifax after he had used up all his coal reserves fighting against a storm in his attempt to reach New York. Five hundred and forty six people, most of whom were woman and children went down with the Atlantic. Only a few years before (1863) the 6,594 ton Naronic, then the worlds largest livestock carrier vanished without trace in the north Atlantic. In 1899 the Germanic capsized in New York harbour because of the weight of the ice that had congregated on the ships upper decks and rigging. Eight years later in 1907 the Suevic ran aground at Lands End, Cornwall after returning from a long and arduous trip to Australia. In the very next year, the liner Republic sank after it had ran headlong into another liner called the Florida. In this instance nearly everyone escaped unharmed as this was to be the first radio distress message successfully transmitted.

April 30 1907 Harland & Wolff began work on two new ships, the Olympic and her sister ship, the Titanic. Subsequently, in 1911, another ship was ordered which had the provisional title of Gigantic, later to be changed to Britannic after the terrible loss of the Titanic. Even the story behind the Britannic is a disastrous one. On 26th February 1914 but not fully fitted out until 8th December 1915, she was almost immediately commissioned as a hospital ship to help the injured soldiers of the First World War. On November 21 1916, the Britannic collided with a mine in the Aegean Sea and quickly sank within an hour. Twenty one people died. Perhaps it is just another coincidence that some of those on board the Britannic were also on board the Titanic when it sank! The Titanic's sister ship was, in retrospect, almost blessed as several near fatal accidents couldn't end her life.

On September 20 1911 Olympic collided with the 7,000 ton cruiser HMS Hawke but managed to make it back to Southampton with two watertight compartments flooded and only one engine working. Later on February 1912 she lost a propeller on a mysterious submerged object some 750 miles off the New Foundland coast. Olympic is a good example of triumph over adversity as she survived on to 1938 when she was taken out of service.

So on to Titanic...Titanic began her sea trials on the morning of April 2 1912. At the time she was the largest moving object built by man and must have looked a tremendous sight. In fact she was such an awesome sight that she was deemed unsinkable. Maybe this is why she only had 20 lifeboats on board able to hold 1,178 people; fourteen standard able to hold 65 people each, two cutters able to hold 40 people each and four collapsible boats known as Engelhardts that were able to hold 47 people.

Captain, Edward Smith was a silver bearded highly respected figure who was approaching retirement. The respect that his fellow mariners had for him may not have been entirely deserved as his record was flawed by several serious accidents. He had first went to sea as a thirteen year old and received his first command in 1887. Two years later the Republic ran aground in New York and in 1890 another of his ships ran aground in Rio de Janeiro. This was followed by two serious fires on board the Majestic and the Baltic. It was to be his last hurrah taking the pride of the White Star fleet to New York on her maiden voyage. However he was a man facing a huge problem. Titanic couldn't set for sea without huge amounts of coal to fire the massive engine's boilers. Unfortunately this was at the later stages of a coal miners strike so coal reserves had to be taken off surrounding ships tied up at the dockside. Perhaps this is why a fire in number 10 bunker starboard side of boiler room 6 went unreported due to the haste in transporting coal. It is this fire which was left raging that figures highly later on.

The coal was loaded, the Titanic slipped its moorings and at twelve o'clock, after three huge blasts of Titanics horns, and with 2,922 passengers on board, she was pulled away from the dockside by several tugs. The fact that she was such a massive structure caused a wake to develop behind the ship known as the canal effect which was made worse when Titanics huge screws began to turn. This canal effect caused the New York to break its moorings and slowly edge out towards the pride of the White Star line. Only the intervention of the tug boat pilots saved the Titanic from serious harm.

The pilot of the Titanic who was steering the great vessels bow towards open sea was none other than George Bowyer, the pilot who had been on duty when the Olympic had ran headlong into the side of the HMS Hawke. Another coincidence? Talk on board amongst the crew that day concerned the Niagara that had, that very morning, collided with an iceberg...The Titanic had traveled to Cherbourg, France, it returned to Ireland, anchoring off Queenstown, now known as Cobh, where a boat ferried the remaining passengers from shore.

It was while the Titanic was stationary that 24 year old stocker, John Coffrey deserted ship for some reason better known to himself. Perhaps he had had some awful premonition of disaster or had accidentally came across information, or unsettling rumours that had been circulating amongst

the crew. So with some of her 2,235 passengers meandering around the many decks enjoying themselves, Captain Smith standing majestically on the bridge and Eugene Daly standing alone on the third class promenade deck playing Erin's Lament on his pipes, the Titanic headed for open sea not realising what dire fate lay in store.

Why Smith ordered the ship to continue at full steam towards sea lanes that he knew were strewn with treacherous icebergs is unknown and rumours suggesting that Ismay had officially asked, or ordered, him to proceed at full speed to arrive in New York in record time are unfounded. Make no mistake about it, there were more than enough warnings about the icebergs ahead. Why they weren't taken serious is anyone's guess. Barr of the Cunard owned Caronia, traveling east from New York sent a message that read; "Captain. Titanic. Westbound. All steamer reports bergs, growlers and field ice in 42 degrees North from 49 degrees to 51 degrees west. April 12. Compliments. Barr". This lay right in the Titanics path. Perhaps more shocking is the fact that this was only one of two messages, the second coming from a Greek ship called the Athinai reported the same icebergs . At least one of the ice warnings did reach the attention of Captain Smith but didn't reach the bridge were it would have mattered most. Smith was dinning with Ismay in the promenade dinning room when one of the junior officers handed him a message containing an ice warning but had it quickly taken off him by Ismay who openly joked that encountering icebergs was inevitable. Even passengers sitting at surrounding tables were handed the message. Although the Titanic should have been posting extra lookouts in search for icebergs second officer Lightoller was ordering ships carpenter J Maxwell and the chief engineer to search for ice in a completely different area. Amazingly, they were busily employed in the very bottom of the ship checking the Titanic's watertanks for ice!

At 7.30pm, another message was sent by the California reporting three large icebergs directly in the path of Titanic. Later the California even reported that she had had to come to a full stop as she was surrounded by thick compact ice. The Baltic and the German liner, The Amerika, both reported two massive icebergs while the Mesaba told of huge mountains of ice straddling the very point where the Titanic met its end. In fact, the only message which we know did reach the bridge came from the SS Rappahannock who reported icebergs after she had damaged her steering in a slight collision. Why oh why were these warnings ignored?

The time was 9.30pm. The crowds that had earlier gathered and wandered about the decks had long since abandoned them for the warmth and comfort of the dining and smoking rooms. It was at this time that second officer Charles Herbert Lightoller was relieved from his post on the bridge by first officer William McMaster Murdoch while the Titanic continued on at a steady 22.5 kts almost rushing towards its destiny. It was to be Frederick Fleet high up in the crows nest who first spotted the iceberg when it was virtually on top of the ship. He would have undoubtedly spotted it earlier if he had had a pair of binoculars but through some oversight Titanic had set to sea without any. Fleet pulled three times on the lanyard which rang a 16 inch bell suspended above the crows nest. Almost immediately James Moody on the bridge with Murdoch picked up the receiver to hear the words, "Iceberg right ahead'. Murdoch immediately called out, "Full stop, full astern,' and then ordered helmsman quartermaster Robert Hitchins to turn hard a starboard. But it was all to no avail. Thirty seconds later Titanic struck the towering iceberg a glancing blow which tore at the ships hull below the waterline pulling apart steel plates and puncturing others. In response the ship slowed and then came to a full stop.

The time was 11.40pm. Titanic wasn't to move another inch. Irish immigrants kicked lumps of ice around the deck and several of the first class passengers raised their glasses to the iceberg that was rapidly disappearing behind them into the darkness they were blissfully unaware of the drama that was unfolding below decks. While fourth officer Boxhall checked their position (41° 46' N. 50° 14' W) Captain Smith and Harland & Wolffs general manager Thomas Andrews inspected the damage. It only took a matter of minutes for Andrews to declare the Titanic doomed. Within hours she would be on her way to the Atlantic floor. Shortly after 2.00am as the stern quietly rose out of the water towards the star strewn sky Thomas Byles, a catholic priest, heard passengers confessions on the first deck while within earshot Wallace Hartley and his band played Nearer My God To Thee and Major Archie Butt and three of his friends continued to play cards in the first class saloon.

At 2.20am the Titanic was no more. to the passengers who were panicking and freezing to death in the icy water several ships in the vicinity were trying there best to reach them but the conditions and the vast distances involved meant it was fruitless. The testimony given by the various captains, crew and passengers only added to the confusion which surrounds the disaster.

12.15am Captain James Moore of the Mount Temple on route to New York from Antwerp, 49 miles away from the mortally wounded Titanic, received a distress call and turned about and headed for the scene. At the same time the Provence also received the new CQD (Come Quick, Danger) distress call from Titanic's radio operators Jack Phillips and his assistant Harold Bride. The Mount Temple edged its way through the ice fields for hours until three in the morning when Captain Moore had to reverse the engines to narrowly miss a schooner which passed by and disappeared silently into the night. What was the name of this mystery schooner and what was it doing there? The Norwegian, Samson, a sailing barque, was, we know, definitely in the area but the Samson was nothing like a schooner and Moore would have known this. The reason that the Samson denied knowledge of being in the area is simple. On his deathbed in 1962 the chief officer of the Samson swore that he had seen the Titanic's distress flares but had sailed away because it was illegally hunting seals.

The Mount Temple, the Samson, the unknown schooner, the Virginian, the Dorothy Baird and the Cunard owned Carpathia, who was first on the scene to pick up survivors, and the California, were all within a distance that they should have seen the Titanic's flares, but for some reason swore that they hadn't. The unknown vessel was spotted by Alfred Fernand Omont, a cotton agent from Havre, who was amongst survivors in a lifeboat who saw a distant light some ten miles away seemingly travelling towards them. In his testimony given to British vice consul James Walsh, Omont stated that while the boat full of survivors cheered and waved at the distant ship it just sailed away and left them. He also told of how the seaman in charge who was never named, spoke about knowing about the iceberg that eventually sunk the Titanic when it was 1760 yards away. If this seaman was telling the truth the question has to be asked, how did he know? Frederick Fleet who had first spotted the iceberg from the crows nest never saw it till the last minute. Although Captain Stanley Lord of the California never saw the flares, several of his crew and passengers certainly did. After one of the lookouts spotted the Titanic's mast lights at twenty miles distant the ship lookouts were doubled. Although the flares should have lit up the clear sky not one of the lookouts saw anything except a young cadet who came forward and swore that he saw another ship heading east and then several distant flares. Was this the same ship that Omant and the boat full of survivors had watched sail away over the horizon? Once again we have another mystery vessel silently making its way through the dangerous icebergs the identity of which has never been discovered. Officer Stone also came forward to describe how he had watched a stationary ship suddenly vanish into the darkness.

The identity of these two, possibly three, ships hiding amongst the icebergs has never been solved. With the Titanic's distress flares and radio messages asking for help these unknowns should have turned and offered help to survivors yet it appears that they simply turned and sailed away. Why? Could they have known, indeed expected the disaster? People at the time certainly did. Up to twenty individuals had premonitions of the Titanic's dreadful conclusion to its maiden voyage, one of which actually refused to board the ship at Southampton. Two clairvoyants also gave warnings that went unheeded. Twenty years earlier two stories were written one of which described the death of the Titanic perfectly. Futility, written by Morgan Robertson in 1898 told the dramatic story of the British ship, The Titan, who sped headlong into an iceberg and sank with great loss of life. Even the equipment he described on the Titan matched that of the Titanic. In his later years Morgan Robertson told of how a spirit guide used to help him write his stories. Another of his stories told of how the United States and Japan fought a terrible war, one battle of which involved a sneak attack by the Japanese on the American fleet. It bore more than a passing resemblance to Pearl harbour.

At 2.00am on August 22nd 1985 Dr Robert Ballard and his partner Jean-Louis Michel finally discovered the last resting place of the Titanic after a long search. The Knoor had dragged a sonar and video device known as the Argo along the Atlantic floor for months without result when a large circular object suddenly hove into view. The ship erupted with whoops of delight as one of the crew manning the monitors realised that the object was one of the Titanic's massive boilers. The loud cheers quickly diminished as the entire crew remembered what had happened 76 years earlier. It was in quiet reflection that the crew gathered on the Knoors quarter deck to remember those that had perished at that very spot.

In the nineties a new conspiracy theory has emerged which may explain the mysterious vessels seen by passengers and crew on ships nearby and their apparent reluctance to get involved. The theory goes that the Titanic was fatally holed while in dock in Southampton by an unknown vessel, some say the New York. There was simply to much money involved for the Titanic's maiden voyage to be cancelled at such a late hour so her sister ship, the Olympic, was structurally altered and renamed and sent to sea in her place. The deception would have been quite easy to carry off as most of the surviving postcards purporting to show the Titanic's interior and exterior are actually photographs of the Olympic. This would explain why Titanic's entire crew had been demoted one place to make way for the first officer of the Olympic, Henry Tingle Wilde, who joined the ship at short notice while it was moored at Southampton. It would have been sensible to have someone on hand who knew the ship inside and out. This caused resentment amongst the other officers including Pitman, Boxhall, Lowe and Moody who's problems were further confounded by the fact that they had never worked together before. Because the owners couldn't hope to get away with such deception for long they planned to sink the Olympic/Titanic in mid Atlantic where the truth would never be known. A fire in the coal bunker would, it is theorised, have caused a massive explosion deep below decks where it wouldn't have hurt anyone. This fire should have been discovered and dealt with by Captain Maurice Harvey Clarke who inspected the ship thoroughly while berthed in Southampton and even had two of the crew lower and raise two of the Titanics lifeboats twice yet no mention of the fire was reported.

To ensure that none of the passengers were harmed the Carpathia and several other unknown vessels were waiting out in the Atlantic to evacuate the Titanic before it ever slipped beneath the waves. To ensure that none of the crew spotted these unknown ships shadowing the Titanic all the ships binoculars mysteriously vanished! But, as we know, an iceberg spoiled the best laid plans. Insane story? Underwater pictures of the Titanic laying on the seabed two and a half miles down tend to add credence to the tale. The plate arrangements on the Titanic's hull do not match her plans yet they do match the plans of the Olympic... There is also the fact that Titanic never had her hull primed in grey paint yet the ship laying on the Atlantic floor clearly shows, where the black paint is stripping away, grey paintwork. Taken with the stories told by Irishmen to this very day whose fathers worked in the Harland & Wolffs ship yard that the two ships identities were switched, the story tends to become slightly more believable. The truth behind the sinking of arguably the most lavish and extravagant ship that ever graced the sea, the loss of the Titanic is one that could have been avoided. So many things remain unexplained about the ships disastrous maiden voyage that conspiracy, hearsay and rumour were always going to adopt the story one day. What were the unknown vessels seen in the area and what were they doing? Why was the Carpathia seemingly at a dead stop waiting for the arrival of the Titanic? How could experienced seamen not notice the fire in one of her bunkers and how can the plates that line the supposedly Titanic's hull match exactly with the Olympics? Many questions...few answers...many needless deaths.