Titanic: Untold Stories Page #3

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Thomas Andrews to inspect the damage

to the ship.

What Andrews sees is devastating.

He reports to Captain Smith that Titanic

is filling fast.

A quick calculation reveals the ship

has an hour, maybe two.

Andrews realizes the deadly implications

immediately.

On board are more than two thousand

passengers and crew

but only enough lifeboats for

just half of them.

Following the collision,

the ship is quiet again.

Most first and second class passengers

are still sleeping.

Little do they realize,

a drama unfolds in the bow of the ship.

Deep below, the front of Titanic

is quickly flooding.

The forward crew must abandon

their positions.

For the time being,

Titanic's electricity is holding.

Stoker Barrett and several others attempt

to keep the water out of boiler room five.

The men attach long hoses to the pumps.

If they keep this section from flooding,

they believe they can save the ship.

They do not know that Titanic's designer

has already declared her doomed.

From the boiler rooms, Nautile travels

to a location where another battle was fought.

Above this fatal wound in the ship lies

Titanic's mail room.

Among the greatest heroes of Titantic's

story, I think, are the postal workers.

There were more than thirty-

five hundred bags of mail onboard...

Thirty-five hundred.

...the ship

and as the water began flooding this area,

the men's only thought was to try to rescue

the mail that they had been placed

in charge of.

As Titanic's mail room floods, the postal

workers drag the mail to higher ground.

As they work, the rising water rapidly

pursues them, lapping

at their heels at each level.

Eventually, they are overtaken.

This great hole marks the spot

where the five postal workers died.

They were Titanic's first victims.

The next site is perhaps the most wrenching.

From the control room, the crew guides

Nautile to one of the evacuation areas.

Titanic's lifeboats were stored

on her uppermost decks.

There were only sixteen,

capacity for about one thousand.

This ghostly crane lowered boats

into the dark sea.

Second Offiicer Charles Lightoller worked

at this very spot.

As Lightoller and his men crank out

the boats.

Passengers stand by and watch.

Among them, there is utter disbelief.

Nothing seems wrong.

Why are they being asked to evacuate?

Many passengers initially won't leave

and the first boats are launched

virtually empty.

Near this location, the radio operators

frantically signal for assistance.

In a desperate attempt to summon help,

they send a newly adopted

distress code SOS.

Titanic is one of the first ships

in history to send the call.

What we are looking at now is the interior

of the ship's wireless room.

Here the radio operators Jack Phillips

and Harold Bride were given the information

that the Titanic was doomed.

They began immediately sending out distress

signals. And so it was from this very

room that these two men worked

very hard to save lives.

Recognizing the fatal damage to Titanic,

designer Thomas Andrews calmly works to

prepare the passengers for the lifeboats.

He knows, regardless of his effort,

there will be a tragic loss of life.

Third class passengers August Wennerstrom

and the Lindells are left on their own.

As they head for the lifeboats,

the stern begins to rise out of the water.

We saw the sea climbing up the deck

more quickly than before.

I could see that everyone was clamoring

aft and trying to keep from sliding down

the slanting deck which was growing steeper.

Third Class Passenger, August Wennerstrom.

Deep in the belly of the ship,

Frederick Barrett of the crew

feared the red hot boilers will explode

when they come in contact with the icy sea water

so they extinguish the boilers.

As each fire is put out,

the hold fills with steam.

Blinded by black dust and steam,

one of Barrett's companions falls

into an open manhole.

His leg is shattered and Barrett drags him

to a pump room.

Nearly two hours after impact, a weakened

wall caves in and the sinking of

Titanic accelerates.

Barrett escapes but his companion

will perish.

When Barrett arrives on deck,

his timing is perfect.

He is quickly assigned to a lifeboat

as an oarsman and is lowered away.

Lawrence Beesley climbs aboard Barrett's

boat when no more women or

children are nearby.

On the opposite side of the ship,

one man wrestles with his conscience.

His name is Masabumi Hosono.

I tried to prepare myself for the last

moment making up my mind not to leave anything

disgraceful as a Japanese

but I still found myself looking for

any possible chance for survival.

There were many men who attempted

to squeeze in

but sailors refused them at gunpoint.

I, myself, was deep in desolate thought.

Even if I became the target of a

pistol shot, it would be the same and thus

I made a jump for the lifeboat.

From the dark sea, Hosono looks back

at embattled Titanic.

Her lights burning brightly. Her stern

rising perversely from the water.

I saw a great number of passengers still

frantically moving about on the deck

giving terrible shouts

and cries for help.

The scene was just horrible and eerie.

Our lifeboat too was filled with sobbing

and weeping women who had been worried

about the safety of their husbands

and fathers.

It was all unbearably sad and hopeless.

On board Titanic, Mrs. Ryerson refuses

to leave her husband despite his best efforts

to convince her otherwise.

My husband said, "When they say women

and children first, you must go."

And I said, "Why do I have to go

on that boat?"

And he said, "You must obey the captain's

orders and I'll get in somehow.

"First Class Passenger,

Mrs. Emily Ryerson.

Hundreds of families are struggling

with the same question.

Should they separate or stick together?

With few lifeboats left, people take

the threat of sinking seriously.

Now the challenge for the crew is to

keep people from mobbing the remaining boats.

At 1:
45 a.m., Emily Ryerson boards one

of the last boats to be launched with

her two daughters and one son.

Her husband stays behind.

Mr. Andrews, Mr. Andrews.

Titantic's designer, Thomas Andrews,

is last seen looking lost in a trance

in the first class smoking room.

Andrews. Mr. Andrews. Mr. Andrews?

As Titantic's stern tilts higher,

the Lindells and August Wennerstrom

slide into the water.

Relieved of his duty, Second Offiicer

Lightoller also takes his chances in the sea.

Immediately he is sucked into

a ventilation shaft.

Although I struggled and kicked for all

I was worth, it was impossible to get away.

Every instant expecting myself shot

down into the bowels of the ship.

I was still struggling and fighting

when suddenly a terrific blast of hot air

came up the shaft

and blew me right away up to the surface.

From the surface, Lightoller witnesses

the end of R.M.S. Titanic.

The bow of the ship was now

rapidly going down

and the stern was rising higher and

higher out of the water

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