The Titanic
Iceberg!
Four days into its voyage, everything was still smooth sailing. The sea was very calm, in fact, it was some of the flattest water Second Officer Lightoller had ever seen. It was a cold night, and as the night progressed, the temperature dipped to just under freezing. Captain Smith had been increasing the speed of the ship each day, which is normal practice for a first voyage. Now, the ship was moving at 22.5 knots, or the equivalent of a car driving at 25 miles per hour. Since the ships don’t need to worry about traffic, they’d often move at full speed, even at night.
Senior Operator Jack Phillips was busy working at his telegraph machine. He had received four ice warnings throughout the day. Icebergs were common in the North Atlantic in April, and the crew knew that icebergs could break through the steel hull of a ship, even Titanic. But even though Titanic couldn’t turn or swerve quickly, people thought it was in no real danger because she was so big and powerful.
Phillips delivered the previous ice warnings to the bridge so the captain and crew could decide what to do. But Phillips was very busy. Besides just the ice warnings, he also had a pile of messages from passengers to transmit. So when he received another warning from Mesaba about a huge ice field in Titanic’s path, he replied “Received, thanks.” Phillips never sent the message to the bridge, and the captain and crew never saw it.
On the bridge, Captain Smith and Second Officer Lightoller were aware of the ice situation. They knew a collision with an iceberg could damage the ship or slow it down. They agreed that if visibility became reduced, they’d slow down. In the lookouts’ nest, Archie Jewell and George Symons were looking through the dark for ice. They were keeping an eye out for the ring of white foam that forms at the bottom of icebergs when waves crash against them. However, there were no waves that night. And to make it worse, Jewell and Symons couldn’t find their binoculars.
The passengers were beginning to turn down for the night as well. A few men sat awake in the smoking room, and Dickinson and Helen Bishop, a couple from Michigan on their honeymoon, shivered in the lounge. A young man named Lawrence Beesley lay reading in his bunk. He felt the boat vibrating from the speed earlier that evening, and had an urge to get his life jacket down from his wardrobe.
At 10 PM, Captain Smith and Officer Lightoller went to their cabins. Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee took over for Jewell and Symons. By 11 PM, the ship was dark and quiet. Phillips was still working hard transmitting the messages from passengers. One more ice warning came in from Californian. It read that they were stopped and surrounded by ice. Phillips replied, “Shut up! Shut up! I am busy.”
At 11:39 PM, Fleet saw a black hulking thing directly in their path. He picked up the telephone and called an iceberg down to the bridge. First Officer Murdoch called to Quartermaster Hichens to turn the rudder. They called to the engine room to stop. Everyone on the bridge anxiously waited to see if Titanic could turn in time. Slowly, the nose of the ship eased to the left. They’d avoided a head-on collision.
Suddenly, there was a tremendous scraping noise, and a groaning of metal against ice shook the ship. Men leapt to their feet in the smoking room. A woman sleeping in her bunk recalled hearing a noise like rocks tumbling together. The sharp ice below the surface of the water had sliced through the side of the ship.