Original subtitles

Titanic.

It's very name evokes a chill.

And the tale of its sinking is legendary.

Captain smith was the man of the hour.

A hero of the era.

You have crew who were the best

that white star could offer.

There were stories of heroism;

the way the band played until the end.

But are these stirring tales

of a heroic captain and crew actually true?

Since the tragedy,

titanic historians have sought to acquire

the personal papers of lord mersey.

The man charged in britain with investigating the disaster.

His private journals may hold the answers.

Now, for the first time since 1912,

these critical documents will be revealed.

A hundred and eight years later, here we go.

Will this information alter

the accepted story of how and why titanic sank?

They didn't think that they would need to have

lifeboat drills.

Titanic told 'em to shut up and go away.

Nearly the entire response was completely improvised.

Californian could have galloped to the rescue

like the 5th cavalry.

What new light can the contents of this box shed

on one of history's most enduring disasters?

April 17, 1912.

Two days since titanic's demise.

The mackay-bennett, a 269 foot cable repair ship

in service since the 1880s

is dispatched from halifax, nova scotia on a grim task:

Sail into an icy hell and retrieve titanic's dead.

Richard McMichael is a historian at the

maritime museum of the atlantic in halifax.

As you can imagine, this is a nightmarish situation.

The crew's main role is to repair sections

of damaged transatlantic cable.

There's nothing in the job description

about fishing women and children

out of the icy waters of the north atlantic.

Mackay Bennett's journey takes 36 hours.

And, when they enter the death zone,

they find several hundred corpses.

Men, women, children.

Fifty-one we have taken on board today.

This is the first day out.

The sea still seems strewn.

With the exception of ourselves and the bosun bird

is the only living creature here.

Put yourself in the position of these men.

One day alone, mackay-bennett recovers 128 bodies...

127 men, one woman.

There are photographs that exist

of those people being buried at sea.

Very solemn just to look at.

And then they would keep a log in real time.

8:00 p.M.

The tolling of the bell summoned all hands to the folks,

as the weighted body plunges into the sea,

there to sink to a depth of about two miles.

Splash, splash, splash.

As the gruesome details of titanic's fate

filters back to both continents,

a horrified public demands answers.

Mark chirnside is a maritime historian,

and author of 10 books on british royal mail ships.

It was such a huge disaster.

The questions were rightly being asked about how the

largest and most luxurious ship in the world

could possibly sink during its maiden voyage,

and with such a catastrophic loss of life.

There was such public interest in what had happened

that the british government determined

that they needed to appoint a wreck commissioner.

Lord john charles bigham, first viscount mersey,

is a well-connected barrister,

judge and politician.

And he's chosen for a monumental task.

Find out exactly what went wrong on titanic.

Charles haas is an historian,

author and president of the titanic international society.

Lord mersey was bringing to the table

considerable legal knowledge,

hopefully a sense of fairness, a sense of balance.

All of the things that a judge, if you will, needs to have.

The thing that we have to keep in mind, however,

is that the investigation in England

was a board of trade investigation,

which means that, essentially,

the very organization that had allowed titanic to go to sea

is now investigating itself to some degree.

Across 36 days of testimony

from nearly 100 witnesses,

answering 25,000 questions,

an exhaustive inquiry comes to a close.

While the report's final conclusions do levy criticism,

some observers wonder if the hundreds of pages of notes

lord mersey took in his private journal during the trial,

and stored in a leather-bound box

go much further than his public pronouncements.

After a century tucked away

in their private family archives,

lord mersey's estate has agreed to share the contents

of the box publicly.

Some judges think out loud.

Lord mersey did not think out loud.

Lord mersey thought on paper.

And it's only now that we get to see

what some of his private thoughts were.

My name is ned bigham, and I'm the fifth viscount mersey.

My great, great grandfather

was john charles bigham, lord mersey.

I don't think anyone has actually sat down

and gone through the box or the materials and said,

"what exactly have we got here?

What is its significance?"

it had just sat there for all these years.

So, 108 years later, here we go.

For the first time in recorded history,

we're gonna open the box.

Mersey's drawings, observations and ruminations

will be examined by several renowned titanic experts

who will explain the significance

of this "lost evidence."

and through the lens of this new information,

titanic's journey will be reconstructed,

beginning with problems that arose before she set sail.

The early part of the 20th century,

the united kingdom was clearly a world power.

Its influence stretched literally around the world.

The shipping industry is front and center

in terms of the importance to the country,

and for that matter, to the world.

One of the most dominant shipping companies

of the day is britain's white star line.

Founded in 1845, white star made its fortune

delivering the royal mail

while also providing top-flight passenger service.

The extra size of these ships enabled white star

to increase the number of first class passengers

that were carried, and have even more luxurious

first class accommodations

than the world had previously seen.

And white star's newest steamer

is the most luxurious.

Titanic.

But the massive ship, at more than 882 feet long,

weighing more than 46,000 tons

and costing more than 180 million in today's dollars,

has a major problem few people remember today.

With the departure date in April fast approaching,

half the cabins are empty.

So white star makes a fateful decision.

It brings famed captain edward smith out of retirement

to shore up ticket sales.

If you wanna hire somebody from central casting

to be captain of a ocean liner

in the early part of the 20th century,

it's e. J. Smith,

whether or not he knew how to run a boat or not.

It doesn't matter, you know.

He just looks the part.

Edward smith was one of the captains who

played up that sort of ship's captain thing.

He invited the rich and the famous to the captain's table,

hence his nickname, the millionaire's captain.

When April arrives, titanic,

with smith at the helm, is ready to sail.

But the millionaire's captain also brings plenty of baggage

with him onto the spit-shine deck of the titanic.

Inside lord mersey's box is a red leather journal

that he kept by his side throughout the inquiry.

He used it to write down his notes and discoveries.

On page 114, there's a notation referencing

that most of titanic's crew had been on the olympic.

Why did mersey think this detail was important?

In 1911, captain smith and his fellow officers

who later served on the titanic's doomed voyage

crewed titanic's sister ship, the olympic,

on her maiden voyage.

While docking in new york,

the olympic collided with a tugboat.

Then, three months later,

smith's olympic did something far worse.

In 1911, the olympic was leaving southampton,

and the british naval cruiser, hawke,

was in the vicinity.

Somehow, the hawke managed to collide with the

olympic in the stern.

Olympic was severely damaged and she experienced flooding.

Smith is on the bridge

and therefore in charge of the vessel.

Titanic left southampton on the 10th of April, 1912.

It was a bit of a gusty, cold day by all accounts.

It was a proud moment for white star.

She came out to the dock, went round to the left

and then proceeded down the river.

All the indications were that titanic was set

for a successful maiden voyage.

As hundreds of well-wishers arrived dockside

to cheer titanic off,

the ship's reputation precedes it.

Both the press and white star espoused

a perception of invincibility.

But who could blame them?

Titanic is spectacular.

Sixty-six hundred tons of coal

powers massive 17-foot propellers.

The ship is the length of two and a half football fields

and can ferry 3,547 passengers and crew.

She is the largest manmade moving object

on earth.

For the passengers on board,

the first four days of the journey are euphoric.

That's especially true for the wealthy,

soaking in their world-class accommodations.

When titanic comes out,

it was actually referred to as the millionaire's special.

Because it could not be imagined

that someone would be able to spend that much money

on a transatlantic crossing.

If you look at the best accommodations in the ship,

$4,350 for a crossing.

That's the equivalent of 10-year's salary

to an average american in 1912.

The first class price tag is steep,

but it comes with perks.

Among them is access to titanic's state of the art

marconi wireless system.

The marconi, this was modern technology

for a modern ship.

Part of the whole idea

was this sort of showman's thing.

You're there, you're rich, you're powerful.

You're right at the edge of modern technology.

And you could send messages

to tell your friends in new york or london or paris

what you were doing.

These were young men on ships

tapping away on a morse code player.

They were using lots of slang and lots of, rather,

sort of relaxed way of talking to each other.

The fellows that worked in the wireless rooms

on board the ship we're not part of the crew.

In most cases, they were employees of the

marconi company.

The marconi operators independence

has a glaring risk.

If people were being employed by marconi to send messages

on behalf of private passengers,

did they then perhaps omit to look at the safety messages...

Which should have been their priority.

Titanic will end up receiving 21 ice warnings,

via marconigram, on its four days at sea.

But captain smith, like many transatlantic veterans,

is skeptical of the new technology.

Someone who had sailed back and forth across the atlantic

for so long, without the aid of any sort of technology,

didn't really take something like wireless very seriously.

Another thing captain smith

might not have been prepared for...

The lifeboat situation.

While white star fitted titanic with 20 lifeboats,

four more than were required by regulation,

it still isn't enough for a ship this large.

At full capacity, titanic's lifeboats

could hold just half of the ship's 2,240 passengers.

While that fact is well known,

less known is that, according to the mersey box,

smith and crew may not have trained sufficiently

with the lifeboats they did have.

Titanic's lifeboats were raised and lowered

with a new crane system called "welin davits."

dave brown is a titanic historian

and retired commercial ship captain.

The crew, they were all certified seamen,

but the only thing

that they didn't have a lot of experience with

is welin davits which were fairly new and coming online.

As Sunday, April 14th dawns,

four days into titanic's maiden voyage,

the crew is scheduled for a routine lifeboat drill.

Though his men are new to titanic

and her lifeboat apparatus,

captain smith cancels the drill.

I cannot say why captain smith failed to do that.

At a bare minimum, he could have detailed

one of the lower ranking officers to walk from

boat to boat and check the lines and check, you know,

any pulleys had been greased or whatever was necessary.

But he didn't even do that.

During the inquiry,

a titanic lookout named archie jewell

testified that although they tested lifeboats

before leaving southampton,

there were only two boats lowered away out of 20,

and they were not even put into the water.

In his private journal, mersey notes:

This unusual.

And lord mersey wrote in his journal

that he had found that to be unusual,

indeed it was.

You really need to have a lifeboat drill.

They didn't think that they would need to have

lifeboat drills.

And this goes back to hubris.

Why bother having lifeboat drills

when the ship simply can't sink?

April 14, 1912, early evening.

It's moonless and the seas are eerily calm.

Titanic is steaming towards the grand banks

in the north atlantic, at a brisk 22 knots,

or 25 and a half miles per hour.

At 7:30 p.M., second officer charles lightoller

raises his sextant.

In the era before gps,

this device is used to plot a ship's position.

According to information in the mersey box

and other sources,

this moment initiates a series of fatal errors

by titanic's officers.

The sextant was the critical instrument of navigation.

When you look through the telescope,

one side sees the horizon.

The other side here sees the sky.

So if I put it up like this and I adjust it,

what I'm going to do

is I'm gonna bring the celestial body down

till it sits on the horizon.

I call out, "mark."

and then the guy who's got the hack watch

writes down the exact moment of the hack.

When lightoller took this reading at 7:30,

he either was wrong

or the hack watch was off by a few seconds.

A sextant in conjunction with a hack watch

and a nautical chronometer

can accurately determine a ship's position.

But if the officers taking the readings make a mistake,

the ship can veer off course.

If you're off by a minute of time,

is a mile of latitude.

It can grow very big.

While historians have long suspected

that titanic was lost en route,

proof of the navigational errors has been elusive.

That's because titanic's log book,

the equivalent of a black box,

containing notes on every important decision

of a ship's journey, has never been found.

Typically, it was put in a waterproof bag,

sealed, and the highest ranking officer

would take it onto the lifeboat.

Theoretically, you carry all the records off the ship,

but the captain who knows that it's got some information

that he would rather not disclose,

will probably throw five pounds of rocks in the bag

and throw it overboard.

Despite 25,000 questions

across a month of testimony,

lord mersey's private box doesn't contain

a single reference to the missing log book.

There may be something in there that captain smith

didn't want the world to know about.

It could have been something damning to the white star line

and the board of trade.

We don't know.

Months before the inquiry,

steaming through the north atlantic,

titanic is not only lost,

she's heading into danger.

Throughout the day on April 14th,

titanic's marconi operators receive disturbing news

from other ships in the area.

Titanic did receive a series of ice warnings

from ships that lay ahead of its path.

These ice warnings were fairly specific

in terms of latitude and longitude.

They were taken to the bridge,

and the position was noted on a transatlantic chart.

And there, it could be examined by each shift of officers

as they came on duty.

Almost like some sort of music creeping up

in the background, are these messages from other ships

saying, "be careful, there's danger ahead."

nineteen and a half miles due north from titanic,

the ss californian, a freighter bound for boston

sees an ice field around 7:30 at night.

Her skipper, captain stanley lord,

isn't about to take any chances.

The californian stops in ice.

It realizes it's dangerous.

The wireless operator sent a message to tell people

that ice was around.

Titanic didn't say, "thank you very much.

I'm very glad you told us about this."

they told them to shut up and go away effectively.

They were busy sending private messages.

They didn't wanna know about it.

While captain lord hunkers down in the ice field,

to his south, captain smith powers titanic ahead

with his engines steaming at near capacity.

In his final report,

lord mersey does note titanic's excessive speed.

And in private, he expresses grave concern.

Within mersey's box, tucked inside his journal,

he writes that there was no reduction of speed.

And then, mersey points it out again.

Okay. So now this is interesting.

Speed, 21 knots

and never reduced up to time of collision.

Notwithstanding, weary that icebergs in vicinity,

and that she would be likely to meet them.

They were traveling at 21 knots,

which is practically full speed for the titanic.

This was at night.

This was in an environment where they knew

that there was ice.

We don't need to reduce speed.

We're not gonna have any issues with any icebergs

that we come across because we are titanic.

After all, it is unsinkable, isn't it?

Sunday evening, April 14, 1912.

Under the command of captain edward j. Smith,

titanic is just past the midpoint

of her journey to new york.

Steaming at nearly full speed,

she's scheduled to arrive on time

Wednesday morning at white star's pier 59

along manhattan's west side.

Nine other ships are also traversing the north atlantic,

heading west and east along the same shipping lanes.

But just south of the grand banks,

the ice field looms.

Four miles wide and extending north and south

as far as the eye can see.

As each ship hits the danger zone,

they sound the alarm.

Wireless messages were sent by ships

who were traveling in the same waters,

and they were alerting each other to potential risks.

They thought it was dangerous

and they let the other ships know around them.

We know the titanic received these messages.

We know they acknowledged some of these messages too.

It should have been taken seriously.

The marconi messages not only reveal

where the ice is,

they also contain important details

on how big and dangerous the icebergs are.

Kristin serumgard is the commander

of the international ice patrol.

She's familiar with the types of icebergs

the ships might have reported.

There's floes formed from frozen seawater.

There's a growler, which is about the size of a piano.

And then all the way up to what we call

a very large iceberg is over 200 meters.

In titanic's day, just like now,

hitting an iceberg could rip a ship apart

and endanger the passengers.

A fact that wasn't lost on lord mersey in his black box.

Inside his journal, mersey hones in

on two specific ice warnings that reached titanic:

"two vessels informed her.

Icebergs, growlers, floes."

lord mersey drew some images...

Things that the titanic clearly would've passed

on its way to the big monster iceberg.

That also should have given the titanic some pause.

It would have warned them that things were getting bad.

Lord mersey also scribbles down

that the temperatures were falling,

and that this, to indicate ice.

And then, finally, and perhaps most crucially,

he notes and underlines, no reduction of speed.

This was obviously fairly significant for him.

Quite understandably, he was asking the question,

"why didn't they slow down?"

if we didn't have this journal,

we wouldn't have known that lord mersey was taking in

all this information and clearly recognized the problems.

It was getting more and more towards criminal negligence

in this case.

Historians have spent countless hours

deliberating this question.

Why didn't captain smith slow down?

One theory centers around the behavior

of one of titanic's most influential passengers,

j. Bruce ismay.

Ismay was the chair of the white star line.

It was his role to run it and grow it into the 20th century.

On white star's pride and joy,

ismay reigned supreme.

Hobnobbing with wealthy passengers and keeping tabs

on captain smith and his crew.

Ismay is on deck around 2:00 p.M.

When titanic receives an ice warning from the baltic,

another white star-owned ship,

about 230 miles to the east.

What happens next would give fodder

to a century of conspiracy theorists.

And it's a moment lord mersey also focuses on.

There was a paper written marconigram

delivered to captain smith, that he showed to bruce ismay,

that bruce ismay took, stuck into his pocket.

Why did captain smith give bruce ismay the telegram?

Mersey references ismay's own testimony

from the british inquiry.

On page 222, ismay underlined,

captain handed me the baltic message,

which ismay held on to for a while.

So, this is obviously quite significant for lord mersey.

Why would ismay have stuck it in his pocket?

Was there something he didn't want the bridge crew to see?

Did he not want them to slow down?

He didn't want the titanic to be late.

The press would be waiting on the docks.

People would be there waiting.

There had been theories that ismay was keener

to get there on time than to get there safely.

Captain smith asked ismay for the ice warning back

that Sunday evening,

so that he could put it in the chart room.

The baltic message is posted alongside

the six other ice warnings received throughout the day.

Then at 9:20 p.M.,

captain smith heads to his cabin to go to sleep,

handing command to his senior officers.

The north atlantic was extremely calm

as they went into sundown and into the night.

That made it more difficult to find the iceberg.

You can't see it.

If it's very calm out,

there's no waves breaking on the edges of the iceberg...

You're not gonna even see that it's there.

The lookouts are above the canvas dodger

of the lookout's nest.

Their face is being whipped by a 25-mile an hour cold wind,

which inevitably could cause tearing to take place,

which in turn could hurt their vision.

At precisely 11:39 p.M.,

crow's nest lookout frederick fleet

spots the gigantic, dark mass.

He strikes the lookout bell three times.

Fleet lunges for the telephone,

reaching sixth officer james moody on the bridge.

Iceberg!

Dead ahead.

When you're traveling at 21 or 22 knots,

and you see iceberg dead ahead,

there wasn't enough time to turn.

It was already too late.

The ship was doomed.

April 14, 1912.

Rms titanic has been at sea for four and a half days.

At 11:39 p.M., 375 miles off the coast of newfoundland,

titanic's seven ice warnings received throughout the day

are no longer a warning.

They're a frightening reality.

Iceberg!

Dead ahead.

With the iceberg spotted 1,500 feet ahead,

and with titanic bearing down on it at 26 miles per hour,

first officer william mcmaster murdoch

has less than 45 seconds to

determine the fate of thousands.

He says, "full to port."

murdoch signals the engine room.

Ring, ring, ring.

But by the time murdoch makes

his desperate maneuver,

the iceberg is already on them.

At reportedly 60 feet high,

it's even with titanic's crow's nest

and it's estimated 400-foot length is greater

than a football field.

Scientists say it could have weighed up to

one and a half million tons,

the equivalent of 15 fully loaded aircraft carriers.

The iceberg packs the punch of a granite mountain.

When you compress carbon under pressure,

you get this very strong diamond,

and that's kind of the similar concept

of compressing the fresh water into a glacier

that forms an iceberg.

Dense, glacial ice has a much higher probability

of causing significant damage to a ship.

At 11:40 p.M., titanic makes contact.

The iceberg scrapes along her starboard side

for eight seconds...

Gouging the double-plated steel hull.

The collision takes place, opening its side to the iceberg

so it can cut into it like a tin of sardines.

The forward compartment, three cargo holds

and two engine rooms are blown open.

And the frigid sea pours in.

Meanwhile, some 90 feet above,

those first class passengers still awake

catch an ominous glimpse into their fate.

When the iceberg struck, they felt something,

but they weren't sure what it was.

And they went to the portholes of the ship

and actually saw pieces of ice coming off the iceberg

onto the deck through the portholes.

Moments after impact,

first officer murdoch orders full stop,

and he engages titanic's high-tech watertight doors.

Down in the tank top level,

bells started going off and doors started closing.

It must've been sounded pretty much

like the hammers of hell down there.

Murdoch did not know whether there was damage or not.

He's just got to close the watertight doors

and then find out.

That's all he can do.

Murdoch's decision to seal the doors

is rooted in ship science.

When activated, the watertight doors keep

titanic from foundering

by walling off the flooded areas

from the rest of the ship.

You wanna close them so the water doesn't escape

and make the ship bow or aft heavy.

You wanna stop the water from coming in and spreading.

The head of the british inquiry

trains his investigative eyes

on those crucial first minutes

after the doors are activated.

Lord mersey learns that some of the watertight doors

were then manually raised by crew

to move around hoses and pumps.

But he notes and underlines

that the doors were then all left open.

Lord mersey obviously thought that was important

that no one ever requested the doors to be re-closed.

He certainly recognized the fact

that there were some problems here.

Captain smith, who had gone to sleep

for the evening at 9:20 p.M.,

suddenly snaps to attention.

He felt a ca-thud and heard the ship's engine bells ring.

I can't imagine what that must have done to his heart rate.

Smith rushes to the bridge.

He asks first officer murdoch what they struck.

"an iceberg, sir." murdoch replies.

Smith's first priority upon arrival at the bridge

is to immediately send down people

to determine just what's going on down below.

How bad is it?

In testimony, fourth officer joseph boxhall

recounts that he did not find any damage.

With boxhall's assessment in hand,

captain smith issues an order to the engine room

that causes lord mersey to sit up and take notice.

An order that flies in the face

of what we think we know about titanic's story.

According to history, titanic hit the iceberg,

the crew shut the watertight doors

and the ship came to a dead stop.

But is that what really happened?

Lord mersey wrote down during frederick scott's

testimony that the ship was ordered half-speed ahead

and then stop and ahead.

What was all this?

Captain smith may have been trying to speed up

in hopes that things really weren't so bad.

There may have been some talk about moving ahead

to try and calm the passengers,

letting them think that the ship is moving normally.

For 20 minutes,

smith decides to keep the ship pressing forward

at half speed instead of coming to a full stop.

Moving the boat forward was something that increased

the influx of water and was a very dangerous,

if not disastrous thing to do.

If there were openings in the hull,

you'd push them open more.

Any weaknesses, you would exploit them.

If we start moving through the water

and there is damage of some sort

on the starboard side of the ship,

any forward motion is going to increase the water flow

through that crevice,

and might have an effect on how quickly the ship sinks.

With precious minutes ticking by,

captain smith summons titanic's carpenter to sound the ship.

A nautical term for assessing a ship's seaworthiness.

When the report came back to captain smith,

it wasn't a very good one at all.

Lord mersey made a note of that fact in his journal.

The carpenter is said to have reported

seven feet of water in a few minutes.

At that point, the damage was already done.

The ship was doomed.

But lord mersey may have been taking more note of that fact

than captain smith was.

It should have led the captain to other choices.

For instance, immediately lowering those lifeboats.

Putting everybody on those lifeboats

that he possibly could.

Then, shortly after midnight,

22 minutes after hitting the iceberg,

thomas andrews, titanic's chief designer

arrives grim-faced on the bridge

after surveying the decks below.

Titanic, andrew says, has only two hours left.

Captain smith, he seems really overwhelmed by it all.

Almost to the point of a paralysis taking place.

Here's a guy at the end of his career,

retirement is in sight,

and everything that he had achieved in 30-some-odd years

with the white star line is now at risk.

And not only that, he is at risk

along with 2,200 other people.

After the collision,

the amount of water flooding into titanic was fatal.

The flooding was far beyond

the capacity of the pumps to keep up with.

They struggled to even slow it down

and titanic was simply doomed.

Twenty-five minutes after the collision,

captain smith orders his senior officers,

murdoch and lightoller, to prepare the lifeboats,

which can only hold half

of the more than 2,200 lives on board.

Worse still, as lord mersey noted during the inquiry,

the crew is unfamiliar with the lifeboat

state-of-the-art crane system.

They canceled the drill earlier in the trip.

Regardless, they're now faced with a thankless task.

Having to spread the word.

We can be given a warning.

Somebody can walk up to us and say, "this ship is sinking."

but if we look around and see

it looks like we're floating just fine,

then we question that warning that we've been given,

and we actually need to see that the ship is sinking

to see that something is wrong.

Though his passengers

may not have believed the warning,

captain smith is fully aware of the slow motion catastrophe

unfolding around him.

He makes a beeline for the marconi wireless room

and its operators,

25-year old jack phillips and 22-year old harold bride.

Who else can you turn to

other than these two wireless operators

who suddenly are his only source of help.

This was now their only lifeline

for contacting the outside world.

And captain smith must've wondered,

perhaps this was the miracle that would rescue him.

Of course, smith has no idea

that lightoller's erroneous sextant reading

from earlier in the evening,

places his ship at a different position

than the coordinates he's sending out for help.

Still the sos fans out, and some ships respond instantly.

"putting about and heading for you."

replies veteran captain arthur rostron

of the ss carpathia, 58 miles away.

Despite having 740 passengers of his own,

he lights up his coal burners

and sets a course for titanic's position.

Meanwhile, on board the californian,

about 20 miles north of titanic,

and the closest ship to her,

captain lord has stopped down in the ice field

and the marconi is switched off.

In those days, the fellows that worked

in the wireless rooms on board ship

clocked off at a certain time.

At that point, the californian was deaf to the world.

It didn't know.

With the californian hunkered down

for the night, across the same ice field,

a chaotic scene is unfolding on titanic.

More than an hour after the collision,

the first of titanic's lifeboats begins lowering

into the sea.

Around 12:45 a.M., captain smith gave an order.

And that order was to load the lifeboats

with women and children.

This leads to the next revelation

from inside lord mersey's box.

During the british inquiry,

mersey makes a note in his journal

referencing the testimony of second officer lightoller,

who says that he didn't load the lifeboats to capacity

because he worried the new davits

wouldn't hold the weight.

Obviously, second officer lightoller

had to have some excuse

for not loading the lifeboats to full capacity.

That was his excuse.

I can't believe that lord mersey would have bought it.

Ultimately, mersey did not.

In his final report,

he discovers there are a number of explanations

why the lifeboats weren't full.

Specifically, he writes that lightoller's worry

about the weight proved to be an unfounded apprehension.

The fact is that lifeboats went into the water

with less than a full capacity.

Those crewman should have been pulling people

by their collars to put them into the lifeboat.

As officer murdoch fires the first

of eight distress rockets into the night sky,

the makeshift evacuation continues.

On deck, confusion reigns.

Dr. Samantha montano studies human response to disasters.

In 1912, there was no formal emergency management

in the way that we have it today.

Because there was that lack of training,

that lack of planning about what to do

in a situation like this,

nearly the entire response was completely improvised.

With titanic's bow sinking lower,

and the stern slowly rising

against the blackness of the sea,

the panic begins.

The remaining passengers of all stations,

surge toward the few remaining lifeboats.

It's life or death.

We do see more of that panic.

It tends to be when people feel the threat is imminent,

there is still a chance of escape,

but that chance is dwindling.

With the window of escape closing fast,

white star lines chairman, bruce ismay,

makes his way across the deck

towards one of titanic's few remaining lifeboats.

One of the crew says, "mr. Ismay,

there's a space in this boat."

and ismay's got split second to make a decision.

When the opportunity presents itself,

he gets into the boat.

Ismay is one of many men

who displaces women and children

during those last desperate minutes.

Lifeboat 15 was one of the last lifeboats to be lowered

on the starboard side,

and the vast majority of its occupants were men.

It opens the question as to why there weren't more

women and children in the lifeboat.

Inside the box, mersey notes his concern.

Here's another interesting section.

This is may the 10th,

and it's a testimony by samuel rule,

who was a steward, talking about the lifeboats,

and in particular talking about lifeboat 15.

Sixty-eight who were saved who went in the lifeboat,

were made up of 61 men, double underlined,

and seven women and children.

This was an age in England

where honor and chivalry prevailed.

Now at the end, 61 men are, in a sense, rushing

to get into this lifeboat

with only seven or so women and children

who may have been left.

How could that possibly be?

What happened to the women and children first rule?

Was it a case that men had rushed the boats?

At 2:00 a.M., with the ship minutes from sinking,

titanic's eight-member band

under the direction of wallace hartley

segues into a rendition of

"nearer, my god to thee."

all while the last of the remaining lifeboats

are launching.

One of the last orders attributed to captain smith

was poking his head into the wireless shack

and basically telling phillips and bride,

"it's every man for himself, boys."

he knew of the magnitude of the tragedy

that was going to unfold when the ship sank.

Some of the firsthand accounts say

that he goes to the bridge, locks himself in

and waits for the tide to come in.

Titanic's bow submerges

and the stern rises nearly perpendicular to the water.

It's propellers completely aloft.

Just then, the once mighty unsinkable titanic

splits in two...

And slides into the icy depths.

Of the thousand-plus free falling victims,

the end, while horrific and violent,

is also swift.

Some of these people may have been injured,

hit by falling objects, hit by a lifeboat,

battered by the sinking of the ship.

If the person gets submerged,

they're gonna get a lung full of very cold salt water,

and they're gonna drown almost immediately,

and they're gonna die.

Those who survive the smack

into the subfreezing ocean,

experience excruciating pain.

Second officer charles lightoller would equate it

to a thousand knives driving into the body.

Shiya ribowsky is a medical legal investigator

and forensics consultant.

That makes sense because extreme cold

is going to feel like extreme heat.

At 28 degrees,

there's a physiologic response that happens

also known as a cold shock reflux.

And that's followed by

repeated, very rapid gasping.

You know, your brain is saying,

"hey, get me out of this water."

and your arms just laying there at your side,

because they're no longer under your voluntary control.

I remember talking to a survivor, eva hart,

and her saying,

"charles, it was not the screams that unhinged me.

It was the silence that came afterwards

when the cold had done its work."

it gives you an idea of just how deadly this exposure was.

Because of the 1,500 or so people that perished,

we can assume that hundreds perhaps

could have been rescued.

Only around 40 or so people

were pulled out of the water and survived.

Those 40 are picked up by two lifeboats

that turned back for them.

They are the only ones out of 20 lifeboats to do so.

Another boat, lifeboat number one

turns away from the victims in the water,

despite having enough room for them.

Here's an instance where a lifeboat

left with only 12 people, instead of 42.

The boat could have easily gone back and picked up others.

When a crewman on lifeboat number one

urges everyone to turn back,

two first class passengers, sir cosmo duff-gordon,

and his wife, lady duff-gordon, refuse.

Sir cosmo decides to give the crew five-pound notes.

It certainly didn't smell too good.

The duff-gordons were called to the british inquiry

to testify, and of course they simply denied

they were bribing the crew not to go back and rescue others.

The duff-gordons are the british inquiry's

only testifying passengers.

As titanic sinks to the bottom,

rms carpathia is less than 30 miles away

and heading to the rescue.

Captain rostron,

he went charging off in the middle of the night,

into an ice situation

that had already sunk the world's largest ship.

Rostron became the hero of the day, you know.

What'd he do?

He risked all those people's lives.

The sun was about to come up over the horizon

when he found the lifeboats.

And so they brought on as many of the survivors

they could find...

Responding in a human way

to the suffering of people around them.

One boat to come alongside

was the boat that carried lightoller,

and he was immediately escorted to the bridge.

And rostron said to him, "where is the titanic?"

and with his voice cracking, lightoller said,

"she's gone down, sir."

as the morning sun arcs over the horizon,

the last of titanic's lifeboats

paddles up alongside carpathia.

Escorted on board, is white star president,

j. Bruce ismay, quaking from the cold.

For the owner of the ship to come home in a lifeboat

was seen as shameful.

He was immediately accused of cowardice

and seen as being someone who failed

to stand by his captain,

stand by his ship, stand by his passengers.

The ship that had made his name

was now threatening to ruin his name.

Ismay was in such a delicate frame of mind

that the surgeon of the carpathia put him on opiates

to ease the pain.

Rostron sets sail for new york,

where carpathia is expected on the evening of April 18th.

Meanwhile, titanic's marconi operator, harold bride,

is plucked from a lifeboat

and dispatched to the wireless room.

An anxious world awaits.

A ship containing some of the richest, most powerful,

best known people in the world had sunk.

Everyone wanted to know what had happened.

The president of united states wanted to know

about his friends who were on board the ship.

What happened to colonel astor?

What happened to benjamin guggenheim?

The rest of the world was screaming at the carpathia

to let it know what had happened to the titanic.

And they chose to rebuff information,

and they chose not to answer.

But that doesn't stop a now lucid bruce ismay

from sending a cryptic message of his own

to white star offices in london.

Titanic crew aboard carpathia should be returned home

earliest moment possible.

Suggest you hold cedric sailing.

Yamsi.

I think the use of the reversal of the name

to say yamsi rather than ismay,

it might now look rather suspicious.

And you wonder what's going on.

Ismay sent this message,

have all the crew taken back to the uk

so that there could be a debriefing

and to come up with a unified story.

So if there was an inquiry,

everyone would be singing from the same page of the hymnal.

You've probably got 20 to 25 crew members

who really have stories to tell.

You wanna get them back to blighty.

You wanna find out what their stories are

before the americans could get to 'em.

After rescuing the last

of titanic's 705 traumatized grief stricken survivors,

captain rostron's carpathia sets a course

back from where she started...

New york city.

But on board, white star president, j. Bruce ismay,

is becoming increasingly panicked.

It doesn't take an einstein to figure out

that if you've just sunk the biggest ship in the world

with a lot of people dying,

that there's going to be a reporter or two around

when you get to the dock.

There's that editorial cartoon of ismay

looking like a maniac in a lifeboat

filled with nothing but grieving women.

And of course, the byline is j. Brute ismay,

instead of bruce.

In washington, william alden smith,

a hard charging senator from michigan

is gearing up to lead an american inquiry

into the sinking.

It's set to begin the day after carpathia's arrival

in new york.

So ismay is desperate to dash back to london.

And he thought, "let's just get out of here.

Let's get everyone back home.

We don't wanna get caught up in this

'cause this isn't gonna look good."

but unfortunately for him,

senator smith's plans put a stop to that.

Turns out senator smith was tipped off

by the u.S. Navy,

which intercepted ismay's telegram.

So smith prepares subpoenas to give to ismay

and titanic's officers upon arrival in new york

on the evening of April 18th.

Lining the banks of the hudson river

were 100,000 people.

From the battery all the way up

to the white star line pier at west 14th street.

All of new york's policemen had been summoned

to patrol the crowds, 'cause people knew

this was gonna be mayhem.

As carpathia snakes its way up the hudson,

a tug boat filled with photographers

follows the ship to pier 54.

The flash of cameras lights up the sky.

Revealing carpathia's decks

crammed with terrified passengers.

For those without knowledge

of what had become of their loved ones, the hurt,

the pain of titanic's loss

was continuing and maybe even deepening.

What became of my father?

What became of my husband?

Halfway across the atlantic ocean,

the terrible fate of all those men,

women and children is all too evident.

The crew of the cable repair ship, mackay-bennett,

joined by the ss minia, have completed the grim task

of recovering over 300 bodies,

one hundred and sixteen of which were buried at sea.

On April 26th, the mackay-bennett

steams back toward halifax.

For the living, the voyage is surreal.

The wind and motion of the ship

causes the tarpaulins to rise and fall

producing the illusion that the bodies have come to life.

Must've been absolutely horrific for the crew

because you're walking around doing your daily duties,

and of course you turn your back,

and the next thing you turn around,

the canvas is blowing out over slightly

and you could see an arm exposed

and then you sorta tucked that arm back in.

How more nightmarish can this get?

The arrival of mackay-bennett in halifax on April the 30th

was a huge deal.

All the church bells in halifax ring a death knell

for the titanic victims.

There's a fleet of horse-drawn hearses

waiting at the dock

to take the bodies off to the mayflower curling club

to be processed, to be identified.

And that's just one more surreal touch

to add to the whole thing.

With nearly 200 distended corpses

laid out on the curling rink ice,

each body is tagged, numbered, noted.

This is fairview lawn cemetery here in halifax,

and for 121 of titanic's passengers,

this is where the maiden voyage ends.

This whole series here of headstones No names.

Just, died April 15th, 1912.

For every identified body in fairview lawn cemetery,

there's two that are not.

This is all classes, walks of life represented.

And that speaks volumes as to the tragedy of titanic.

While the dead are being brought to halifax,

600 miles away in new york city,

the next phase of the spectacle is beginning.

In a packed ballroom in the waldorf astoria,

a day after the carpathia arrived,

senator smith gavels in the united states inquiry.

A moment not lost on his counterpart in britain.

Inside lord mersey's personal papers

are two copies of the official united states senate inquiry

into the sinking of rms titanic.

The hearings start on April 19th, 1912,

two weeks before the british inquiry.

The american inquiry is like a three-ring circus.

And you have senator smith from michigan,

who is doing his utmost to make bruce ismay

look like the worst villain since pontius pilate

turned jesus over to the romans.

Ismay is the first witness called,

and his testimony is damning.

He claims that he was just a voluntary passenger,

and that no one else was on deck

when he decided to save himself.

Senator smith roasted ismay left and right,

and condemned him

in the speech that he gave before congress.

The vitriolic american attack on ismay,

a leader in the shipping industry,

crosses the line.

The united states inquiry is seen as an affront to honor

and a threat to britain's national interests.

This wasn't just a ship...

The titanic was the pride of britain.

It was very important for the british government

that britain's maritime interests weren't threatened

as a result of titanic disaster.

When lord mersey is selected to lead

the british inquiry into the titanic disaster

on April 22nd, 1912,

he's celebrated as a man of integrity.

We have a copy of the daily mail,

which is Wednesday, April the 24, 1912.

And it's got a little piece on him.

A man who fears nobody, lord mersey.

As a barrister, he earned the nickname,

the little terrier of toxteth,

for his sort of dogged determination

to extract the truth from those he was cross questioning.

I think for him, the titanic must've been an opportunity

to really get to the bottom of this appalling tragedy.

As the fallout from the hard hitting u.S. Inquiry

continues to rain down on great britain,

the eyes of the world are on mersey.

He awaits his turn on the dais.

He knew what his position was.

He knew what he had to do.

He knew what his charge from the crown was

in terms of getting to the bottom of the disaster.

The british inquiry begins on may 2nd, 1912.

During its first week,

many of titanic's surviving crew members testify.

Soon though, the focus turns to another ship entirely:

The californian.

The ship that didn't hear titanic's distress calls

because they'd turned off their wireless

and gone to bed.

Inside his personal box,

mersey's copy of the american inquiry

contains the bruising examination of its captain,

stanley lord.

Stanley lord has really posed

these difficult, difficult questions.

Captain lord's testimony in the american inquiry

would probably serve as a kind of a pointing tool

as to where mersey might go further.

Lord mersey wanted to investigate

how far californian was from titanic.

And what action could californian have taken

in order to try and rescue titanic's passengers and crew

and come to titanic's assistance.

Earlier, the californian

was 19 and a half miles north of titanic's position

when it saw the ice field and telegraphed the warnings.

The wireless operation on board the californian

sent a message.

"we're here, we're stopping, it's dangerous."

and it was received by the titanic as almost like an aside.

They were told to shut up.

The wireless operation on board the californian

then went to bed at the end of his day.

And at that point, the californian then was cut off

from the outside world.

Captain lord was now finding himself

amongst all these powdered wigs in central london,

far from the sea as you can get,

and he's being grilled mercilessly.

Captain lord asserts

that his ship was 30 miles from titanic when she sank.

But separately,

californians crewmen testify that they were close enough

to spot ship lights and flares

that could have been titanic's.

These witnesses made the inquiry think

that they were in sight of the titanic

and failed to act.

There's a very serious accusation.

Among a stash of saved letters

in lord mersey's box,

is one from rear admiral arthur gough-calthorpe,

a naval assessor and senior legal advisor

to mersey during the inquiry.

Rear admiral calthorpe is really throwing doubts

on the whereabouts of the californian.

Obviously, this was a very hot topic for the inquiry

and the guilt or innocence of captain lord

depended very much on it.

Gough-calthorpe writes mersey

a passionate letter, refuting captain lord's sworn testimony

that he was too far away to mount a rescue.

There is a strong presumption

that californian was not where she says she was.

So he's casting doubt

on the assertion made by captain lord,

who clearly stated that the californian

was well out of range of the titanic.

What does this do?

This now tells lord mersey

that what he heard may not be accurate,

even if he found stanley lord to be credible.

When lord mersey issues his final judgment

on July 30th, 1912,

he blames the collision on excessive speed,

with the disaster compounded by a lack of lifeboats.

Despite concluding that titanic's captain,

edward smith, made a very grievous mistake,

lord mersey states that, "it is in my opinion impossible

to fix captain smith with blame."

however, mersey's final report

did take aim at the californian.

Concluding that captain lord could have come

to the assistance of the titanic.

Had she done so, she might have saved many,

if not all of the lives that were lost.

Captain lord, he was blamed for not doing enough.

The personal impact on him was probably stronger

than the financial impact of it.

He tried to clear himself,

but time ran out on him.

Californian could have galloped to the rescue

like the 5th cavalry.

Since titanic's demise in 1912,

a century worth of historians have sought access

to lord mersey's innermost thoughts.

Wondering whether they differ

from his public pronouncements.

The notes in his journal were kept private

throughout the years until now.

If we didn't have these notes,

we wouldn't have known

that lord mersey was taking in all this information

and clearly recognized the problems.

After a careful review, it's clear.

His final public judgment largely matches

what is in his private box.

There exists no evidence to prove

lord mersey was compromised in any way.

In the view of many historians,

lord mersey's inquest was fair,

his judicial responsibility uncompromised.

The british inquiry was not a criminal trial.

No one ever went to jail,

and there were very few lawsuits filed

against white star or the board of trade.

And so, with captain smith going down with his ship

and his crew largely absolved,

popular perception of the disaster

has been open to interpretation.

Many who have retold titanic's story

have latched on to the narrative of a

tragic act of god, but mersey knew better.

Mistakes were made

and more than 1,500 men, women, and children

lost their lives.

While the story of titanic never faded,

the ship itself disappeared from view.

And then, seven decades later,

a final piece of lost evidence emerges.

In 1985, oceanographic explorer, robert ballard,

made the discovery of a lifetime.

Ballard spots titanic's boilers.

Its telltale bow,

and confirm something equally significant.

When titanic was finally found,

its position was about 13 miles

from where it was reported to be.

The discovery of titanic's position

on the ocean floor, may speak to one last mystery.

Could its passengers have been saved

if only ss californian had heard her distress call

and come to the rescue?

Maybe not.

When titanic hit the iceberg,

her marconi operators sent out an sos,

but they gave the wrong location

because titanic officers had taken a bad sextant reading

earlier that evening.

Carpathia was only able to find survivors

because her crew had seen a flair

fired from one of the lifeboats.

The absolute miracle that night,

was that in going towards the distress position,

which we now know is not accurate at all,

that the carpathia stumbled into the place

where the lifeboats were.

Does this exonerate captain lord

of the californian?

Had he steamed immediately to the location of the sos,

he would have found nothing.

Years later, the british government reassessed the role

of californian in the disaster.

In 1992, there was a subsequent inquiry

that exonerated the captain.

Even if the californian had left immediately on receipt

of the first distress message,

it could not have arrived in time to make any difference.

Today, the titanic lies

in an eerie state of decomposition.

Rusting on the bottom of the atlantic,

but it's still as mesmerizing and captivating to the public

as it was 108 years ago.

We're fascinated by the titanic

because it is like a myth;

it's like something from a biblical story.

It contains greed, human ambition, vanity.

This vast, modern and beautiful ship,

full of hope and ambition collided with fate

and in a spectacular way.

Although this was an accident,

it was clearly an avoidable one.

The crew didn't steer away from the iceberg.

They didn't reduce the speed.

They didn't load the lifeboats like they should have.

Many more lives could have been saved.

The titanic is the one event

that the last century will always be remembered for.

It's the combination of pride, hubris,

playing fast and loose with the regulations of the time,

and it's an incredibly tragic event

the world will never forget.

Lord mersey's british inquiry

led to crucial shipping industry changes

across the globe.

Adding more lifeboats to passenger ships,

24-hour radio communications,

and the formation of the international ice patrol,

to name a few.

One hundred and six years after it was created,

no ship heeding the warnings of the ice patrol

has struck an iceberg.

Titanic's legacy lives on.