The capricious nature and fluid mechanics of surge clouds: Haraldur Sigurddson, American Vesuvius, Towers Productions, History Channel, 2006; T. H. Druitt, “Pyroclastic Density Currents,” in The Physics of Explosive Volcanic Eruptions, ed. J. S. Gilbert and R. S. Sparks (London: Geological Society, 1998), 145–182; and Robert Ballard and Ken Marschall, Exploring the Titanic (London: Scholastic, 1993), 54.
27. THE LONG NIGHT OF ELLEN BETTY PHILLIPS
When I wrote Her Name, Titanic (New York: Avon-Morrow, 1988), I was not really writing about a ship at all, but about a beautiful child, abused, who came to a terrible fate. This, and Amber’s story, were discussed in a letter to Roy Cullimore, Sept. 18, 2007. Ellen Phillips gave an account of her early years for the Daily Mail and the White Star Journal, Sept. 2002, reproduced in its entirety in Encyclopedia Titanica (using the name Ellen used when she was married, “Mary Walker”), Nov. 9, 2005, with additional material published by Judith Geller, Titanic: Women and Children First (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 133.
In later years, Ellen Phillips obsessed on her birthdate, believing she must actually have been conceived on the Titanic itself: Ellen Phillips and G. Hodges to the author, 2000, 2001. Her life with loving grandparents and later with a cruel mother: West, 1998, 11–12.
Ellen Phillips attributed her mother’s behavior to the shock of the Titanic, but the Russians aboard the Keldysh interpreted a cruel mother’s actions to her having possessed a mean streak from the start. Lev and Anatoly Sagalevich, during the Keldysh hydrothermal vent expedition in 2003, explained to me that a reason Russians like to drink with a person before deciding if there is a professional future is that “drunkenness and mental illness reveal the real person.” The two keys given to Ellen by her mother from the Titanic turned out to be simple steel ring keys, with no White Star Line insignias or room numbers engraved. They appear to have been trunk keys.
In later years, Ellen was forced by near poverty to sell the blue sapphire and diamond necklace her father had brought aboard the Titanic: J. R. Hodges, personal communication and letters to author, Sept. 5, 2000, Apr. 27, 2001. Although a rift had by then developed between Ellen and Millvina Dean, Dean eventually came to Ellen’s defense: Dean, personal communication with author, 1994–2005.
28. THE THIEVING MAGPIES
Thomas Andrews, who had designed the Titanic from the keel up, was overruled on the “excess” of lifeboats he had built into the plan: James Cameron, Ghosts of the Abyss, IMAX (DVD, Walden Media), 2003. Lessons learned and forgotten resurfaced with the money-saving rewriting of building codes in 1968 that had been enacted after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire: D. Peterson (Verizon), personal communication, 2001, 2011; Paul Mallery, personal communication. Repeating old mistakes of the Titanic with the World Trade Center escape systems: J. Dwyer and K. Flynn, 102 Minutes (New York: Holt, 2005), 107–110.
29. MONSTERS DOWN THERE
The fates of Albert Moss (heading toward his third shipwreck) and David Vartanian were reported by Per Kristian Sebak, Titanic: 31 Norwegian Destinies (Oslo: Genesis Forlag, 1998), and by Philip Dattilio, “A Daughter Remembers Titanic David,” Titanic Commutator 23, no. 145 (1999): 30.
The heating problems that had compelled Jack Thayer and many others to leave their portholes open were repeated for the Britannic, more or less neutralizing new safety features: Britannic issue, Titanic Commutator 20, no. 1 (July 1996): 32. Analysis of improvements from the Titanic to the Britannic: J. H. McCarthy and T. Foecke, New Forensic Discoveries: What Really Sank the Titanic (New York: Citadel Press, 2008), 20. The new lifeboat arrangements became one of the Britannic’s few saving graces: Ken Marschall and Robert G. Ballard, Lost Liners (New York: Madison Press, 1997), 124.
Violet Jessop’s famous “Oh no, not again” moment aboard the Britannic was told to J. M. Graham and personal communication with Walter Lord, date unknown. The sealing of the Britannic’s fate, brought about by open portholes, was confirmed by Ken Marschall and Robert G. Ballard, Lost Liners (New York: Madison Press, 1997), 118–122, 127–131. This was discussed by B. Matsen, The Titanic’s Last Secrets (New York: Twelve, 2008), 252–254. Captain Charles Bartlett and the Britannic’s lookouts concluded that their ship had struck a mine, rather than been struck by a torpedo. The torpedoes of this period left clear tracks of white bubbles, and neither Bartlett nor his lookouts had seen a torpedo track. See also J. H. McCarthy and T. Foeke, New Forensic Evidence: What Really Sank the Titanic (New York: Citadel Press, 2008), 20.
Ken Marschall’s NR-1 dive to the Britannic is detailed in Marschall, “Descent to Another World,” Titanic Commutator 20, no.1 (July 1996): 50–74. Differences in the condition of the Britannic’s bow and the Titanic’s (with the latter exposed to a powerful column collapse and down-blast effect, and the former not) were highlighted by intact mushroom vents near the Britannic’s front cargo cranes, compared to Parks Stephenson’s 2005 photographs of an identical vent from the same place on the Titanic, pressed into the shape of a deck bollard as one might press a piece of aluminum foil into the shape of a quarter by rubbing it down over the contours of George Washington with a pencil eraser.
Jessop’s recall of the first ten minutes of the Britannic’s run toward the Isle of Kea, the disastrous lowering of the lifeboats, her last view of the Britannic, and the toppling of the smokestacks: her diary, with annotations about physical aspects of the sinking by Bill MacQuitty, Walter Lord, and Charles Pellegrino, 1996, L/P file, pp. 716–732; see also Violet Jessop with J. Maxtone Graham, Violet Jessop: Titanic Survivor (New York: Sheridan House, 1997), 175–177.
The escape of the chief engineer and his team from the Britannic, along the same path Alfred White took aboard the Titanic: Ken Marschall and Robert G. Ballard, Lost Liners (New York: Madison Press, 1997), 132–133.
While Jessop awaited rescue, and while the engines of the Titanic’s twin finally died, the chief engineer and several of his crew followed the same path to escape, seeming almost impossible, that Alfred White had followed aboard the Titanic, and which would perplex historian Walter Lord several decades later. They climbed up an escape path in the casing of the fourth funnel and dove from its outer ladder as the stern rolled slowly onto one side and dropped the funnel into the sea with surprising gentleness. The engineers proved that it was indeed possible to survive along “the White path,” just as White said it had been. The fates of Charles Lightoller and Albert Moss: Lightoller, in Walter Lord, The Night Lives On (New York: William Morrow, 1986), 192–193; Moss, in Per Kristian Sebak, Titanic: 31 Norwegian Destinies (Oslo: Genesis Forlag, 1998), 158–159. Jessop’s following decades were scarcely less colorful, as recorded in letters to Walter Lord, 1958–1969, L/P file, pp. 533–542; Violet Jessop with J. Maxtone Graham, Violet Jessop: Titanic Survivor (New York: Sheridan House, 1997), 188, 190, 192, 198. Jessop’s memoir is well worth reading even for its chapters that are not about the Titanic, for they compare well with Jane Austen. Of particular noteworthiness is chapter 32, “The Jinrikisha Man,” one of the saddest stories ever written about true devotion and endless love. The almost (so near and yet so far) first meeting of triple Olympic-class shipwreck survivor Violet Jessop and Walter Lord aboard the Olympic in July 1926 is memorialized in an inscribed photo of Lord beginning to study his favorite subject at age nine, L/P file, p. 1.