Stephenson, personal communication, Dec. 23, 2010, concluded, therefore, that the Mesaba telegram and ultimately the Californian’s last-minute warning represented redundant information in this drama. “The real question,” he added, “should be: Why did Smith not order extra precautions to be put into place (including extra lookouts closer to the water on the very head of the ship) as soon as the Titanic crossed the 49th parallel?”
Neshan Krekorian’s sighting of icebergs through an open porthole, close to the waterline, was reported in George Behe, Titanic: Safety, Speed, and Sacrifice (Polo, IL: Transportation Trails, 1997), 62–63. Although Ken Marschall’s comparative study of porthole construction on other ships of the period, including the Titanic’s two sister ships, emphasizes that on the lowest decks (E and F) the Titanic’s ports were probably designed to swing shut unless latched open, water might nonetheless have pushed through into the ship were they not latched closed: personal communication, 2010.
Marschall’s opinion is that on a cold night, portholes that were closed would most likely have been latched closed—yet many portholes of a different design on the upper decks (C and D) were evidently left open. There was no reason for the ratio of open ports to be dissimilar along the lower decks, where weaker, thinner iron hooks (for the open position) were likelier to break when the bow crashed into the bottom of the sea, if they were not severed during subsequent decades by rusticle digestion (allowing the ports to drop shut). All E-deck ports currently appear to be closed; but given the approximately 17 percent of open ports on the next deck up, they may only appear to have been closed; L/P file, pp. 129B.
What Joseph Boxhall saw, at the critical moment, six decks above Krekorian: J. G. Boxhall, American Inquiry, Apr. 20, 1912, pp. 209, 228–229, and Apr. 29, 1912, pp. 907, 930; British Inquiry, May 22, 1912, p. 355. Quartermaster Robert Hitchens laid out for the American Inquiry, Apr. 24, 1912, pp. 449–450, a chronology in which William Murdoch ordered the wheel turned even before Boxhall heard the three warning bells from high atop the crow’s nest and moved quickly toward the bridge.
An order to turn the wheel hard to starboard actually turned the rudder and the ship in a direction opposite the wheel, pointing the prow to port. Boxhall also gave testimony about the positions of instruments; however, Parks Stephenson pointed out (in a Dec. 23, 2010, letter to the author) that Boxhall had come from the brightly lit smoking room in the officers’ quarters, and he had been passing deck lights on his path to the bridge; so he could not yet have had clear night vision by the time he entered the darkened bridge. Stephenson warned that this is something to keep in mind when evaluating what lever positions and instrument readings Boxhall reported seeing once he stepped onto the bridge, including Boxhall’s observation (in contradiction of that of survivors in both the boiler rooms and the engine rooms) that according to instrument readings, the engines were slammed into full astern. According to Stephenson, the bridge should have been able to maintain at least some avoidance maneuverability during the critical seconds; the stopped propeller blades and the paralyzed rudder are probably, therefore, self-perpetuating textbook dogma.
The point was moot; there were too few seconds in which to respond. Hitchens testified that the ship was crushing the ice as he turned the wheeclass="underline" American Inquiry, Apr. 24, 1912, p. 450.
Frederick Fleet told an American examiner that the impact occurred while he gave the warning to the bridge: American Inquiry, Apr. 23, 1912, pp. 320–321. He reiterated this for Charles Lightoller: Fleet, American Inquiry, Apr. 24, 1912, p. 362; Lightoller, British Inquiry, May 21, 1912, p. 343; Sir Ernest Shackleton, Brtish Inquiry, June 18, 1912, p. 723. Alfred Olliver was able to further narrow the exceedingly small time frame in which the bridge was forced to respond: American Inquiry, Apr. 25, 1912, pp. 526–528, 531–533; discussion with Walter Lord, Apr. 10, 1999, p. 3, L/P file, p. 48.
Joseph Scarrott’s timing of events revealed passage by a second iceberg, after the Titanic briefly steamed forward again at half speed: J. Scarrott, British Inquiry, May 3, 1912, p. 23. On the steaming ahead again, after impact, eyewitness examples include L. Beesley, in Jack Winocour, ed., The Story of the Titanic as Told by Its Survivors (New York: Dover, 1960), p. 28.
August Wennerstrom and his friends were initially more amused than frightened, as recorded by Wyn Craig Wade, Titanic: End of a Dream (New York: Penguin, 1979), 248–249. This account was based on Titanic Historical Society papers—private letters of Wennerstrom collected by Wade.
Daniel Buckley took the impact much more seriously than the other men in the bow section, who played games with fallen ice during the first few minutes while bunks began to flood: American Inquiry, May 3, 1912, pp. 1019–1020; Natalie Wick, in Walter Lord, A Night to Remember (New York: Holt, 1955), p. 16.
In the next compartment in front of Buckley, Samuel Hemming began to discover the extent of the flooding: British Inquiry, May 24, 1912, p. 421.
3. A SLIGHT TREPIDATION
Madeline Mellinger was awakened by a steward banging loudly at the door, sprang immediately into action, and rescued her deaf mother. She reported this in a letter to Walter Lord, Feb. 24, 1969, p. 4, L/P file, pp. 598, 600.
As the Mellingers threaded their way up from second class, Madeline did not believe they were leaving their room for the last time, so she barely took notice that her mother was improperly dressed for freezing weather: letter to Lord, Oct. 31, 1955, L/P file, pp. 602, 603, 603C.
John Hardy recalled a strange question at the American Inquiry; he also recalled being roused by purser Reginald Barker from first class and seeing that the damage was serious, after which he closed additional watertight doors along F deck: American Inquiry, Apr. 25, 1912, pp. 587–588, 593.
At the top of the spiral stairs, a water fountain was installed by Thomas Andrews for the shifts working the coal-fired boilers. Not on the original plans, it was discovered during the 2001 robotic exploration of the Titanic’s interior. Violet Jessop spoke with extreme gratitude about the improvements “Tommy” had made for the stewards and coal gangs who rarely received any thought from management: Violet Jessop with John Maxtone Graham, Violet Jessop: Titanic Survivor (New York: Sheridan House, 1997), 102–103. Flooding submerged the fountain shortly after midnight: assessment by Expedition Titanic XIII, 2001.