One Hundred Years On

One hundred years on, the name Titanic still invokes shudders in peoples' recognition of the immense calamity that was represented by a ship reputed to be the most advanced and safest in the world - held confidently to be unsinkable - did indeed sink.  The ship carried over two thousand passengers.  This was a luxury liner and aboard it were people returning from abroad, as third-class passengers, and on the upper decks, housed in sumptuous cabins, the wealthy who thought it quite thrilling to take the great ship's maiden voyage and become part of history.

Never dreaming of the history that would be reflected by their dreadful voyage, where only a few days after leaving Southampton for New York, the ship, steaming much too fast through ice-choked waters, hit an iceberg and all too soon sank.  The hours of panic that ensued with misinformation and inept authority culminated in lifeboats being launched, with the captain's orders to load them with women and children first, along with a few deckhands to steer and use the oars.

Through the telegrapher there were some responses to the message of a high seas emergency, but those ships that responded were not close enough to be truly relied upon.  Still, many of those aboard were informed confidentially by those who claimed to know the ship and what it was capable of, that it would not sink, and those remaining aboard could anticipate that within several hours' time, they too would be rescued and be reunited with their wives and their children.

The passengers that survived reported later hearing the strains of the shipboard band playing hymns and popular tunes like Alexander's Ragtime Band.  And, then, the horrified passengers who had managed to get into the lifeboats, and who survived - about 330 of them - watched incredulously as the great ship sank.  Among them was an Ottawa woman, Mariana Assaf, who had been visiting her native Syria.

She wasn't part of the aristocracy, the wealthy and the well connected who were on board.  She was below, in steerage, with many other third-class passengers, almost a hundred from her home village, in fact.  Many of them were friends and extended relatives.  On her eventual return to Ottawa, she had been interviewed by the local paper, and she described the events that she had experienced:

"I was with others of my relations and friends for many of us Syrians on board were known to me and we had all gone to bed when the ship struck. Although it did not seem to be much at first and we did not feel very much except a jar, some of us wanted to go on deck to see what happened. We were told that everything was all right, and we did not think there was a danger. But the ship did not go on then some of us began to think they were not telling us the truth and that we might be sinking. I think somebody must have said the boat was going to go down for suddenly there was great confusion and everybody tried to rush the deck. There were many in steerage who tried to rush the boats and at those some of the officers fired revolvers and some of them were shot dead. The rest were driven back. They were not given a chance to escape. As for me, when I thought the ship might sink, I forgot everything and rushed away from steerage and up to the deck where the first class passengers are. I could not think of anything. I never saw any of my relations so I do not know what became of them. The last I saw of them was when we were all in the steerage.
When I ran up to First Class, I saw that the ship must be going to sink and I lost my head. But a man, I think he was one of the sailors, when he saw that I was there, he pushed me into one of the boats where there were already many women and a few men. The boat was lowered into the water and then the men rowed it away for they were afraid that when a big ship went down it would take them with it. Some said the band was playing, but I did not hear it. I was so out of my mind. It was an hour and a half after the boat struck before I was put into a small boat. Then Titanic sank and we drifted about all night. It was terribly cold, and I could never forget my relations and my friends whom I would never see again."

 There was one  peculiar, unexplained and damning occurrence that took place that night.  The Titanic crew could see off in the distance another ship on the horizon line.  The Titanic was firing off rockets emitting loud sounds like cannon.  They were certain that the ship would turn toward them and come to their rescue.  Nothing of the sort happened.  It was estimated, on that clear night, that the ship was no more than 11 nautical miles' distant.

It was the steamer Californian.  They later said they had seen the rockets being fired into the air, but heard nothing.  Despite seeing the rockets light up the sky, there was no response from the Californian.  Its captain took no steps to awaken his ship's wireless operator to contact the Titanic.  They simply steamed on, giving no further thought to the fact that a ship in sight's distance was firing off emergency rockets.