Why did Titanic passengers remain so calm as ship was sinking?One hundred years ago the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and plunged to its watery grave killing 1,517 people.
 |
| RMS Titanic 100th anniversary commemorations
|
Strangely it has been reported that considering the impossible events unfolding around them the passengers on the Titanic remained relatively calm and behaved in an orderly fashion. This seems to be because they had 2.5 hours to wait.
 |
| RMS Titanic 100th anniversary commemorations |
According to reports women and children climbed into lifeboats, the cellist and violinist from the band played on, and men, many of whom would soon be dead, stood on deck smoking cigars.
 |
| RMS Titanic 100th anniversary commemorations |
Experts, including David Savage, from Queensland University, have been puzzled by this. Generally it is believed that people tend to act in their own best interest but in the case of the passengers on board the Titanic this was not the case.
 |
| RMS Titanic 100th anniversary commemorations |
 |
| RMS Titanic 100th anniversary commemorations |
Speaking to National Public Radio (NPR) Savage said “There was no pushing and shoving.” He said it was “very, very orderly behavior.”
He compared the behavior of the passengers on the Titanic to that of the passenger of the Lusitania, another British ship which sank 1915. It was torpedoed by a German U Boat.
The difference between the passengers on these ships was that the people on the Lusitania panicked.
 |
| RMS Titanic 100th anniversary commemorations |
 |
| RMS Titanic 100th anniversary commemorations |
There were many similarities between the two ships. They were both luxury liners, they both had a similar number of survivors and a similar number of survivors.
Savage concluded that the difference was time. The Lusitania sank in less than 20 minutes while the Titanic took 2.5 hours.
He said “If you’ve got an event that lasts two-and-a-half hours, social order will take over and everybody will behave in a social manner. If you’re going down in under 17 minutes, basically it’s instinctual.”
In the case of the Titanic, social order ruled. Women and children boarded the lifeboats first.
However on the Lusitania the survivors were largely those who were strong enough swimmers to get to the lifeboats.
On the Titanic, social order ruled, and it was women and children first. On the Lusitania people acted on instinct.
Savage explained that social conventions on the Titanic trumped natural self-interest. On the Titanic these social conventions had time to set in.
One man who survived the wreck had reluctantly taken seat on a lifeboat with an empty seat. The people surrounding him told him to take the seat. However, when he returned home “he was viewed as being a coward and he was derided by the press and everybody in the country for the rest of his life.”
Photos of the iceberg that may have sunk the Titanic are now available, as the world commemorates the 100th anniversary of the liner’s sinking.
One of the most striking images of the disaster, the picture has been preserved by Topham Picturepoint/Press Association Images and shows the iceberg which the Titanic ploughed into at 11.40pm on April 14th, 1912.
The iceberg lay at latitude 41-46N, longitude 50-14W, off the coast of Newfoundland. Newspaper reports of the time said that the visible part of the iceberg – that above the waterline – was anywhere between 50 to 100 feet high and 200 to 400 feet long.
The chief steward on board the Prinze Adelbert liner took the photo of the iceberg on the morning of the Titanic sinking.
Reports say he spotted a line of red paint along the bottom of the iceberg which experts believe show where it had made contact with Titanic.
Journal.ie reports that the steward was not aware at the time that it had been the iceberg that sunk the Titanic but the location, the marks on the iceberg and Titanic survivors’ descriptions of the iceberg triangulated to confirm that it was.
Meanwhile a memorial garden has been opened in Belfast to commemorate all those who died aboard Titanic.
The garden, in the grounds of Belfast City Hall, is the only one in the world which names all of those who perished on the liner.
Bronze plaques bear the names of the 1,517 passengers and crew who died on sailing from Cobh to New York.
The MS Balmoral cruise ship, currently retracing the Titanic’s voyage, has held two memorial services at the site of the disaster, 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
Rev Huw Mosford, who led the prayers, said: “We hope this will bring healing, and some form of closure, perhaps but I think it will also bring hope.”
Read more: Irishcentral.com
Grease n Gasoline 