The Iceberg Resurfaced By Henning Pfiefer

[David G. Brown]

Beverly -- Sometimes, all you can know is that you don't know what you want to know.

We really don't have an accurate position of Titanic's accident site or the location on the surface of its foundering. Information as accrate as what we take for granted in 2001 was not available in those pre-Global Positioning System days.

Boxhall's "final position" is generally agreed to be in error -- too far north and east. A lot of reasons have been suggested, but Dave Gittens has probably the best explanation on his web site. Boxhall made a simple error in using the printed navigational tables. After all, he was under extreme pressure and falling ill.

If either large piece of the wreck fell straight to the bottom, it would probably be the stern section. However, we don't know what the currents may have done to cause lateral drift of the pieces on the way down. Nor do we know how the shapes of the pieces may have influenced their downward paths. It is probably a safe assumption that the bow moved forward as it fell downward, but that the stern fell pretty much straight to the bottom...a safe assumption...but not a fact.

ALL STOP on the engine order telegraphs does not stop the ship, only the engines. The hull continues to "shoot" forward for some time. How far depends upon the initial speed of the ship, the sea conditions and other factors. But, there is no proof that Titanic lost all forward momentum after the accident and before Captain Smith ordered AHEAD SLOW.

We don't know how long the ship's engines turned on that slow bell after the accident. The duration could have been anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, with a 100% error factor. We just don't know for certain. My best guess is that the ship steamed for about 3 nautical miles north from the scene of the iceberg encounter.

By the way, "Winds come from; currents go to." A southwest setting current moves toward the southwest.

None of this answers your questions. All we know for certain is that the ship had an ice encounter; that it moved for some indetermined time at an unknown speed after that; Boxhall made a mistake, although his position was accurate enough to bring Carpathia to the scene; everything drifted on the surface; and, that unknown currents affected the wreckage as it drifted to the bottom.

If we could remove all of these uncertainties, then Titanic would be a very dull subject, indeed. It is the plethora of mysteries that attracts people to the ship after 90 years.

-- David G. Brown

 

[Beverly J. Crowder]

Thank you Capt. Brown for your wonderful insight and commentary. It really "bakes my noodle", so to say and I just LOVE a good mystery, as heartbreaking as it may be!

I try to picture the incident in my mind, and having never been at sea, it is really hard for a "land lubber" to fathom.

But also from the accounts of survivors and where the wreck was found, it just really makes you wonder what was going on in the minds of Capt. Smith and crew. Even J. Bruce Ismay for that matter!

I know that bodies and wreckage were found 100's of miles from the accident site a month later....still.. there are so many unanswered questions.

You are so right, if we KNEW the answers, then Titanic would probably not be as exciting to us as she is now.

Thank you dear Capt.

Does Capt. Erik or anyone else have a comment?
Michael S. maybe??

Beverly

 

[Jan C. Nielsen]

Henning,

Are you aware of First Class Passenger C.E. Henry Stengel's testimony before the United States Senate Subcommittee? He also describes a "Rock of Gibralter" iceberg, as follows:

Senator Smith: Did you see icebergs the next morning?

Mr. Stengel: I guess you could. They were all around. You could see them. As soon as we landed down into the water, as soon as we were afloat, you could see icebergs all around . . . they were in sight all along the horizon.

Senator Smith: How far away was it from you, apparently?

Mr. Stengel: It was quite a ways, but you could see the outline in the dusk.

Senator Smith: Describe these icebergs. how large were they?

Mr. Stengel: There was one of them, particularly, that I noticed, a very large one, which looked something like the Rock of Gibralter; it was high at one point, and another point came up at the other end, about the same shape as the Rock of Gibralter.

Senator Smith: How did it compare with the size of the Titanic?

Mr. Stengel: I was a good ways off. It was not quite as large as the Titanic, but it was an enormous, large iceberg.

Senator Smith: Can you approximate its height from the water?

Mr. Stengel: Of course I might. At such a distance I should judge it was 250 feet high at the highest point.

 

[Henning Pfeifer]

hello Jan
thanks that you have mentioned Stengels testimony. I did not write it in my report because Stengel said that the icebergs were "a good ways off", and he did not combine this Gibraltar looking iceberg with the smashed one. So I thought his description of the icebergs would not be a convincing indication. But I personally think that Stengel described the collission iceberg but did not know that. Specially his description of the shape ("Gibraltar") and the size ("not as large as the Titanic") seem to support the fact that Stengel indeed described the same iceberg which was the one the Titanic had collided with.

Stengels statement is very interesting for another question: as Stengel said, all the bigger icebergs were pretty far away ("all along the horizon...could see the outline in the dusk"). This contradicts the impression some may have about a big number of larger icebergs in the area. But on the photographs that show rescue boats close to the Carpathia there are no icebergs to be seen even up to the horizon. I am convinced that it was easily to find out which one of these few larger iceberg had been rammed if you could get close enough (and recognise the rammed edge) - even some days later and even in a certain distance to the victims.

 

[Mark Chirnside]

Regarding the point about Titanic's speed, if 'slow ahead' was telegraphed that would indicate thirty revolutions per minute or between 8 and 9 knots according to Olympic's chief engineer; the turbine would not be in operation unless 'half ahead' was telegraphed. Thus, finding the state of the turbine gives a good clue.

 

[Daniel Klistorner]

I arrived here late, and there were already 35 messages posted before me, and most of them are long. I have had little time to read them all but wanted to add a few of my thoughts as well. I'm sorry if I'm repeating something that has been pointed out, or saying something that is not in the article on ET as I have been unable to read Henning's article on this site, but have read the version that was printed in TIS' Voyage 33. Since I have not read the version on ET, I might be wrong about some points, as I don't know what Henning elaborated on in this article. All my thoughts expressed here stem from the Voyage 33 version of the article.

In Voyage, Henning, you claimed the berg to be rather short, as it would appear to be so from the photo. However how do you account for people seeing it on A deck? William Sloper was just in the grand staircase foyer, waiting for Dorothy Gibson and felt the ship vibrating. Within moments Dorothy had reached Sloper and the two ran outside (remember they are both on A deck) and saw the berg go by.

Also, I can't remember the name, but it would be either Silverthorne, Woolner or other such person from the 1st. class smoke room that ran outside and saw the berg go by and either claimed it was as high as A deck or even higher.

After the impact, on his investigation, Elmer Taylor ventured forward on A deck and picked up a piece ice (I think this is also where Clinch Smith got his ice) - which probably fell off as the berg scraped past A deck, or the ice tumbled from the berg - and went back down to C deck to show his friend Williams.

First class passengers: Mrs. Clark and Mrs. and Miss Graham, all saw a berg go past the windows of their cabins aft on C deck.

As for what the iceberg looked like, I can't see how any of us can be sure. Putting all pictures, drawing and photographs aside, I know of only 3 drawings by Titanic survivors (in Eaton and Haas' TTT book). None of the three drawings resemble each other, so I don't see how we are supposed to draw conclusions from that - as the various drawings presented by those who did see the berg vary so much, and then try to bring in drawings by others who were not on Titanic and did not see the iceberg during the impact.

Having just survived a disaster, anyone would be distressed by it and point at any big iceberg and say that's the one. So the berg pointed out to the Carpathia passenger may well not have been "the" iceberg, also because of the distance the Titanic would have travelled after the impact and it seems this berg would have been too close.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, as I have not read all the postings and Henning's article on ET, so I don't know whether he has modified some of his views since the Voyage 33 article, or whether some of the points mentioned by me just then have been touched upon.

Daniel.

 

[Henning Pfeifer]

hello Daniel

Of course there are several modifications I have added since the "Voyage" article. Specially concerning the shape of the Iceberg (Scarrotts comparison with the Rock of Gibraltar) and some other details. Of course we still cannot say anything about the size. The witnesses reported very different sizes and the photograph doesn´t give any clues to that question.

In this ET article I left out the point how chunks of ice could have fallen on the deck. I thought this should be an extra discussion...

Regards Henning

 

[Daniel Klistorner]

Hi Henning,

Thank you for your reply, hopefully I'll soon get the time to read your artice here on ET. One other person that just came to mind, seeing the berg go past A deck is Edith Rosenbaum, who watched it go by, looking out the window of her cabin, A11.

Daniel.

 

[Dave Gittins]

Edith Rosenbaum also saw somebody walking on the deck of Californian. Treat anything she says with care.

 

[Randy Bryan Bigham]

Dave,

You are right that Edith claimed in later years (when she was well into her 90s) that she saw a ship so close by she could see someone walking the decks. However this imaginative stretching of the truth must not be confused with the quite reliable acounts she gave over the years concerning her seeing the iceberg. From her very first interview in the Herald in 1912 she always maintained she was up at the time of the collision, having been writing letters in the library/writing room, and on returning to her cabin felt the collision and watched the iceberg glide by her window. This element in her story never wavers much so I think it's true.

Edith does go out on the proverbial limb from time to time. The BBC has transcripts of TV and radio interviews spanning a number of years as she was routinely interviewed on the Titanic anniversary, and there are bits and pieces that one questions, but the essentials of her story seldom differ from one telling to the next. The Californian bit really is the only major embroidery I can determine. In that sense she's not very different than other survivors who occasionally added or subtracted to their tales for dramatic effect.

Randy

 

[Henning Pfeifer]

Hi, below you see an image I have created on PC. I used Rehorek´s iceberg photograph and an image from the Titanic I have cut out from an 1912 postcard and pasted next to the iceberg. Then everything has been darkend. Al least I added the stars and the lights aboard.

\image()

Of course we don´t know the relating sizes of the berg and the ship. But I think it was interesting to create an image using authentic pictures of both "main actors".

Henning

 

[Henning Pfeifer]

uups or look at this link:

http://mitglied.tripod.de/hepfm/titanic/eisb-grafik-1a.jpg

 

[Michael H. Standart]

I like that image. You can barely make out the berg...which I take it is exactly the point. All things considered, it's a wonder that Fleet and Lee saw it in the first place.

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[Henning Pfeifer]

CORRIGENDA ET ADDENDA

Meanwhile I have got some more reactions including an interesting letter with some good criticism on my article. Please let me correct one point and add two notes.

1. The iceberg I have called the MACKAY-BENNETT iceberg in fact was photographed on board the cable ship MINIA that had been send for assistance in the search for the dead. I have used the "New York Times" as source. But they were wrong and so were nytimes com/learning/general/images/slideshows/041500titanic-event.7.html
A correct source would be:

FAQ3

2. Furthermore I have been asked where the PRINZ-ADALBERT iceberg first time has been published: first time a picture of this iceberg appeared in Walter Lord´s book "A Night to Remember". As far as I know the original picture belongs to the Walter Lord Collection.

3. Another question belonged (it has already been discussed on this message board) the distance between the debris and the iceberg which was photographed five days later on board the BREMEN I have never stated that the BREMEN iceberg has been photographed "close" to the debris. We don´t know the distance between the debris and the photographed BREMEN iceberg. I do believe that there was a certain — or to say it more precisely - an "uncertain" vicinity between the debris and the iceberg five days later. No other iceberg is to be seen on the BREMEN photograph, even up to the horizon. From the same BREMEN trip two other photographs exist which show another iceberg Rehorek has photographed. But Rehorek did not send these pictures of the second iceberg to his parents, probably because he thought that this second iceberg was not the one which was struck by the TITANIC. These photographs of the second berg also do not show any other bergs in the whole area. To me that means that there were only a few bigger icebergs which were sighted by the BREMEN. And Rehorek took pictures of them and one of them is the one which was struck. In what distance from the debris Rehorek took this special picture? We don´t know - maybe thirty miles or fifty? Because of the lack of bigger icebergs to me this "(un)certain vicinity" does include a rather big distance.

My conclusion: The people on board the BREMEN saw the debris, they also met icebergs, Rehorek took pictures of these bergs - and one of his pictures show the iceberg which had been struck.

A single indication (of all the indications I have collected in my article) that speaks for the BREMEN iceberg would never have convinced me, but all indications together did.

Henning Pfeifer

 

[Henning Pfeifer]

hello all, this is a little UPDATE to the article:

1. A second photograph of this iceberg taken from a bit different angle showed up (descendants of the photographer found it at home).

2. Now we have facts about the photographer himself. Stephan Rehorek (1888-1935) was a butcher and cook for many years on board the steamer "Bremen". That means that he was indeed member of the crew as I have assumed (but not a "seaman").

More will follow in a few weeks.

Best regards
Henning