Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve been fascinated by the Titanic. I wasn’t old enough to remember when the wreckage was discovered in 1985, but soon after that my fascination began. One of my favorite VHS tapes to watch was the National Geographic special Secrets of the Titanic, which documented Dr. Robert Ballard’s discovery of the wreckage.
I recently picked up a copy of the 2016 book Titanic: Minute by Minute, by Jonathan Mayo at a bookstore, and flipping through it was so addictive that I knew I had to buy it and read it. The book is a fantastic read, and I would recommend it to anyone fascinated by the Titanic. The book began as a radio program for BBC Radio 2, and Mayo then expanded his radio script into a book. The book is written in the present tense, which gives it a tremendous narrative drive and forward momentum. Despite the fact that we obviously know the outcome of the tragedy, we read breathlessly, eager to see what the next moment will bring.
The book takes us through the events of Sunday, April 14, 1912. The day begins as just another one on the maiden voyage of a sparkling new ship, with calm seas and not a trouble in sight. The day is largely uneventful, until the very end, when at 11:40 PM, Titanic collides with an iceberg.
There are many what ifs with the Titanic disaster, and one of the obvious questions that was running through my mind as I read the book was, why on earth was Titanic barreling through ice fields in the dark at her top speed of 22.5 knots? I know, Bruce Ismay wanted the ship to get to New York on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday morning, and everyone thought there was no way the ship could sink, even if it did collide with an iceberg. But still, the fact that they increased speed after dark seems quite foolish. Another what if question is, what if the night hadn’t been so still? There were no waves on the calm Atlantic that evening, making the icebergs all but impossible to see. And then what if the Titanic didn’t try to avoid the iceberg, but instead hit it dead-on? The ship still might have sunk, of course, but there’s the possibility that in a head-on collision maybe only two of the watertight bulkheads would have been breached, thus still allowing the ship to stay afloat.
One of the other what ifs that kept running through my mind as I read the book was, what if the lifeboats had all been loaded to capacity? Of course, there were many reasons why this didn’t occur, from a crew that didn’t trust that the lifeboats could be fully loaded, (and the crew wasn’t well trained on how the launch the lifeboats) to passengers who were wary of leaving the perceived safety of the huge ship, to the idea that lifeboats were for women and children only.
There are many harrowing anecdotes and narratives to be found in Titanic: Minute by Minute. As I read through the book and was introduced to a new character, it was hard to resist the temptation to skip to the last section and see if they survived the sinking or not. One of the most interesting people was Major Archibald Butt, an aide to President William Howard Taft. Butt was returning to the United States after a European vacation with his friend, the artist Frank Millet. Butt and Millet shared a home in Washington, D.C. I suspect they may have more than just friends and roommates. Both Butt and Millet went down with the ship, and there is a fountain dedicated to them in Washington, D.C., just south of the White House. Despite spending a semester in D.C. during college, I was not aware of this fountain until I read this book.
There are not many photographs in Titanic: Minute by Minute, but the one that held my attention the longest was of survivor Charlotte Collyer and her daughter Marjorie, who was 8 years old in 1912. Charlotte’s husband, and Marjorie’s father, had died in the sinking. The photo, taken in June of 1912, shows Charlotte and Marjorie sitting side by side. Marjorie looks directly at the camera, her gaze direct, but with sorrow in her eyes. Charlotte’s eyes do not meet the camera; she is staring into the distance. Even without the caption telling us, you can tell Charlotte has suffered some unspeakable loss. It’s a haunting photo. Even more so when you read that Charlotte will die in 1914, just two years later.
One of the quotes that I made note of was this one, from Alexander Carlisle, the managing director of Harland & Wolff, the shipyard that built the Titanic. He said, “We spent two hours discussing the carpet for the first-class cabins and 15 minutes discussing lifeboats.” (p.189) That one sentence says so much about the tragedy of the Titanic.
Titanic: Minute by Minute is an excellent, fast-paced recounting of one of the enduring tragedies of the 20th century. I would highly recommend it.
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