20

THE WRECK IS FOUND

After the Titanic sank, many men dreamed of locating the wreck. Some were motivated by their fascination with the ship. Others, however, were motivated by greed.

After the sinking, rumours abounded that she had been carrying gold bullion. This was unlikely to be true but greed blinds men to reality. What was not in doubt was that there were many wealthy passengers on board, indeed some of the wealthiest people alive at that time.

Those, like John Jacob Astor and his wife, Madeleine, Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, and Benjamin Guggenheim, were known for their fabulous wealth. A voyage on the Titanic was an opportunity to display this wealth in public, especially for the women on board.

They would have brought their valuable jewellery with them to wear at dinner and at gala concerts on the ship. When not being worn, such jewellery would have been kept in the ship’ s safe or in the safes in the First Class suites.

Now men dreamed of locating the wreck and salvaging the other valuable items kept in the safes. Over the years following the sinking, attempts were made to try and locate the wreck but without success. This was due to some confusion as to its exact location. But as well as that, the means of locating a wreck some 4,000 metres beneath the Atlantic Ocean were simply not available.

It was not until the 1980’s that the sort of technology capable of locating such a wreck became available. This included highly sophisticated sonar and remote controlled underwater cameras.

An American, Dr Robert Ballard, and a Frenchman, Jean-Louis Michel, teamed up to try and locate the wreck. In August 1985, on board Le Suroit, they searched an area of around 150 square miles near the location calculated by Officer Boxhall on the fateful night.

Like some other previous attempts, bad weather hampered the search and no positive evidence of the site was found. The search was abandoned and only resumed at the end of that month.

This time, a US Navy research vessel, the Knoor, was involved. It carried two unmanned submersibles, the Argo and the Angus. These could operate at depths of over 6,000 metres and were ideal for the task.

Argo was equipped with sophisticated sonar and also with video cameras. It could be lowered into the water and towed by the Knoor while its sonar and cameras searched the seabed for any wreckage.

Again, they failed to find anything and despondency was beginning to set in. Ballard calculated that rather than locating the actual wreck, they had a better chance of locating the trail of debris the ship would have left in its wake as it sank. This, as it turned out, was the key to unlocking Titanic’s resting place.

Early on the morning of 1 September, objects began to appear on the video screens. Amidst whoops of success and relief, Ballard was summoned. He arrived in the control room just as the underwater camera sent up to the surface a picture of a ship's boiler.

They had found the wreck of the Titanic.

It was around 2am in the morning, very close to the actual time when the ship had sunk. It was a moment to reflect on what had occurred at this place on a cold April night just over 73 years before.

Aware of the significance of the find and also aware that below them lay the resting place of 1,503 men, women and children, the initial mood of celebration became tempered. Ballard and some of his crew went up on deck and stood quietly in the darkness, remembering those who had died.

But time was pressing and they only had a few days left. Also, the weather was deteriorating. As the cameras surveyed the wreck, one mystery about the sinking was resolved.

Eyewitness accounts had given two versions of the ship's final moments. Some claimed that she had gone under intact. Others claimed that she had split in two before she sank.

Now it became clear that the ship had split in two. What Ballard's team had found was the bow section, sitting upright on the seabed. As they searched the seabed itself, they located many objects from the ship, including crockery and bottles of wine.

Their time was up and they had to return to harbour. Large crowds and the world's media were waiting for them. A press conference was held and it was announced that the wreck had been located.

There was worldwide interest in the find and in the pictures of the wreck. Many now came forward with plans to raise the ship or salvage it. Others, like Ballard, wished that the wreck would never be disturbed.

He returned on a second expedition in 1986, taking a three-man submersible named Alvin. Now Ballard was able to dive on the actual wreck and see the bow section with the human eye. The bow was still intact but was being eaten away by rust.

On a subsequent dive, Ballard entered the ship through the giant hole left by the collapsing funnel. No human remains were discovered but some items of clothing were found.

A self-propelled video camera was now deployed and it was able to enter the ship. It even descended the grand staircase. A remote-controlled device fitted to the camera tried to open the door of the safe. But it remained firmly closed.

The camera also searched the seabed and located a trail of debris from the ship, including coal, which would have fuelled the furnaces.

The stern section was also located about 600 metres away. Here, the results of the implosions that had occurred as the stern sank were obvious to see. The decks and hull had been shattered and twisted by tremendously powerful forces.

Robert Ballard had found the wreck. His dream had now been achieved. He did not wish to disturb the scene or retrieve any of the objects, which littered the seabed or were still on board the ship. Neither did he wish for any section of the ship itself to be disturbed.

But others were less scrupulous. Now that the position of the wreck was known, many other salvage operations set about retrieving objects and parts of the ship. Around 2,000 objects were officially recovered.

Many were exhibited in museums around the world, including the world famous National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, England. Here, in the grounds, a memorial was dedicated to the memory of the Titanic and those who perished on that night of 15 April 1912.

The last words on the terrible disaster might be best left with Robert Ballard, the first man to see the great liner since her sinking. In describing her last resting place and the resting place of those 1,503 persons who died in the tragedy, he said: ‘It is quiet and peaceful and a fitting place for the remains of this greatest of sea tragedies. May it forever remain that way and may God bless those found souls.’

THE END