The Band That Played On by Steve Turner Read Free Book Online

lifts had to be built above the hulls. It would take an unprecedented three thousand men to work on the Titanic , and everyone concerned was aware that this was the largest man-made transportable structure ever built.
    Charlie and Frederick Black would have known of the Titanic ’s advancement not only through their connections in Liverpool but also because there was national interest in this feat of British engineering and example of twentieth-century progress. Ships were an indication of a nation’s wealth, power, and technological advancement. They were the most powerful form of transport then known, and the shrinking of the distance between Britain and America gained the sort of attention that the Space Race would get in the 1950s and 1960s.
    News coverage of the ship’s building expressed awe and wonder. It was an age of record breaking, invention, and mankind’s seemingly limitless ability to master nature. Reports were full of dizzying statistics about the weight of iron plates, the numbers of rivets, and the measurements of decks. It was hard to know what to do with such facts as “the stern frame weighs 70 tons,” or “it would take 20 horses to haul one rudder.” The accumulative effect was to impress the average reader with the ingenuity of designers and the capacity of humans to construct on such a large scale.

    White Star booklet featuring the Olympic and Titanic.
    The first report on the ships in the Times came on September 1, 1908, in a page-ten story headlined “The New White Star Liners.” It mentioned that all the preliminaries had been settled and that construction had been started.
    They will be longer, broader, and deeper than the Lusitania and the Mauretania . The exact dimensions are not yet obtainable but the gross tonnage will be about 8000 tons more than that of the two Cunarders. It is reckoned that the vessels will take three years to build. One is to be called the Olympic ; the name of the other is not yet decided upon, but it will probably be the Titanic . The question of speed, which will not be high in a record-breaking sense, is being left in abeyance, doubtless pending the result of an experiment which is now being made by Messrs. Harland & Wolff with a combination of reciprocating and turbine engines, in which exhaust steam from the first engine is utilized in the second.
    In November 1909 the paper reported that Trafalgar Dock in Southampton would have to be rebuilt to take these huge ships. (Ismay had decided to switch his transatlantic operation to Southampton rather than compete directly with Cunard from Liverpool.) The new dock would be 1700 feet long and 400 feet wide, and would require four new cargo sheds to be built.
    In April 1910 there was news that the channel leading to Southampton docks would need to be deepened. It had already been dredged to 30 feet for the American Line and then to 32 feet for the Adriatic and Oceanic . Now the bed beneath the shipping lanes would need to be lowered an additional 3 feet. The International Mercantile Marine Company then had to petition the federal government in America to allow the city of New York to lengthen its piers by 100 feet. The New York Dock Commission was happy to do it, but the government was concerned that the additional length would constrict the river.
    News interest turned to insurance in January 1911. This was no small matter because sea travel still had a high element of risk. In its Mail and Shipping Intelligence column, the Times had a regular list of the latest wrecks and casualties, and in the January 6 edition that carried news of the Titanic and Olympic insurance, it mentioned fourteen calamities during the past two days, mostly involving collisions resulting in damage. The report claimed that the Titanic and Olympic had been insured for between £700,000 and £800,000 although the actual cost of each ship was £1,500,000.
    The Titanic was launched on May 31, 1911, “in brilliant weather, and in the presence