Final Plunge: Titanic's HORRIFYING Last 5 Minutes

[Music] foreign quarter past two in the morning April 15 1912 and the RMS Titanic does not have long to live for the past two hours the ship has fought a losing battle against buoyancy and gravity and now she is beginning to give up her last ounce of strength in the fight to stay afloat compartments are flooded hallways and ornate public rooms are slowly going under it's now just a matter of time and the clock has already started the ship doesn't have much time left what's about to play out is some of the most awful harrowing drama to ever happen at sea this 45 000 ton ocean liner is about to be violently swallowed by the ocean and the hundreds of people clinging desperately to her for survival are about to endure a series of horrible events ladies and gentlemen I'm your friend Mike Brady from ocean liner designs and today I've partnered with our good friends at Titanic honor and glory to use their incredible animations to bring to you some of the true horrifying stories from Titanic's final five minutes [Applause] in the immediate aftermath Titanic's collision with the iceberg it became clear that something was horribly wrong but the realization wasn't quick for the ship's crew and designers it took some time to gauge what was actually happening and slowly the clues began to come in at the four Peak the very front of the ship a hissing noise was heard that indicated that air was being pushed out of a vent from somewhere deep within the ship and only water could be the thing pushing the air out elsewhere covers over cargo hatches began to bulge outwards because of that same effect after some 45 minutes the situation had become clear Titanic was sinking she was going down slowly but she would definitely sink for two hours or so the ship had settled slowly in the water but it was so gradual that it tricked people into a false sense of security everybody thought the ship couldn't sink that myth had spread through word of mouth and was even being pushed by the ship's officers and builders on board but it was only after some of the early lifeboats were lowered and sent away with reluctant maybe even cynical occupants that they noticed the ship was sitting lower by the head in the water and it only got worse for the next hour or so the ship's Boats were filled and lowered and things had started off calmly but by the end when the feeling of the ship sinking underfoot could no longer be ignored human drama began to play out and panic settled in by 2 10 in the morning the ship's bow was underwater and the last of her Boats were being got ready and the end seemed near but then things took an unexpected turn for the worst Titanic took a plunge downward we'll pick the story up at 2 10 am Titanic's Bridge front is dangerously close to the lapping waves in the Marconi Wireless room on the boat deck Harold bride and Jack Phillips the two young Wireless operators are desperately firing off distress calls in an attempt to organize a rescue they know that Carpathia the nearest ship is still hours away and although they can't see outside from their office they can tell the end must be near because they can hear people rushing about outside on deck and perhaps more ominously the ship's power is beginning to dwindle and withered so too was their Wireless Systems range while Phillips Taps out his urgent calls for help bride fiddles with the Machinery to try to get the maximum power possible outside on Deck things are getting desperate the Titanic had a pronounced Shear where either end of the ship was designed to rise slightly upward to Aid against pitching up and down in the ocean but this Shear had masked the forward angle downward that Titanic had assumed all night by now that angle had reached about eight or nine degrees and it was greater than the sheer and passengers could at last tell that their ship was going down by the head the ones that began to crowd the deck outside could see something else that was ominous the lifeboats were all gone in the minutes prior groups of panicked people had tried to force their way aboard the last to be lowered but pistols had been fired by the crew to scare them away and now with the big wooden lifeboats all gone and Rowing away from the ship the crew were battling to release and fill the last remaining collapsible boats these were an absolute Last Resort a kind of flat bottom barge with canvas sides which could be raised to keep the water out they were smaller than the main lifeboats with an occupancy count of just 47 with around 1 500 people still left on board there were now just spots left for 94 of them but there was a problem the boats are kept high up on the roof of the officer's quarters above the boat deck where the davits which are the Lifeboat cranes were located to actually launch the boats over the ship's side first Officer William Murdoch has been in charge of lowering and filling lifeboats on Titanic's starboard or right-hand side while Second Officer Charles lightholler has commanded the port side operations now both lead teams of men to manhandle those collapsible boats from off of the roof down onto the boat deck where they can be filled and lowered away there was a whole system for this the collapsibles were meant to be attached with guy wires to the first funnels support cables or stays and the tackle could be used to then gradually lower the heavy boats down with simple pulleys but there was a simple unforeseen problem with this neat Arrangement The Tackle was stored forward in the bow section which by now was already over a hundred feet below the ocean's surface the men struggled with the boats and maneuvered them by hand while crowds of people jostled and watched on helplessly at the stern dozens of people have gathered instinctually attempting to get as far away from the water as possible but it's a hopeless affair because sooner or later the stern will be consumed as well they are gathered in groups with one passenger describing them as looking like clumps of bees many of them are third class passengers they had gathered earlier in the AFT well deck near the general and smoking rooms to await instruction that simply never came now with no boats left and the ship's bow slipping below they gather at the stern and wait for the end in the third class General room a woman nervously plays piano for her young daughter on her lap and above her head on the poop deck two priests father Thomas biles and Father Joseph perusits are giving Absolution hearing confession and reciting the rosary to over a hundred passengers who crowd around them stone is beginning to lift higher out of the air and the three bronze screw propellers have emerged ominously from the ocean fighting his way through the crowd is 23 year old storekeeper frank Prentice he has stood on the poop deck chatting idly with his friends Cyril Rex and Michael Kieran but now it's becoming too crowded the trio began to consider climbing over the port side railing and jumping down in the bowels of the ship icy water Roars through openings not from below but from above Titanic has sunk slowly so far with water coming in only through the iceberg damage Hull but now with her bow underwater tons and tons of ocean water can surge through the vents cargo hatches and Open Spaces up on Deck it means that the more Titanic goes under the faster she sinks and those not already up on Deck are caught by the rapidly Rising water level and drowned at the base of the forward funnel the crew under officers Murdoch and light hauler are still struggling with the collapsible boats when a huge crowd of third-class passengers surge out of a door from the first class grand staircase at its entrance it's not known where these dozens of people had come from or where they got held up down below but for the crew planning to lower the last lifeboats it was a sudden shock they thought most of the women and children had got away safely but now dozens more had appeared from nowhere panicked and Desperately Seeking Escape in the wireless office Titanic's radio men are still hard at work when a stoker Creeps in to try to steal Philip's life belt from him while he works at the wireless key Harold bride strikes him down and knocks him out cold so Phillips who so far had been completely absorbed in his work is at last persuaded to escape from the office bride later recalls of Phillips that he was a brave man I learned to love him that night and I suddenly felt a great reverence to see him standing there sticking to his work while everybody was raging about the two men burst through the door on the port side of the boat deck and take it all in bride remembered that there were people running all over the place and that from somewhere aft the ship's Orchestra was still playing jaunty Ragtime music bride here's a call for help from above his head its Second Officer lighthawler who needs more men to bodily move collapsible B down from the roof he turns to help but Phillips has left his side and run off towards Titanic Stern bride will never see his friend again just behind bride around the second funnel Titanic's band is preparing to play their last song band leader Wallace Hartley 33 had once told a friend of his who was another ship's musician that he would play A Hymn where he ever to be on a sinking ship having played cheery music all night now the band begins to play a final slow song as the chaos unfolds around them the actual song chosen has been debated about for years Harold bride about 100 feet away and busy helping free the collapsible boats swears later in life that he heard the song De Orton While others heard the hymn Nearer My God to thee but either way the touching music is another ominous sign of impending doom because now water has begun to Roar up the adek Promenade stairs leading up to the boat deck first Officer William Murdoch and his men on the starboard side have cranked in the number one davit and prepared it to attach the Falls to collapsible a but now the time has come to get the boats down oars a rigged as spars to try to slide the boats down from the rooftop on the starboard side collapsible a thumps down with a boom and lands right side up on the deck but on the other side collapse will be collapses the Spas under its massive weight and Thunders onto the deck upside down but now there's another problem Titanic has taken on an enormous list to Port so now the area of the bridge and the boat deck around collapsible B is already beginning to dip underwater foam begins to swirl around the recently freed boat and there's no time to flip it over and attach it for lowering because the ocean has already risen to meet it the crowd of refugees From Below turns to flea and Terror and panic heading for the fake safety of the stern which is lifting higher into the air with every second collapsible B simply floats off the deck upside down as the ship begins to disappear beneath it trapped underneath the boat somehow is Wireless operator Harold bride it helped get the thing off the roof and now he's caught underneath it inside an air pocket on the starboard side the men under Officer Murdoch are working desperately to sort out their own collapsible boat nobody is exactly sure of the plan Murdoch had ordered the davits cranked in and now men are working at untangling the falls and tackle and trying to connect them to the boat sixth Officer James Moody has other ideas he calls out we don't want the block we'll leave the boat on the deck his idea is to Simply let it float off but others are still trying to connect the falls they try pushing and pulling the boat up the deck towards the davits but it's no use the boat just weighs too much then with the Roar the ocean bursts up and out of the stairs leading up to the boat deck the ocean has at last reached them some jump into the boat but then somebody shouted out that the plug hadn't yet been put in at Sea the plug was left out so that any rain water could simply drain out but now without it the Lifeboat will be swamped fireman John Thompson with injuries from a steam scolding earlier in the night struggles desperately to get the plug back in he fills the boat begin to be lifted by the surging foaming water from underneath him the dozens of passengers had come up from Below have panicked and tried to flee aft but they've encountered an unexpected barrier Titanic's boat deck was a huge open space but it was segregated the forward half was for the use of first-class passengers while the after half was shared by second class passengers and the ship's engineers all these sections were separated by low railings with Gates and now the crowd of terrified passengers some one or two hundred in total run up against the railings and get stuck the crush develops and there is no getting through the time is now 2 15 am and across the ship mouths call out for help that couldn't come the Carpathia is still miles away making Full Steam but with no hope of arriving in time Titanic Stern is now High out in the air she's down by the head by about 10 or 11 degrees but she seems to hang there it's all happening in slow motion around the collapsible a boat people cling on for dear life as white water sweeps around their feet the crowds along the Promenade deck struggle desperately to try to get through towards the stern meanwhile at the very stern of the ship people hold railings at each other for support the two priests are still saying their absolutions then abruptly the end comes for Titanic from somewhere deep below the final pockets of air which have given the ship her buoyancy finally give out her bow section drops Like a Stone what has so far been a slowly Rising tide of water becomes a tidal wave speeds up the boat deck washing collapsible boat a up and off the deck for good with whoever could cling onto it in tow the wave smashes into the people who have got caught in the railings on the Promenade deck and it knocks anybody who is unprepared for it off their feet one man who was prepared was Second Officer Charles lytola after getting collapsed we'll be off the roof he'd been helping with the other boat when the ship simply sank out from underneath him he thought briefly about turning to run for the stern but realized that this was futile instead he dives from the bridge front into the ocean and strikes out for the Crow's Nest which by now is level with the waterline but he realizes that this too is futile because soon it will be underwater he turns to swim back when he suddenly pulled underwater and has the great Misfortune of becoming pinned to the Giant open mouth of one of the massive stockhold intake vents these things lead all the way down to the boiler rooms which are themselves a giant open space and now tons and tons of sea water reporting in and keeping light Ola stuck up against the grating he begins to say his prayers knowing that he's finished but then a burst of hot air from below spits him off the grading and sends him to the surface gasping he emerges and begins to swim away from the suction at the very Stern Frank Prentice and his mates have climbed over the port side railing as the crowds on Deck jostle the ship's angle is increasing all the time Titanic is now about 13 or 14 degrees down by the head it means that the poop deck which once stood four or five stories out of the water is now up at least 10 stories high Titanic rears higher and higher out of the water everything movable inside her begins to crash down Furniture plates Decor it creates a Symphony of Destruction as everything shatters and breaks the Promenade decks on eight Windows have met the water now they too begin to shatter inwards because of the pressure difference and his friends realize that the time has come if they hold off from jumping any longer then the fall will kill them Frank is holding on to one of the notice boards which once warned other smaller vessels to stay away from the Titanic's propellers he lets go and Falls straight past those same propellers which now sit high in the air he is extremely lucky as even though he's wearing a life jacket he hits the water and survives many who tried this were killed instantly when their life jacket smashed back into their heads on impact breaking their necks Frank's friend Cyril Ricks hit debris on the way down and was killed Prentice now finds himself surrounded by bodies and debris with the massive ship Stern moving dangerously over him he begins to swim away on the boat deck people are struggling to still rush afterwards for safety while around the base of the forward funnel they swarm caught off guard by the sudden plunge they're swimming for nowhere in particular Charles lytola was among them he had survived being pinned to the vent intake and then emerged at the surface now he swims back for collapsible B and holds on but then there was a loud crack like a gunshot and then another one steel cable stays that connected Titanic's forward funnel to the boat deck are beginning to part ways the funnel begins to Lumber through the air like a trunk it's coming down it had actually been quite well supported against the forward angle because by Nature it was angled itself backwards by about three or four degrees to help clear sort up and over the decks but now tons of water are pressing at its base it's made of only thin steel plating and it was never designed to survive this kind of pressure the thing is four or five stories tall by itself weighs tons it comes down with a roar onto the heads of dozens of people who are swimming in the water one of them is Charles Dwayne Williams his son Richard is just feet away when the funnel comes crashing down and crushes him Richard was transfixed by the site recalling later that it wasn't because of the fact it had killed his father and missed him by mere feet but because he was wondering at the enormous size of the funnel which still belched smoke forward funnel smashed into the ocean and created a huge wave which washed over collapsible bee and centered away from the ship collapsible a was caught up in the wave too it was sent spinning away like a toy smashing into one of the Lifeboat davits causing one fireman to break his arm funnel broke loose and rolled off into the water sinking creating a new horror where it had once stood was now an open more 25 feet across a blank shaft that led deep into the bowels of the ship water now roared in and carried anybody close enough nearby with it into a swirling hellish whirlpool then it's funnel number two's turn with a whoosh and a brilliant explosion of Sparks from below it smashes down into the water the time is 2 17 A.M in Titanic is dying to the growing den of Smashing glassware and windows comes a new noise a dull Roar to some it sounds like a passing locomotive in a Subway some even mistake it to be the ship's machinery and boilers becoming unseated and crashing forward through the bulkheads but that's not it the noise begins to reach a crescendo it's actually the Titanic still structure beginning to fail individual beams and columns are bent begin to crack Hull plating is tearing rivets are popping wood paneling is shattering Under The Strain steam lines and pipes crack and burst the lights which have stayed on so far all night are powered by steam dynamos without their supply of steam they begin to wind down and the lights snap off then it happens Titanic's weakened structure fails the entire Hull comes apart down to the water line with sound like Rolling Thunder her back is broken Stern comes down into water again although more gently than you might expect some don't even ever see the ship break in two although many do their testimony at Future inquiries will eventually be ignored the pride of British shipbuilding could not simply break in two but it just did only hours earlier the ship's chief designer Thomas Andrews had told passengers that Titanic could be broken into sections and then those individual sections could remain afloat but now his theory is about to be put to the test in the most horrifying way possible his ship is rent apart funnel number three is caught off balance and tumbles off the ship but funnel number four gets caught on the boat deck and stays in place after it collapses Titanic Stern comes down almost level with water again and many think that it's returned to normal trim and will stay afloat stays there for a few long seconds but then begins to rear up again the brake isn't a clean one sections of the lower Hull remain intact plating steel stringers and Frames the Keel and the double bottom Titanic skeleton is strong and it hasn't yet completely failed but where the stern isn't flooded yet and full of air the bow is now hundreds of thousands of tons of waterlogged dead weight it is dropping for the sea floor like a stone and pulling the stone down with it holding on for dear life as the gargantuan Stern section begins to whirl through the air as Chief Baker Charles jokin he clings to the starboard railing as the stern section is pulled down further and further and the angle increases in severity those in the lifeboats and the drifting collapsibles watch in shock as the stern Rises up twisting in a kind of semi-circle the stone is still full of air it should take a long time to sink but now it's being pulled down into the ocean as if a giant hand was grabbing it from Below maybe the bow section remained attached or maybe it was the enormous weight of her engines and Machinery which still remained bolted in place but either way the stern now succumbs to the Sea and gradually calmly begins to slip under for those in the lifeboats it looked elegant 21 year old Steward Cecil Fitzpatrick later recalls that it was as neat and as clean a dive as was ever made by a fish but inside the ship the final plunge is anything but gentle tons of seawater surge unimpeded throughout wooden bulkheads and cabin partitions are demolished by a tsunami of ocean water boiling White Water consumes the ship's poop deck and Baker Charles joke and lets go as it swirls around his waist he barely gets his hair wet as the ship disappears from under him the fan tail goes under then the Jack staff which once proudly flew the ship's blue Ensign flag there is a slight gulp the time is about 2 20 am in Titanic is gone Left Behind are hundreds of people who struggle in the water and call for help From Below there comes the sound of loud booms as the stone section which is still not completely full of air begins to implode decades later when the wreckage is found that Stern section will be almost unrecognizable because of its violent end the conditions in the water in the immediate aftermath of Titanic sinking are later described by Charles lytola as being an utter nightmare of both Sight and Sound whether it was escaping coal dust or soot from the boilers a dark Haze settles over the scene after Titanic sinks and then wreckage begins to burst through the surface From Below from the war to only about 40 to 50 will be saved by various means including Frank Prentice he's pulled aboard Lifeboat 4 and survives the night so too does Charles jokin and Second Officer Charles lighthaller he leads a group of desperate survivors who balance precariously atop collapse will be all night working to shift their body weight against the waves to prevent their small boat from rolling over foreign operator Harold bride eventually emerges from beneath the boat and clambers aboard he's Frozen nearly solid but he's safe all around hundreds of desperate passengers call out for help but help is too far away Carpathia is still hours from Titanic's last known position the screams will go unheeded into the night [Music] oh [Music]

Channel: Oceanliner Designs

Views: 1,934,387

Keywords: great ocean liners, maritime history, ocean liners, famous oceanliners, ships documentary, history of ships, engineering, history, ships, documentary, origins explained, world history project, animated history, open educational resources, titanic, shipwreck, sinking, boats, ocean, disaster, tragedy

Id: SPUFSJsyoFM

Length: 26min 34sec (1594 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 03 2023