The Last Seven Titanic Survivors Tell Their Story (1997 REMASTER)

you well in the sway of water I'd see your father 71 years ago Eva Hart survived the sinking of the Titanic but her father died in the disaster today at a sails she waits for a message from him and your father is just as talkative as ever I feel that your father's so very very close and your mother also is looking very quietly she's holding you close and now she's putting you taking you to put you to bed I'd see your father more than 1500 people died that night in April 1912 Titanic was the biggest ship in the world she'd been on her maiden voyage for those who survived such as miss Hart and Ruth Blanchard and Edwina Mackenzie life was never quite the same again for years Eva Hart sleep was racked by nightmares I was getting down and down in this life but waiting for my father coming never any sense Easter being drowned just a nightmare of the whole terrible proceeding you wouldn't like to hear the screams of women would you our men and jumping into the water and screaming and there was no way to save them people were screaming and screaming and then all was silent the silence was terrible yet the tragedy that scarred and killed so many could have been avoided no one knows exactly how many people died that night some say fifteen hundred and three others fifteen hundred and twenty-two millionaires and their retinues young men with their eyes set on opportunity needy emigrants seeking a new world the disaster shocked society because they'd said Titanic was unsinkable the owners the anglo-american White Star Line were to declare even two months after the great liner had sunk the ship was looked upon as practically unsinkable she was looked upon as being a lifeboat in herself on the anniversary of the sinking the survivors gathered in Philadelphia either heart came 3,000 miles from Chadwell Heath near London it's a convention of the Titanic Historical Society a group of enthusiasts for whom Titanic holds a recurring fascination people who wish to join us society will make sure you have to program it fascinates me it's very good very romantic very melodramatic and aside into that it's a great tragedy many people died there is still something that I think that this whole thing about all these people being honest one chef and I think we tend to project ourselves on this we want to be John Jacob Astor and we want to be been doing so we're getting into those boats literally getting into the boat if you're lucky if you're watching Edwina Mackenzie who's 98 traveled from California to attend the convention Kelly I've been obsessed with that since I was a child and I feel very personally most religious it's a spiritual thing for me Angelica this is going to be Edmund I'm gonna have to ask five survivors are there George Thomas traveled from Michigan thank you very much you look pretty good thank you I never thought I would see the day when I would meet one of these people it's like meeting a movie star or the president is very gratifying my grandmother's boyfriend went down a Titanic quick Baxter he wasn't the first class would be I walked the decks of his ships in a previous life for all I know but it always has been of interest to me since 1:02 book when I was nine years old now is there anything else in your life about which you could say that not really the death of Titanic has given birth to a multitude of books and films and legends the facts are extraordinary enough same the Titanic is the greatest example of if anything bad could happen it will nothing went right for her if anything could have gone wrong it did she didn't see the Bergin time she headed the way was most vulnerable to her to warn enough lifeboats for everybody people didn't believe it was thinking so they wouldn't get in the lifeboats the nearest ship her wife's operator was asleep anything could have gone wrong it did more than 400 people attend the convention the highlight a banquet the menu breast of chicken white star with chocolate mousse Titanic to follow 3,000 miles away from all this one of the last surviving members of the crew Frank Prentice Prentice from Bournemouth was 18 when Titanic sank he was a stores clock an assistant to the purser to be chosen by the White Star Line to crew Titanic was an honor Frank Prentice joined her in Southampton just before she sailed see this huge thing that four funnels I thought choose something out of the ordinary my gosh bigger than you'd expected I didn't quite know what is but she was the last word in luxury all her public rooms were absolutely amazing all the woodwork was beautifully carved and she had everything everything that would you think of that they she was a beautiful ship how many days did you have to familiarize yourself with the Titanic between the time you arrived and the time that you left Southampton I had three days was that enough well you couldn't you wanted have a week to go all around the Titanic did you have any lifeboat rope we had no lifeboat drills and the list of lifeboats I believe was put up in the galley about the day that we struck an iceberg nobody knew where their boats were lifeboats were things that they went necessaries he will we're on a ship that was unsinkable the Titanic was born here at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast Northern Ireland she was one of a pair of sister ships being built simultaneously the Titanic and the Olympic they towered side-by-side above the concrete slipways as high as 15 storied skyscrapers covered in a tracery of steel supports they built special slipways a quarter of a mile long the men who worked there 80 years ago poured into Titanic and Olympic their pride and expertise as they recalled 60 years later I would say that the Titanic was the last word in craftsmanship and shipbuilding craftsman a lovely ship one of the greatest ships ever want to see lovely all good comedy essence and everything's a little bit for the poisons that is going on she was a lovely shopping well but there hasn't been anything making done since so beautiful and technically sound built with 16 watertight compartments designed to make her in practical terms unsinkable any two of these bulkheads could be breached and Titanic would stay afloat and so the legend of invincibility grew in 1911 they built this model of Titanic as part of a publicity drive Titanic's job was to capture a hefty share of the transatlantic market for white star to persuade those who were emigrating from Europe or traveling on holiday or on business to use white star rather than say Cunard the market was enormous first of all there was the cream of the market the first-class passengers and white star I think was probably with the Olympic and Titanic moving into the top off market position because the new ship is always the one that gathers the fashionable passenger clientele the steerage passengers which was the immigrant trade across the North Atlantic was colossal a big if you consider the multi millions of people that traveled from all over Europe many through Mediterranean or United Kingdom ports to United States and Canada you will see that very many ships ship owners and the crews and officers of the ships made a living from taking these people across the Atlantic Titanic set out from Southampton on April 10th 1912 she'd cost more than a million pounds to build she was licensed to carry 3,500 passengers she was to live only four days the Hart family were off to start a building business in Canada that Eva's mother was worried my mother who had been very apprehensive about the whole thing I didn't want to go I had this very firm premonition of trouble of some kind but she really didn't know what it was but the moment she knew that we were going the Titanic she said are now I know I'm fine and that is because this ship was too cared by the builders to be unseen and her expression was that that was flying in the face of God flying in the photo of face of God but of course my father poo pooed this idea and of course I'm a little free to go as we got to the gangbang to go aboard she stopped her hand on his arm she said I will ask you just once more if you as you should know I'm going having left Southampton she called it shurberg on the evening of April 10th and then made for Queenstown in Ireland a coupla tenders came out with passengers and Mail and a little bit of specie gold and silver bars you know what to take to America yes the Titanic left Ireland on April the 11th she'd picked up more passengers and she now carried more than 2,200 men women and children Edwina Mackenzie was 27 she was off to visit her sister we had very wonderful cabin has had the two bunks on the couch in it and I had the house was turned into a bed at night and had the couch for my bed they have many car parties and I get people acquaintance we had depth there courts and and they did all they could to make it happy mm-hmm and were you happy a very happy girl very happy throughout the voyage the sea was to become the weather clear Ruth Blanchard who's now 83 was taking the last leg of a voyage from India my father was a missionary but my little brother was 2 years old was sick and the doctors told mother that he wouldn't live if we stayed in India I guess it was because the Titanic just happened to be going but we wanted to go George Thomas then seven had set out only three weeks before by camel from his family's village in the Lebanon my sister used to play every day we will play whoops their ways and then come back down and him there and where was a cabin next door to was a very good cabin who would play there moster time by the second day Titanic was in mid voyage she'd already received a number of ice warnings Eva Hobbs mother had decided never to sleep at night step firmly all the daytime and set up at night doing crochet doing needlework she would put on a thick woolen dress and all happens and in those days for a lot of up the clothes and she would sit there literally waiting Titanic was taking the southerly of the two regular routes across the Atlantic at this time of year captains knew that icebergs were drifting south having broken away from the ice cap said of going straight we used to go around like that you see for the south yes why why to get away from icebergs early on April 14th the third day of the voyage Titanic received the first of a series of ice warming's mine am SS Caronia westbound steamer reports Berg's growlers and field ice in 42 degrees north from 49 degrees to 51 degrees west and he had lots of tires and there was a beautiful shop my father was always buying things for me and I had other children shaving I'm up there at 1:42 on April 14th from the steamer Baltic great steamer Athena reports passing icebergs and large quantity of filled ice atmospheres one gay party they were enjoying life and they should do they had everything finest food ever could be prepared for them and all the luxury of having wonderful public rooms to go to Orchestra dances from the SS America by a Cape Race at 1:45 p.m. past two large icebergs in 40 127 North 58 west dining room was beautiful you know that new silver everything was new and now we're part of a Bosley on the dagger was the only part of the ship that I remember from the SS Californian at 7:30 p.m. three large icebergs four miles to south overs oh they had a fine time I'm sure they all enjoyed it from SS Mesaba to Titanic much of a pack ice and great number large icebergs also filled ice you could smell ice I I knew it because you can smell it what do you mean penis a penis in year there's some something about ice that you can smell from the SS Californian again an hour before the collision we are stopped and surrounded by ice the Titanic responded shut up I'm busy Titanic was now traveling faster than at any other time in the three days since she'd left Ireland the ship was travelling we understand at about 22 knots that is nearly 25 miles an hour and for motorists that gives a fair impression of speed if you were to consider the speed your car is doing as you're approaching the 30 mile an hour limit and remember that the ship is weighing something in the region of 35,000 tonnes possibly more with water alongside moving with it quite difficult to stop definitely in excess of speed weather was perfect absolutely calm and we were flat out we were out to break a record being a maiden voyage they may well have been trying to get a convenient docking time in New York to suit the passengers and to get maximum publicity I was talking to a pal of mine he was sitting on my bunk Oh a sudden she came to a halt there was no fuss it was like putting it brakes on a car and you graslie came to a halt and I went for it on the promenade deck and I looked down I couldn't see any any damage at all above the waterline what I did see he was ice in the well deck the phorid well deck and I thought hello we've hit an iceberg she said she didn't know what it was but she knew it was this terrible something that I've been hanging over her for weeks what it was precisely she now in you know care it was it I saw the purser and I said mr. Cohen if I can do any good you let me know it's the best thing you do is get back into bed you cultured ethical so I fathered picked me up off the bed wrapped a blanket tried to encourage me and put me down with my mother by a knife person he said now don't move from here whatever anyone says don't move the drop from the boat deck to the waters of that between seventeen eighty feet and you could hardly see the water and people didn't want to go they they got in their mind she was unsinkable the officers didn't know why it will sake or not whether it there it could still float so where he said all we can do is go in the cabin and pray by then the captain had ordered out lifeboats and women and children lower the lifeboats and standby that was the order standby he put me in the lifeboat in from another and he said to be nine the FAFSA the mother and I looked him up mr. Spode went down scientists a terribly long way down to that dark sea I remember looking up and seeing him leaning over saying be good compliments at last I saw him he made no attempt to get it was so sad to have to take the the Y's away from their husbands and leave the husbands upon death and I had knew that she was thinking then I knew what chances we were just waiting for death at 2:20 a.m. on April 15 Titanic sank news of the disaster filtered through by the newfangled radio to the outside world to America where at first the reports comforted then the enormity of the tragedy began to emerge in England in Titanic's home port Southampton whole streets went into mourning they held two inquiries into why it had happened the first was in America the second in London they said Titanic had been going too fast and that she'd ignored ice warnings that the crew had been unfamiliar with each other and they'd been no lifeboat drill for passengers or crew and that the watertight compartments that had made the unsinkable ship unsinkable had failed the watertight compartments had not proved truly watertight for two reasons first the bulkheads extended to varying heights because they joined decks that ran through the ship at varying levels second they were linked to decks that were by no means watertight and however watertight the bulkheads a compartment is not watertight if the top lets in water what had happened then was that as the Titanic went down by the head the water filled and spilled over into each subsequent watertight compartment and so on until the end and crucially the inquiries agreed that when the disaster had occurred there'd been too few lifeboats to carry the passengers and crew to safety rightly or wrongly the captain of the Titanic Captain Smith was blamed particularly by the Americans for the fact that Titanic was travelling too fast rightly or wrongly the captain of the Californian captain Lord was blamed by both inquiries for failing to come quickly to the rescue of the stricken liner and to tidy matters up the British wrote new rules to ensure that never again were the liner put to sea with too few lifeboats to rescue all who sailed in her but for the 1500 men women and children who died in the Titanic it was all too late 70 years later it all seems so obvious if a ship carries 3,500 people she needs seats for every one of them in a lifeboat so why did the Titanic sail with places for only 990 plus 188 in collapsible dingus a situation that in the event of disaster must mean that 2300 people would be left behind well firstly because White Star Line were required by law to carry no more than that the lifeboats were formed and there was still over 1500 people left behind and the panic then must have been grateful we could hear it on the boats people screaming and running side to side of the ship and you see it was just a question of who was there if you weren't there but the time someone went wait and do up and you got up on day there wasn't the lifeboats get it it was just one mad rush to get into them into the lifeboat I was thrown in I mean you know he just picked me up and threw me in the manner of the baby and they said Sam packs on battery so I don't be saved or save the baby so I said I would so I had the baby all night in my arms we got the four boats away and they were trying to jump into them as they went down and all the boats had gone then I got separated from my mother I was lifted up by something there and put over into another booth which is a terrifying thing I thought I was being thrown out of the side the decks were lined with people not getting off they were lined with people looking over the railing so when the boat dead when the water rushed into the boilers there is a terrible explosion and that's when I thought the boat broke in half and that's when the people started jumping into the water and screaming that's when they that's when they screamed it was terrible scream for the women you know ah Frank Prentice then 18 climbed the steeply sloping deck he perched on the stern of Titanic and looked down there was so much debris floating and bodies dead and alive were all around there though hundreds of them round the stern of that ship they'd all seemed to drift down that way there were had two broad on the stern of the Titanic which said he cleared propeller blades and I was on the port one hanging on and eventually I slid off and I had a light jacket on and I hit the water the truth crash but I didn't hit anything in the water I was lucky very lucky when we rode out I don't know how far it was but it was beautiful just a beautiful sight it was all the lights were on in a Titanic and it was listing just a little bit in the front you know going down but it was a beautiful sight cold freezing so killed everybody they didn't last long you see a lot of them went though without that Lausanne they didn't last long anyway when I I found Rick's and he'd hurt himself he'd hurt his legs he dropped on something and he didn't say very much he was a great big fella - very good swimmer and he died and I I was eventually I seemed to be all by myself the cries help and prayers at all subsided and everything was quiet and then we looked back and the lights were gone and and the Sun was over with just like that you know and it's just a few minutes and there was nobody there anymore and when it's over and these people are dead that darkness screams have stopped it is a dreadful silence says it's our world stem still in New York the next-of-kin waited anxiously for news and the post-mortem began the US Senate inquiry said that the White Star liner had been navigated without due care Titanic was going faster than at any other time in the voyage and they questioned company chairman Bruce Ismay his role in the disaster they blamed the nearby Californian home too in the ice for failing to come to Titanic's rescue and they blamed the British government's Board of Trade for obsolete and antiquated shipping laws the British inquiry was held here in the London Scottish Hall around the corner from Buckingham Palace in many ways it was a whitewash a cover-up despite the death of 1500 people on June 5th 1912 in evidence to the British inquiry Herald Sanderson director of the White Star Line declared I still do not feel that it would be a wise or necessary provision to provide boats for everybody on board ship to understand this extraordinary statement made even after the worst disaster in maritime history it's necessary to understand what had been white stars attitude to lifeboats lifeboats according to is May and Sanderson had been necessary only if the Titanic had broken down then they'd have been needed to ferry passengers from an unsinkable titanic to the rescuing vessels that would have hurried to her aid besides the Titanic had complied with the law and that was that yet to do merely what the law requires isn't always enough we know now that the unsinkable could sink and what if they'd been a fire and it had swept through the ship where would the passengers have found refuge then without enough lifeboats to flee in that winter the Olympic the Titanic sistership slipped quietly back into Harland and Wolff shipyard here in Belfast for a refit newest she was on the orders of the owners there were alterations that simply had to be made they extended the watertight bulkheads so that they met the underside of a watertight deck if that had happened in the Titanic she would have survived much longer possibly have totally survived they extended the double bottom of the vessel so that it formed a double skin as far as the waterline it would undoubtedly have helped her to stay afloat longer and they increased the number of lifeboats by four times to 68 everybody who was alive after the impact with the iceberg would have been saved after Titanic never again were vessels permitted to travel across the Atlantic so far north when ice was breaking and drifting after Titanic regular lifeboat drills became compulsory after Titanic there was a place for everyone passengers and crew in the lifeboats after Titanic Bruce Ismay retired from the chairmanship of white star and from public life he had a lot of people on board and there must have been a lot of pockets of air and they must have suffered more than I did I imagine gradually dying the first there bulkheads all over their place and people some of them didn't leave their cabins even and they must have died in their cabin they must have had a lingering death it was almost like murder wasn't it they had no lifers to look after them border trade were occluded to blame for lying a ship of that description to leave port with 16 lifeboats which could only save the crew she was so unsinkable it wasn't true on the anniversary of the death of Titanic the Titanic Historical Society hold a memorial service they sing again the hem played as the ship went down they called the disaster an act of God was it not much more the result of the foolishness of man and you you you you you you you you you you you Oh you you you you and you Oh Oh you

Channel: Torus Digital Cinema

Views: 2,019,728

Keywords: Titanic, Survivors, The, Last, Seven, Tell, Their, Story, What, They, Saw, Whole, Film, 100th, Anniversary, Legend, Movie, 3D, Survivor, 2012, Tribute, Family, Legacy, RMS, remaster, 1997, Eva, Hart

Id: 0HchZvjV_4o

Length: 41min 20sec (2480 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 11 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/Merrick000]

When I was young my mom told me about how she read an article in the Detroit Free Press about a survivor of the titanic that lived near the baseball stadium and that everytime there was a home run the screams of the fans were identical to their memory of the screams of the people on the titanic. That's always creeped me out.

[u/pyramidcameljoe]

The Titanic responded "shut up, I'm busy." wow.

[u/Spufflord]

What is their least favorite type of lettuce?

[u/[deleted]]

This doc looks more like it's from the early 80s. The guy they interview 5 minutes in who was 18 at the time would've been 103 if it was filmed in 1997.

[u/NewNameNoah]

A seance?!? Jesus. Who was responsible for this shitfest?!?

[u/brown_emergency]

I thought this was a K F C commercial

[u/the-painted-lady]

Though the seance at the beginning was ridiculous, I enjoyed hearing the stories of the survivors. Though I'm not sure I'd want to be around hundreds of people obsessed with a tragedy that caused the death of loved ones. One guy just seemed really into it without any solemnity given there were actual survivors there.

[u/[deleted]]

Spoiler: the boat sank

[u/SmarmierEveryDay]

Yeah, I got as far as the seance. clicks back button