Our approach to the Titanic site during the Chinese Week of the Dead in 2001, the story of the service held (and its unanticipated result), and the arrival of Ralph White’s lightning dolphins were recorded in Charles Pellegrino, written log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Aug. 2001, pp. 3, 9.
Practice sessions with robots occurred while we followed a mission profile originally outlined as part of the Space Cooperation Initiative: Charles Pellegrino, video log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Aug. 2001; Pellegrino, written log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Aug. 18, 2001, p. 2; Spark Matsunaga, The Mars Project: Journeys beyond the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1986); Jim Powell, Harrison Schmitt, and Charles Pellegrino, International Cooperation in Space Symposium, Boston, 1987; Jim Powell, Charles Pellegrino, and Jesse Stoff, “Final Crisis: The Ascent of Man,” in Darwin’s Universe: Origins and Crises in the History of Life, ed. Steve Bolt, 2nd ed. (Blue Ridge Summit, PA: TAB, 1987), 199–219.
The bronze plaque that Jim Cameron showed Lori Johnston and Lew Abernathy was photographed by Charles Pellegrino, written log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Aug. 2001, p. 148.
5. TRINITY
Masabumi Hosono’s difficulties in reaching the lifeboats, as well as the segregation of the third class, the firemen, and the coal trimmers on the well decks, were recorded in Hosono’s letter to his wife, Apr. 1912, reproduced in M. Findlay, “A Matter of Honor,” Voyage 27, Winter 1998, p. 122, and during Olaus Abelseth’s testimony to the American Inquiry, May 3, 1912, p. 1037.
Violet Jessop believed she saw the lights of another ship on the horizon: letter to a friend, July 27, 1958, pp. 2–3, L/P file, pp. 533–535] Jessop’s recollections of her odd preparations to leave, under the watchful eye of her friend Stan, are preserved in Violet Jessop with J. Maxtone Graham, Violet Jessop: Titanic Survivor (New York: Sheridan House, 1997), 127–128.
In the interview notes of Walter Lord, July 1955, L/P file, p. 268, Maude Slocomb described her own sense of trepidation and gave a unique view of the Turkish baths and the horrible condition in which she found them at the beginning of the voyage. Ironically, the baths became one of the Titanic’s best-preserved interior regions. The water-resistant door next to the entrance of the cooling room was still closed, just as Joseph Wheat’s account of having personally closed the door suggested it would be found. The tiles in the cooling room were intact except near a distortion of the starboard inboard wall, where bottom impact appeared to have sprung some of the tiles. Observations by Ken Marschall and Parks Stephenson, personal communication, 2005 expedition; P. Stephenson, “Titanic Wreck Observations, 2005,” http://www.marconigraph.com, 2006, p. 5.
Celiney Yasbeck’s escape, the fate of her husband, and her departure by force in boat 6 were detailed in a letter to Walter Lord, June 15, 1955, L/P file, pp. 223–230. Further insights into the Yasbeck story were provided in Judith Geller, Titanic: Women and Children First (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 179–181 (with details gleaned from White Star third-class passenger department interview, Apr. 26, 1912). Lebanese men and women (as an exception) were quartered together in the bow, according to R. Bracken and J. White, “Lebanese Passengers,” Voyage 27, Winter 1998, pp. 132–133. In a letter to Walter Lord, June 15, 1955, L/P file, pp. 224–227, Celiney Yasbeck Decker mentioned looking down into the “engine room” with her husband, but in a personal communication with Lord, she described a room full of machinery not very far from her cabin—which would be the boiler rooms; the engine rooms were hundreds of feet behind the front boiler rooms.
Boat 6 was the first lifeboat to leave on the port side, at 12:55 a.m., with a carrying capacity of sixty-five but only twenty-eight people aboard; on the other side of the ship, boat 7 reached the water with only twenty-eight people and a dog, according to the American Inquiry, digest of the testimony, pp. 1159–1163.
Boat 7 touched down at 12:45 a.m. Fred Barrett noted for the British Inquiry, May 7, 1912, pp. 2058–2059, that at about this time he was present for a probable cause of the Titanic’s sudden list to the port side. Aboard boat 6, Molly Brown saw a great gush bursting suddenly through an open porthole. The gush was described by Brown to Colonel Gracie in Jack Winocour, ed., The Story of the Titanic as Told by Its Survivors (New York: Dover, 1960), 178. About the time of the shift and gush, Maude Slocomb’s friend Joseph Wheat made a particularly dramatic escape: British Inquiry, May 16, 1912, pp. 241–242. Wheat had helped a Turkish bath assistant to close two F-deck bulkhead doors. About 12:45, he passed this way again, wanting to be sure that his friends had evacuated the front compartments. Water stopped him—it was running suddenly down the walls of F deck from E deck above. Wheat concluded for the British examiners that water had been shifting on E deck and falling down upon F deck from the starboard side. During the next ten minutes, boat 6 reached the sea surface, and water (evidently shifting from the starboard side) was seen bursting through an open porthole.
George Kemish, in a letter to Walter Lord, June 19, 1955, p. 9, L/P file, pp. 543, 560, wrote about the kindly stowaways hiding in the front cargo hold.
Edith Russell’s experiences aboard the Titanic, and the final locations of objects in stateroom A-11, are described in her memoir for Walter Lord, Apr. 11, 1934, and in a letter from Lord, Feb. 11, 1987, communications file, Mar. 1978–Mar. 1988. Lord and Bill MacQuitty became close friends of hers and provided further details about her: Russell, personal communication to Lord, Apr. 28, 1956; J. Witter (smoke-room steward), letter to Lord, July 1957, L/P file, pp. 198–200 (on helping the woman with the toy pig into boat 11); Russell, BBC interview transcript, Apr. 14, 1970, L/P file, pp. 125–128 (with annotations and observations by Lord).
Russell had described for Lord the locking of her window and her bureau and the filling of her cup. Lord provided dictated annotations for Russell’s actions in her room (in particular, with Russell’s BBC interview), after he was shown video of a cup still intact in a cup holder near room A-11’s dressing mirror, Oct. 2001, L/P file, p. 126.
In the spring of 1912, the Titanic was likely to become a forgotten ship. The launch of the Titanic’s older twin, the Olympic, had indeed received almost all of the newsreel coverage. Had the Titanic not foundered during its maiden voyage, it would have remained the less famous of the two ships. (Indeed, most film footage used in documentaries about the Titanic is actually footage of the Olympic, not the Titanic, a fact that is quickly revealed by the lack of glassed-in windows on the Olympic’s promenade deck.)
The addition of more luxurious rooms with private promenade decks (the Cardeza and the Ismay suites), more first-class quarters near the smoking room (the Andrews suite), and a greater amount of decorative trim gave the Titanic an extra 1,004 tons of displacement over its twin and did legitimately allow it to be called the world’s largest and most luxurious ship: Don Lynch and John Bruno, personal communication, pre–Expedition Titanic XIII, July 3, 2001.