- As has been the case with so many major
news stories and tragedies - from the assassination of President Kennedy
to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales - the sinking of the Titanic has
been engulfed by conspiracy theories. The claims range from the fairly
mundane, such as a fire, to a murderous insurance con and even a supernatural
curse.
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- Cold-blooded scam Perhaps the most amazing
theory is that the ship lying at the bottom of the ocean isn't the Titanic
at all, but her sister ship, the Olympic.
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- Launched on May 31, 1911, the Olympic
was plagued by mishaps. Arriving at the White Star Line pier on her maiden
voyage to New York, captained by Edward John Smith (who later captained
the Titanic), she trapped a tug under her stern and nearly sank it. Although
her steelwork was thought to be brittle, she sustained only minor damage.
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- Less than four months later, however,
after setting sail for her fifth round trip to New York, she collided with
the Navy cruiser HMS Hawke. The Hawke had 5in-thick side armour and an
underwater ram - a steel casting packed with concrete. The ram pierced
the starboard quarter of the Olympic, below the waterline. The Hawke's
bow pierced another huge hole, approximately 15ft high by 14ft wide and
some eight feet in depth, above the waterline. One of the Olympic's propellers
was badly damaged and two of her watertight compartments were flooded,
resulting in a massive repair bill, much of which was not covered by her
insurance.
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- Then, on February 24, 1912, while heading
for Southampton from New York, she suffered her third accident in less
than nine months. Some 750 miles off Newfoundland, a submerged object snapped
off one of the propeller blades.
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- In March the Titanic sat side by side
in the shipyard with the Olympic. It is claimed that the owners swapped
the vessels' identities there and then deliberately sank the "Titanic"
to rid themselves of a loss-making ship. They also knew they could make
a claim on the Titanic's insurance.
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- Pursuit of glory Why did the Titanic's
captain accelerate into an area of the North Atlantic that was full of
icebergs? The dangers were common knowledge among those who sailed that
ocean, and the captain had also been warned about floating ice while at
sea. On 14 April alone, the Titanic received no fewer than six warnings
about icebergs and yet the order given was still "full steam ahead".
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- Some think this lust for speed led the
Titantic to her watery grave. White Star chief executive J Bruce Ismay
admitted to the American inquiry into the disaster that he and chief engineer
Joseph Bell had decided in private that they intended to drive the ship
as hard as they could if conditions were fair. Although the Titanic was
brand new and had to be eased into action, they wanted to beat the top
speed of her sister ship the Olympic, which had reached 22.75 knots in
perfect conditions.
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- Some survivors claimed that the Titanic
was trying to take the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing. The
record had been held by the Mauritania since 1907, logging an average speed
of 27.4 knots.
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- Whichever record was the goal, the Titanic
increased speed daily. On April 14 she fired up three more of her 24 main
boilers to reach 22.5 knots. Five auxiliary boilers would have taken her
up to full speed. The same day White Star Line's Baltic sent the Titanic
a wireless warning of the hazardous ice field. Captain Smith showed the
message to Ismay and allowed him to keep it in his pocket for some five
hours, instead of displaying it immediately in the chart room.
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- This obsession with speed has been blamed,
at least in part, for the disaster that followed. It blinded those entrusted
with the ship's safety to their responsibilities.
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- Down in flames When Titanic set sail
from Belfast for Southampton, shortly after completing her sea trials,
a fire had broken out in a coal bunker in boiler room number six.
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- The fire had been discovered in Belfast,
but eight days later, while she was moored in Southampton, it was still
raging. For a fire to break out on board a steamer was not unusual at the
time, although somewhat unfortunate for the Titanic on the eve of her maiden
voyage.
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- What is curious is that the fire was
permitted to continue burning not only in Belfast but for a whole week
in Southampton, where it would have been convenient to extinguish it while
in port. But even more curious is the fact that the fire escaped the attention
of Maurice Harvey Clarke, a nautical surveyor, the Board of Trade's assistant
emigration officer at Southampton, who carried out three inspections of
the Titanic.
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- Clarke's job was to examine ships to
ensure their suitability to carry emigrants. As such he should have paid
special interest to the third-class accommodation, a large proportion of
which was situated directly above the burning bunker
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- The fire was still burning after the
Titanic had set sail for New York and it continued to do so until a few
hours before she hit the iceberg and went down.
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- Giving evidence at the British inquiry,
leading stoker Fred Barrett told of the damage that was done to a bulkhead
by the fire. And leading fireman Charles Hendrickson testified as to how
he had brushed and rubbed black oil all over the scorched and warped bulkhead
to give it the appearance that nothing was wrong.
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- But the question remains: did the damage
to the bulkhead somehow contribute to the sinking of the Titanic?
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- An ancient curse Of all the tales about
the Titanic, this is the best documented, but also the most difficult to
explain.
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- The Princess of Amen-Ra, who died in
around 1500 BC, was buried at Luxor, on the banks of the Nile. In the late
1890s, four rich young Englishmen were invited to buy a mummy case said
to contain her remains. They drew lots, and the man who won paid several
thousand pounds and had the mummy taken to his hotel. Hours later he was
seen walking out towards the desert, never to return. The next day, another
of the men was accidentally shot by an Egyptian servant, wounding him so
severely that his arm had to be amputated. The third man returned home
to find that the bank where he had deposited his entire savings had failed.
The fourth suffered a severe illness, lost his job and was reduced to selling
matches in the street.
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- Nevertheless, the mummy reached England,
accompanied by other misfortunes along the way. Nor did the curse end there.
Accidents and death continued to meet with anyone connected to the mummy's
coffin - even a visitor to the British Museum where it was on show. He
derisively flicked a dust cloth at the face painted on the case, and days
later his child died of measles.
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- The museum decided to move it to the
basement. Within a week, one of those who had helped to move it was seriously
ill and his supervisor was found dead at his desk.
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- By now, the press had picked up on the
story. A newspaper man photographed the case, only to find that when he
developed his picture a hideously deformed face had replaced that of the
princess. He is said to have gone home and shot himself - one of 20 of
those who had handled the casket to meet with misfortune in just ten years.
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- The mummy was finally sold to a private
collector, who after much misfortune banished it to the attic. Despite
the curse, an American archaeologist bought the mummy and booked passage
for it and himself on a ship bound for New York. The vessel was the Titanic.
Today, the mummy's whereabouts are unknown.
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