For three days after leaving Queenstown, Titanic raced across the Atlantic,
Accompanied by conditions most passengers loved — blue skies, light winds and calm seas. Yet that state of affairs belied the fact that almost all vessels in the North Atlantic shipping lanes were facing problems of a serious nature. In the far north, the winter had been the mildest in three decades, causing many more icebergs than normal to calve off the Greenland ice shelves. A little farther south, however, temperatures had been cold enough so that as the vast fields of ice drifted south, they did not melt as quickly as usual. The result, as shown by reports of ships during the week beginning 7 April, was that an immense band of ice, extending from 46°North to near 4l°30’North and from about 46°18’ to 40°40’West, was moving slowly southwest. Since Titanic was heading towards “the corner” — a point at 42°North, 47°West at which ships usually set a new course, depending on whether they were going to New York, Boston or other locations — she was aiming directly for this ice.
Sunday was normally a special day aboard ship, and the morning of 14 April was like most others, with Captain Smith conducting the Church of England service in the first-class dining saloon, the assistant purser leading another in the second-class saloon and Father Thomas Byles overseeing the Catholic Mass, first in the second-class lounge, then in the third-class areas. But in the wireless room, the domain of Marconi senior wireless operator Jack Phillips and junior operator Harold Bride, a series of messages began to come through that would soon take on unimagined significance.
In the preceding days, at least a dozen messages had arrived from other ships informing Titanic of icebergs ahead. At 9am on the 14th, Phillips received another, from Cunard’s Caronia, reporting icebergs, “growlers” (smaller but still dangerous pieces of ice) and an extensive field of ice at 42°North, 49—51°West. Phillips immediately took it to Captain Smith, who had it posted on the bridge for his officers. Ice warnings continued to arrive, including some from the Dutch Noordam at 11:40am and then, at 1:42pm, from the Greek
Steamship Athinai via White Star’s Baltic, a message that, rather than post on the bridge,
Smith strangely handed to Ismay, who put it in his pocket. Almost simultaneously, another report of ice — at 41°27’North, 50°8’West — was received by Phillips from the German ship Amerika, but the chief wireless man, according to Bride, failed to notify any officers.
All told, seven ice warnings were received during the day. One, at 7:30pm, came from the Leyland ship Californian, which reported three large icebergs a short distance north of Titanic’s route. Bride took it to the bridge, but the message did not reach the captain because he was in the a la carte restaurant at a dinner party given in his honour by the wealthy George and Eleanor Widener of Philadelphia. Yet another message, which confirmed heavy pack ice and icebergs, came at 9:40pm from Mesaba, but because Bride was sleeping, Phillips was unable to leave his post to take it to the bridge. Meanwhile, the temperature outside began to drop, decreasing from 6.1°C (43°F) at 7pm to 0.5°C (33°F) two hours later.
BOTTOM RIGHT: Passengers stroll around the second-class boat deck while at anchor off Queenstown, unaware of the terrible conditions they were sailing into.
World History
