The Titanic: A Warning Ignored
Spring 2012, Vol. 44, No. 1 | Pieces of History
The U.S. Hydrographic Office's Daily Memorandum from April 15, 1912, notes the Titanic's collision with an iceberg.
When news of the Titanic’s sinking hit the newsstands, readers in the United States and in Great Britain were stunned by the sudden loss of a supposedly “unsinkable” vessel on its maiden voyage, taking more than 1,500 lives.
Both the U.S. and British governments conducted hearings to investigate how the disaster came about and if it could have been averted. Survivors and families of the dead brought claims against the White Star Line when the company filed a petition in federal court for limitation of liability. One document from those voluminous files is a Daily Memorandum from the U.S. Hydrographic Office.
The single-page summary of reports of navigation obstructions in the North Atlantic reported: “Apr 14 . . . the British steamer TITANIC collided with an iceberg seriously damaging her bow; extent not definitely known.”
What was more relevant for the claimants, however, were the surrounding reports of ice fields and icebergs in the Titanic’s area. One of those reports even went through the Titanic’s own radio room. When the German steamer Amerika reported passing two large icebergs, the message went via Titanic to the nearest wireless station in Cape Race, Newfoundland, which relayed it to Washington, D.C.
The claimants used the ice reports to support their contention that the officers on board the Titanic knew there was ice ahead and that therefore the fatal collision had been avoidable.
The Hydrographic Office’s reports also played a part in the U.S. Senate hearings. Capt. John J. Knapp, the officer in charge of the office, was called to testify. He explained, “These ice reports . . . are given out to the maritime world daily, and prior to the 14th of April, in what is called the Daily Memorandum issued by the office, there had been on several days ice . . . reported near the spot of the Titanic disaster.”
Later in the year, the Hydrographer wrote in his transmittal memorandum for the office’s annual report for 1912: “It is a lamentable fact and a remarkable coincidence that the sinking of the Titanic was caused by an iceberg the report of which she had transmitted by radio. . . . Had she but heeded the one warning that she transmitted she would probably have saved herself.”