Two Liners, Two Destinies

By Darren D. Wood

During the late part of the 1800s, many people in Europe wanted to come to America. Due to an explosion of industrialization, the

United States had many jobs to offer immigrants.

Ships were the only way one could cross the ocean back then, and many shipping companies decided to build bigger ships to

carry larger quantities of people across the Atlantic Ocean.

At the beginning of the 1900s, Great Britain wanted to build the largest ships in the world. Therefore, two of the biggest British shipping companies decided to build their own. One

company was called the Cunard Line, the other was called the White Star Line.

By 1907, the Cunard Line had it’s first huge ocean liner built. They called her the Lusitania and she was the largest and fastest ship in the world. She was 785 feet long and over

seven stories tall. She had four majestic funnels painted black and red that gave her a beautiful and powerful look.

Lusitania and her sister ship Mauretania ruled the Atlantic for the next couple of years. Passengers loved their size, speed, and beautifully decorated rooms inside the ships. However, in 1907, two other ships were being built by the White Star

Line. And they were even bigger!

The White Star Line decided to build three monster ships. The first built was named Olympic and the second was

named Titanic. Just as with the Lusitania and Mauretania, these ships were built in shipyards by thousands of workers

putting the steel plates together and hammering in millions of rivets to keep them together. When the ship was ready, they

would launch it into the water.

On April 10, 1912, after months of final preparation, Titanic began her maiden voyage. She left Southampton England

bound for New York. After stopping for passengers in France and Ireland, Titanic headed for open ocean.

Titanic’s voyage was normal for the first part of the voyage. However, ships started to pass on information about icebergs in the area. The Titanic’s officers took note, but not all of the warnings reached the bridge. The Titanic steamed ahead at

full speed.

At almost midnight on April 14, 1912, the unthinkable happened. Titanic hit an iceberg on her starboard side. The berg poked holes all underwater in the front part of the ship. Once Captain Smith knew his ship was doomed, he ordered the lifeboats readied and

lower. The rule was: women and children first!

At 2:00 the next morning, the last lifeboats were leaving the ship. Over fifteen hundred people were still on board because there

was not enough lifeboats. Ten minutes later the bow had sunk so low that the stern of the ship started to rise above the water. At 2:20 AM, the Titanic sank beneath the surface after standing on

end and breaking in half.

On April 18, 1912, a small passenger ship called the Carpathia came into New York harbor with Titanic’s only survivors. There were only 705 souls left. 1,523 people drowned or froze to death

in the freezing water. The world was stunned…

The loss of life was unthinkable. Soon after the disaster, all ocean liners obtained lifeboats for all passengers. However,

the world was about to experience the loss of life to the extreme. Two years later, World War I started.

On May 1, 1915, The Lusitania left New York bound for Liverpool England. She was bringing a load of passengers

across an ocean crawling with warships and German submarines called u-boats. Although Great Britain was at war with Germany, the Lusitania was thought to be safe

because she was a passenger ship.

However, on May 7, 1915, the Lusitania was hit by a torpedo from U-20. The torpedo blew a hole in the side of the ship, and

another huge explosion let tons of water come in all at once. The ship listed sharply to her starboard side and began to sink.

It took only twenty minutes for Lusitania to sink. It was considerably less time than Titanic. Lusitania had enough lifeboats, but half could not be lowered properly because of the angle the ship was sinking at. The coast of Ireland was 13 miles away and in plain

sight, but the passengers in the water still had no help in the ice-cold sea. 1,195 people died that day. Passenger ships were not safe

after all. War would mean war for all.

Above the surface, the world went on. The First World War passed and a second one came and went. The Titanic lay silently

under 2 ½ miles of water, too deep for humans to reach back then. Lusitania could be reached because she lay in only 300 feet of water. During the wars, submarines would hide at the

wreck to confuse sonar hunts by warships trying to depth charge them. The hull is full of holes as a result of these bombs.

Fishermen would snag their nets on the twisted wreck as well.

In the 1960s, divers started to take objects from the Lusitania. Some objects were put in museums and some

were sold at auction. Three of Lusitania’s four huge propellers were removed. One was fittingly made into a

memorial. One is missing, and a rumor is that it was melted down and made into very expensive and

elaborate golf clubs. The third propeller horribly ended up in a junkyard in Scotland.

When Titanic was found in 1985, it was soon visited by salvagers as well. Over the next decade thousands of artifacts

were taken from the ship. Everything from china to a safe, from the ship’s bell to passengers suitcases. The ship itself

was damaged from submersibles landing and ripping artifacts from her hull.

Large scale salvaging started to raise concerns for people like Eva Hart, who as a child lost her father on the Titanic. She explained that she hopes people will remember that the ship is a gravesite and that it should be left alone. But are these wreck sites really grave sites? There are no grave

stones or monuments. The bodies have been consumed by sea creatures long ago. The only thing that remains of the

victims are their shoes….hundreds of pairs of shoes.

However, the salvagers see their work as preserving history as well as the memory of the victims lost. The shipwrecks are deteriorating fast and will someday crumble to rust. They argue that if the salvaging would not take place, then the

artifacts would eventually be lost forever.

What do you think? Is salvaging artifacts preserving history

or grave desecration?