Ocean Connection

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On Monday, April 15, 1912, at 8:30 a.m., the RMS Carpathia had spent the past four hours carefully recovering all of Titanic’s lifeboats. After picking up the final lifeboat, she made one last search of the area but found only floating wreckage and a single body.

Many of the women survivors still did not fully understand that they were now widows. They continued to believe their husbands might be safe on another ship or still alive somewhere in the sea.

Meanwhile, the SS Californian arrived from the north. Her wireless operator, Evans, had only just turned on his radio and learned of the Titanic’s sinking. Captain Stanley Lord was reminded of the eight rockets his crew had reported seeing in the distance the night before. The ship they had seen, only about 10 miles away, had indeed been the Titanic.

At 8:50 a.m., the Carpathia prepared to sail back to New York. As she began her journey, the crew spotted an iceberg with a streak of red paint along its base — likely a mark left by the Titanic during the collision. Prayers were held in the lounges for the survivors as the ship headed westward, carrying the rescued passengers to safety.

On Monday, April 15, 1912, at about 3:20 a.m., roughly one hour after the Titanic had sunk, Fifth Officer Harold Lowe took command of lifeboat 14 and bravely rowed back to the site of the wreck to search for survivors.

By then, most of the cries had fallen silent. Despite his courageous effort, Officer Lowe and his crew were only able to rescue four people from the hundreds who had been in the freezing water. One of those rescued sadly died shortly afterward in the boat. The water temperature was a deadly 28°F (-2.2°C).

Seaman Joseph Scarrott later described the heartbreaking scene:
“We were amongst hundreds of dead bodies floating in lifebelts. We could only see four alive... All the bodies we saw seemed as if they had perished with the cold, as their limbs were all cramped up. As we left that awful scene, we gave way to tears. It was enough to break the stoutest heart.”

From around 2:20 a.m. to 3:30 a.m., the survivors in the lifeboats — mostly women and children — faced a long, cold wait for rescue. They did their best to keep warm in the calm but freezing night air, hoping and praying for the Carpathia to arrive.

On Monday, April 15, 1912, at 2:18 a.m., the RMS Titanic’s lights flickered one last time and then went completely dark.

A loud, deep roar echoed across the water as the mighty ship strained under enormous pressure. Suddenly, she broke in two. The stern section fell back into the sea, while the submerged bow pulled it slowly downward.

The stern rose once more, bobbed gently for a minute or two, and then slowly slipped beneath the calm, dark waves. With her, she took 1,496 lives.

The Titanic was no more.

On Monday, April 15, 1912, by 2:00 a.m., the Titanic’s forecastle deck was almost completely underwater, and the forward well deck was beginning to flood. These decks had once stood about 40 feet above the sea, so seeing them disappear must have been a terrifying sight.

By 2:15 a.m., the ship was tilting sharply upward. Amid a deep rumbling roar and muffled explosions, 17-year-old Jack Thayer decided to jump into the sea.

He later recalled: “We were a mass of hopeless, dazed humanity, attempting, as the Almighty and Nature made us, to keep our final breath until the last possible moment. I was pushed out and then sucked down. The cold was terrific. The shock of the water took the breath out of my lungs. Down and down I went, spinning in all directions. Swimming as hard as I could away from the ship, I finally came up with my lungs bursting, but without taking in any water.

Jack also spoke of the saddest part of the tragedy: The most heartrending part was the failure of the partially loaded lifeboats to return and pick up the poor souls in the water. There they were, only four or five hundred yards away, listening to the cries, and still they did not come back. If they had turned back, several hundred more lives could have been saved.”

These final moments were filled with fear, courage, and heartbreak as the great ship neared her end.