NOTE: The following article was written two years prior to the cinematic release of James Cameron's TITANIC.

On Saturday 13th April 1912, Dr. Anthony Newman leaped into the pages of history by landing on the deck of the RMS Titanic three days into her maiden voyage. This was the first attempted use of the Time Tunnel by Project: Tic Toc albeit in an unofficial experiment by Newman, and perhaps the first indication that the Tunnel draws its travellers towards major historical events.

At 2.20am on Monday 15th April 1912, the largest luxury liner in the world disappeared under the North Atlantic after a collision with an iceberg at 11.40pm on Sunday 14th. She was at the midpoint of her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York but finished her journey with a two-and-a-half mile plunge to the ocean floor. It would be seventy-three years before she would be seen again, Dr. Robert Ballard locating her wreck on September 1st 1985. Now as she lies on the ocean floor, the Titanic is a 1912 time capsule. Some of her secrets have recently been plundered however, and are now being exhibited at the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London.

Her cargo included a priceless copy of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and a list of passengers collectively worth two hundred and fifty million dollars. Of two thousand, two hundred and twenty-eight passengers and crew, seven hundred and five survived in sixteen lifeboats and four collapsible boats. The Titanic carried more lifeboats than the existing British Board of Trade regulations demanded, which were based on gross tonnage rather than the number of people on board. She was certified to carry three thousand, five hundred and forty-seven passengers and crew, but her lifeboat capacity was only one thousand, one hundred and seventy-eight. She was legally required to carry a capacity of only seven hundred. Her safety features included sixteen watertight compartments and a double bottom. She would be able to float with any one of the compartments flooded, or all of the first four. It was perhaps these features that persuaded the designers to reduce the original planned number of lifeboats from sixty-four to sixteen, together with the desirability of providing the passengers with attractive views from the decks. It was also the Titanic's reputation of `unsinkability' which made the passengers fail to take the situation seriously when asked to enter the lifeboats, many of the first boats going away unfilled.

There are many `if only's' in the Titanic story. If only the fitting out of the Titanic hadn't been delayed by an accident to the sister ship Olympic; If only the coal strike had not caused congestion in Southampton docks; If only the Titanic's departure had not been delayed by near collision as she left her berth. If ice had not drifted unseasonably further south than usual; and if the ice warnings from other vessels had been properly passed to the bridge by the radio operators, under severe pressure of work dealing with passenger messages, which were the only work they were actually paid to do. If the Captain had ordered a reduction from full speed as the ice-fields were approached; If enough binoculars had been carried to enable the lookout men in the crows nest to be equipped with them; and if the sea had been less calm, so that the base of the berg could have been more visible. If the helmsman had steered straight into the iceberg, which the ship would probably have survived, instead of taking avoiding action which allowed a three hundred foot gash to damage the ship below the waterline; and if the gash hadn't been long enough to flood five compartments. If lifeboat drills had been held, or enough lifeboats carried! It seems that the voyage was truly fated.

Most contentious of all is the `Californian Incident'. The steamer Californian, ironically owned by the same company which owned the Titanic, was alleged to have stopped in the ice only ten miles from the sinking Titanic, although she was possibly up to twenty miles away. Her one radio operator had gone off duty only a few minutes before the Titanic's distress call went out. Rockets were seen by the Californian but were not apparently considered to be distress flares. She did not come to the rescue until 8.30am. The Titanic survivors were rescued by the Cunard Liner Carpathia, which turned round and steamed fifty-eight miles to arrive at the distress position at 4.00am, one hour and forty minutes after the Titanic foundered. The survivors were taken on to New York, arriving on 18th April, two days late.

The sinking of the Titanic marked the end of the era of social arrogance and was a microcosm of Edwardian society, the three classes on board mirroring the class structure of society. Such was the luxury of the Titanic, however, that even the Third Class or Steerage, was the equivalent of second class accommodation on other ships. It was a time when the lower classes expected worse treatment than anyone else, and in fact many made no effort to save themselves in the disaster. Not that they were encouraged to, as most were kept below decks until possibly 1.30am or 2.00am when most of the lifeboats had gone. The access to the boat decks was from First and Second Class only. First Class was the last word in sumptuous luxury. Features included a café Parisian, gymnasium, squash courts and Turkish baths, and state-rooms were decorated in Louis XV, Louis XVI, Adam, and Empire styles. As well as the First Class dining room, there was an à la carte restaurant, and First Class boasted of not one but two orchestras. Above all, the Titanic is a snapshot of human behaviour, with stories of both bravery and cowardice as people coped with the disaster - none more enigmatic than that of Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line, aboard the Titanic on her maiden voyage, who stepped into an under filled lifeboat of women and children and was pilloried afterwards for the rest of his life.

The sinking of the Titanic provided a background to the pilot episode of THE TIME TUNNEL, Rendezvous With Yesterday, which mainly concerns the efforts of Doug Phillips and the Tic Toc Team to rescue Tony Newman from the Titanic `brig'; The Titanic herself; and the year 1912. As Tony spent most of his time on the ship locked up, we inevitably do not see much of the crisis developing and we miss the actual sinking as Tony and Doug leap from the Titanic while the lifeboats are still being filled. The time of their departure was therefore between 12.45am and 2.05am, but probably well before the ship sank at 2.20am, since there is little evidence of list of the decks. In spite of only depicting a relatively small portion of the Titanic story in the three days leading up to the sinking, it is interesting to see how much matches against both fact and Titanic fiction.

There have been several film versions made of the Titanic story:

ATLANTIC An Anglo-German production B/W 1929
TITANIC German propaganda film B/W 1943
TITANIC U.S. B/W 1953
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER G.B. B/W 1958
S.O.S. TITANIC U.S. TV Movie Col 1979

Only the last three films will be considered here.

The American-made TITANIC (1953) is a star-studded black and white film starring Barbara Stanwyk and Clifton Webb, and included a young Robert Wagner (who later worked with Robert Colbert and James Darren in the Irwin Allen TV Movie CITY BENEATH THE SEA 1970) in the cast. A NIGHT TO REMEMBER (1958), the British version also made in black and white, includes by contrast a cast of relative unknowns, headed by one box office name, Kenneth More, as Herbert Lightoller. David McCallum plays Marconi operator Harold Bride. A NIGHT TO REMEMBER is based on the book of the same name by Walter Lord. S.O.S. TITANIC, in colour, was made as a TV movie in the United States, but had a cinematic release in Britain. It stars David Janssen as the millionaire J. J. Astor, Cloris Leachman as First Class passenger Molly Brown, David Warner as the schoolmaster Laurence Beesley, a survivor who wrote a book on the sinking called `The Loss of the Titanic', and Susan Saint James as a fictional passenger, Miss Goodwin.

THE TIME TUNNEL episode Rendezvous With Yesterday, made in 1966, most closely resembles the look of the 1953 TITANIC, and actually includes stock footage from the film, mainly of the Titanic steaming along. The first shot of the ship, blowing its whistle on the Time Tunnel viewscreen, is one of these stock shots. General Kirk seems very certain about his identification of the ship, although certainly it would have been a rather uneventful episode if Tony had landed on the decks of her near-identical sister ship Olympic - nicknamed `Old Reliable'! The sailor's uniforms in the episode are the same as in the film, consisting of black uniforms with naval-style scarves around the neck, and peaked caps with `RMS Titanic' around the hat band. Other sailors in the episode wear black sweat shirts with `White Star Line' on the front in white. These are quite authentic, as seen in the 1912 newsreel film of the surviving crew. The captain of the Titanic, played by Michael Rennie in Rendezvous With Yesterday, is named in the end credits as Captain Malcolm Smith, which should correctly be Captain Edward John Smith. Other senior officers seen in the episode, Mr. Grainger, Mr. Williams, and Mr. Thomas are fictional characters.

TITANIC (1953) named two officers only, Captain Smith and Second Officer Herbert Lightoller, both real life characters. Otherwise the crew are fairly anonymous and the film concentrates very much on fictional passengers - mainly the wealthy Sturgess family in First Class, and a developing romance between the Sturgess daughter and college sports player Robert Wagner. Another subplot features a defrocked priest running away from the Church. Real life millionaire passengers Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus are featured, and also the Molly Brown character. There is very little involvement with Second or Third Class passengers, and this is also true of Rendezvous With Yesterday, although it is not actually shown which class Althea Hall is staying in.

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER is much more authentic in terms of crew and events. Various crew are named accurately including the White Star officials on board, Thomas Andrews (designer of the ship) and Bruce Ismay (managing director). The star of the film, Kenneth More, plays Second Officer Herbert Lightoller, and thus the focus of the film centres on the bridge, with a clear order of events as they actually happened - the Titanic's increases in speed, the ice warnings, the sending of the CQD/SOS messages, the behaviour of passengers, the filling of the lifeboats, the playing of the band, the sinking of the ship and the rescue of the lifeboats by the Cunard liner Carpathia. There are some scenes of Third Class or Steerage passengers, and a hint of the class distinction involved in the ease of reaching the lifeboats. The controversial `Californian Incident' is featured, showing the steamer Californian to be within ten miles of the sinking Titanic, with her captain refusing to investigate reports of rockets.

TITANIC (1953) tends to be somewhat disjointed as the events unfold, with long scenes of the Sturgess family's marital and filial disputes. There is no clear marking of the passing of days, until the arrival of Sunday (when the iceberg struck) is signalled by the holding of the religious service in First Class. Short scenes show vital events in a disjointed way, such as the Caronia ice warning being delivered to Captain Smith two days late, the comparison by the navigating officer with another warning from the Baltic, and the uncertainty as to whether the iceberg mentioned in each is the same one. One scene on the bridge tells of the shortage of binoculars for the lookouts. These scenes tend to be swallowed up in the subplots involving the fictional passengers.

It was left to S.O.S. TITANIC to provide the best balance between authenticity of characters and events and fictional relationships. This film features prominently the class system on board ship. The main characters in the film are passengers - in First Class: J. J. Astor and family, and also Molly Brown, in Second Class: Laurence Beesley and his fictional romance with Miss Goodwin, and in Third Class a group of young Irish working people. As in A NIGHT TO REMEMBER the Third Class passengers are shown having a much more difficult time of things during the sinking - not much advice from the crew, and inadequate access to the boats. Many words actually spoken on the Titanic are used in the film. For example a stewardess is told to put on her life-jacket by Thomas Andrews. She demurs, saying that it "seems mean to wear one". In the lifeboat Molly Brown tries to persuade the seaman in charge to go back to rescue people in the water. He refuses and tells her to sit down. She replies "You're talking to a lady". He replies "I know who I'm talking to".

S.O.S. TITANIC features more of the end of the story - the aftermath of the rescue on the Carpathia and the behaviour of Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line who stepped into a lifeboat instead of going down with the ship. The film had a moralising tone, with the passengers discussing the pride that went before the `fall' of the ship, and therefore of Society as a whole, with World War One just around the corner, and the consequent breakdown of the class system. The film does, however, make a bad mistake by showing the date on Sunday, when religious services were held in First and Second Class, as the 12th April instead of the 14th. On that Sunday, S.O.S. TITANIC shows Captain Smith making a tour of inspection of the ship. A discussion then ensues between the passengers and a steward as to whether the Sunday lifeboat drill is to be held. The steward thinks that it unnecessary because "the Titanic is one big lifeboat herself." Captain Smith is also shown making a tour in Rendezvous With Yesterday when Tony accosts him to tell him that the ship is in danger. This happened on the Saturday in the episode however.

As far as the special effects are concerned, both S.O.S. TITANIC and TITANIC (1953) have an effective opening sequence showing the iceberg breaking off from its parent ice sheet. Both S.O.S. TITANIC and A NIGHT TO REMEMBER begin with newsreel footage of the launch of the Titanic, and A NIGHT TO REMEMBER contains newsreel of the Titanic's departure. The striking of the iceberg is shown best in TITANIC. The sinking of the ship is effective in all three films, although it is shown most accurately in A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, in which the funnels break off as described in eye-witness accounts. Little model work is used in S.O.S. TITANIC, which depends mostly on tightly shot areas of a real ship, and interior sets. The models are most realistic in TITANIC, the British version A NIGHT TO REMEMBER looking more tank-bound. This film was mostly shot on a real liner being broken up at Clyde shipyard, and on models at Ruislip Reservoir. The interior sets used in the film are good, the boiler room scenes shot at Cricklewood pumping station being particularly effective. The interior sets of S.O.S TITANIC are also very realistic, and include unusual areas of the ship such as the Turkish baths. Rendezvous With Yesterday has good interiors for a TV episode, with some of the fixtures and fittings looking similar to those on the Titanic if on a smaller scale. The deck areas do not particularly resemble the Titanic's, although the steamer chairs look similar to those in use at the time. The filming was quite effective in depicting an ocean liner in just a few shots. The lifeboat scene is well done, except that no list of the ship is evident. The boiler room, although only shown in a short scene, is particularly good. The special effects of the explosion and entry of water are taken from TITANIC.

Various events in the TIME TUNNEL episode do reflect those which happened, but some do not. The size of the vessel is commented on first, when Althea says to Tony, "It's supposed to be the biggest ever built. It doesn't look so big in the middle of all this water, does it?" This is similar to a scene in S.O.S. TITANIC when an Irish Third Class passenger says: "The ship will seem small enough when we're thousands of miles from land."

It seems to be popular to show games being played on deck. In Rendezvous With Yesterday, children seem to be playing a form of hurling onto numbered squares. In S.O.S. TITANIC football is played on the Third Class well-deck and quoits on the promenade deck. In TITANIC a shuffleboard tournament is mentioned.

The speed of the Titanic is mentioned in Rendezvous With Yesterday. The Captain says, "Other transatlantic liners wouldn't like to see us make a record on our maiden run." In TITANIC it is mentioned on the bridge that "an increase in speed has been ordered," on Sunday morning. In A NIGHT TO REMEMBER on the Sunday it is mentioned that there will be "a full speed trial tomorrow." In S.O.S. TITANIC Captain Smith gives an ice warning he had received to Bruce Ismay Captain Smith says that he has "no plans to slow speed while the weather is clear and calm." Ismay supports this and says that White Star has the utmost confidence in the Captain, and it would be a shame to arrive late in New York.

In fact in real life the Titanic was not out to make any records on her run. She was never capable of going faster than Cunard's Lusitania or Mauretania, but she might have wanted to beat the Olympic's (her sister ship) maiden run the previous year. Certainly Captain Smith did not slow down despite receiving ice warnings, although it is clear that not all the warnings received were passed to him.

The copy of the New York paper dated April 15th which Doug takes through the Tunnel in Rendezvous With Yesterday, The New York Sentinel, is fictitious and the banner headline most unlikely. Firstly, the ship is named SS Titanic, instead of the more usual RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Titanic. Secondly, the headline `Wrecked on Maiden Voyage' did not appear in any paper on April 15th. There was a lot of confusion in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, and early reports suggested that the Titanic was still afloat, and being towed back to land. Certainly it was not known that only `866 lives were rescued'. The scale of the tragedy was not known for several days. The picture of the Titanic on the front of the Sentinel is one taken of the ship in Southampton on Good Friday, dressed in flags in honour of the city.

The plaque on the wall in the boiler room shown in THE TIME TUNNEL contains some authentic details:

This plaque is not evident in any of the Titanic films.

One gaffe in Rendezvous With Yesterday is the yellow tea set we see in the cabin or `brig' that Tony is locked in. The yellow cups are identical to those seen resting on the consoles in the Project Tic Toc control room, and bear no resemblance to the White Star Line's distinctive china, which was white with a white star on red flag emblem.

The radio or Marconi room features prominently in the episode. This resembles closely the one in TITANIC, with a post office type counter where passengers are served. The Marconi cabin in A NIGHT TO REMEMBER looks like a private office. The uniforms of the Marconi operators in TITANIC and Rendezvous With Yesterday look very similar, with wavy lines on the cuffs. A period detail in the TIME TUNNEL episode is a comic book lying on the operator's desk called `Captain Billy Whiffle'! Doug shows his versatility in the episode by knowing how to work the radio and send Morse. He also knew how to use the CQD distress call (CQ = attention D = Distress). The Titanic did send the CQD signal, but was also the first ship in an emergency situation to send SOS. Doug states that "The Dutch liner's picked up our CQD." There were many liners on the Atlantic that night, those who answered the Titanic being; La Provence; Mount Temple; Ypiranga; Carpathia; Frankfurt; Prinz Frierich Wilhelm; Olympic; Celtic; Cincinnati; Asian and Virginian. They were mostly British, American and German liners.

In the episode, when the Captain is told that "The Titanic's getting calls from many ships requesting our position and the nature of our distress," his answer, "Tell them to ignore all distress signals from this ship - we're in good order and safely under way," seems certain to change history, perhaps making it unlikely that the Carpathia would respond to the distress signals sent later. Did Doug's actions mean that no ships picked up the lifeboats and that there were no survivors? Certainly the ships that did respond to the real CQD and SOS messages had trouble believing that the `unsinkable' Titanic could be sinking. In Rendezvous With Yesterday, when Tony tells Captain Smith that his ship is going down, the Captain says "That is impossible, this ship is unsinkable." It is a common quote that the Titanic was unsinkable. The phrase used by White Star was `virtually unsinkable' but it is possible that the `virtually' was left out by the press! The Titanic did deserve some credit for safety features, such as the watertight compartments, and double bottom.

In Rendezvous With Yesterday, the Captain states that there are more than two thousand, three hundred people aboard. Doug informs him that only seven hundred and fifty will survive. In the film TITANIC, the number of survivors is put at seven hundred and twelve people in nineteen lifeboats. A NIGHT TO REMEMBER gave a figure of seven hundred and five survivors, one thousand, five hundred lost amongst two thousand, two hundred and eight passengers and crew. In S.O.S. TITANIC, the ship sank with two thousand, two hundred passengers and crew, one thousand, five hundred and seventeen perished, seven hundred and three survived. It is difficult to explain these discrepancies.

	Passengers & Crew	Died	Survived
Actual figures	2,228	1,523	705
TIME TUNNEL	2,300	1,500	750
TITANIC (1953)			712
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER	2,208	1,500	705
S. O. S. TITANIC	2,200	1,517	703

An often quoted part of the Titanic story is that only women and children were allowed into the lifeboats. In Rendezvous With Yesterday, the Captain says, "Only women and children are to be allowed into the lifeboats. That order is not to be violated." What actually happened was that there was a different policy on the two sides of the ship. Second Officer Lightoller, who was in charge of lifeboats on the port side of the ship, allowed no men in at all. On the starboard side, however, where First Officer Murdoch was in charge, men were allowed in where no women were available. The early boats went away relatively empty, as women were very reluctant to exchange the apparent safety of the `unsinkable' ship for the danger of a small lifeboat being lowered from such a height (seventy feet) in the dark, then being in an open boat for hours on the freezing water. The crew were reluctant to reveal the true situation of the vessel to avoid mass panic, but this undoubtedly meant that fewer people were saved than if the lifeboats had been filled to capacity.

Panic was not evident on the Titanic, according to eye-witness accounts, until the last remaining boats were being lowered, by which time the main mass of people from Third Class finally found their way onto the boat deck. A firearm was used to control the crowd when the last boat was being filled. All three films do not show any panic scenes until this comparatively late stage, but there are earlier scenes of panic in Rendezvous With Yesterday, as the crowd appears to be panicking before any lifeboats are lowered.

Lucky Doug and Tony leave the Titanic, but not before they are rushing to help when Doug announces "there's trouble on A deck! A similar announcement is made in TITANIC for able-bodied men to help further aft - but probably to help with cutting the collapsible boats free.

Tony had performed one good service, in helping Althea to decide to save herself despite having a brain tumour. This however would be all in vain if Doug's actions in trying to send a CQD caused the Captain's subsequent order to prevent rescue ships coming to the Titanic's aid! Perhaps it would have been better if, instead of a newspaper, Doug had taken some binoculars onto the Titanic for the lookouts in the crows nest!

by Carol Young
Member of the British Titanic Society