CONCLUSION

From a crew and passenger list of 2,228, 1,523 men women and children were lost, 705 survived. Of the 1,523 that remained onboard or jumped over the side, only a handful were rescued. The majority died from hypothermia in a sea temperature of 28 degrees fahrenheit.

If this tragedy did one thing, it managed to bring into effect much needed changes to Maritime law. Many revised regulations did not see the light of day until after World War One. Amongst those that did were the establishment of the International Ice patrol (1913), and regulations in the use of wireless for sending distress calls. Titanic was one of the very first ships to use SOS as a call for help. She initially put out CQD "Come Quickly Distress or Danger", the recognised call at that time. SOS was much easier to transmit ...---... and instantly recognizable as a call for help.

Today we probably take for granted that on board a passenger ship there will be a place in the lifeboats for us all, grumble at the weekly emergency drills, and have absolutely no idea of the regulations governing build standards of a ship's watertight compartments and bulkheads. 1,523 had to die on a bitterly cold night in mid April to help achieve them.

Perhaps then, in some ironic sort of way, this tragic event has helped to save lives, but what an enormous price had to be paid.

Researching the facts for my pages, one thing above all came through, and that was how bad the initial reporting of the trgedy was by the Press, both British and American. Numbers of the dead reported were wildly inaccurate. We (the British) regularly slam our media for intrusion and mis-reporting of information. We must remember of course that communication in 1912 was dreadful compared to the marvellous technology we enjoy today. Wireless communication was in its infancy, and transmissions were often performed by inexperienced operators on frequently failing equipment of low range. In formation had to be relayed several times in some cases. This, of course, is no excuse for bad reporting.

As an example of the sort of thing I am talking about, the following quote was taken from the "Denver Post" dated April 17 1912 - two days after the disaster. The journalist was theorising on the last moments of the vessel and who should rightfully have a seat in a lifeboat.

"The picture that inevitably presents itself , in view of what is known, is of men like John Jacob Astor , master of scores of millions; Benjamin Guggenheim of the famous family of bankers; William T Stead, veteran journalist; Major Archibald W. Butt, soldier; Washington Roebling, noted engineer -- of any or all of these men -- stepping aside and bravely, gallantly remaining to die that the place he otherwise might have filled could perhaps be taken by some sabot-shod, shawl-enshrouded, illiterate and penniless peasant woman of Europe."

Now I realise that hindsight is a wonderful thing, and that mentioned notables excepted, if you look at my passenger list, you may just find the odd well heeled American, and no doubt Brit, jumping into a lifeboat with the odd sabot-clad Euro dumkopf! (Before you reach for a dictionary, Sabot shod refers to a shoe made out of a single piece of wood worn primarily by French peasants.)(Ironically, there were few on board.) My point is that the noted persons listed above would have been the first to disagree that whether a person should live or die should be judged by their bank balance. One suspects that the article was more for the benefit of the newspaper owner than for the general public.

I do wonder though, if the same tragedy (heaven forbid) should happen today, would the same stiff upper lip be evident, or would the behaviour be more in line with that of J Bruce Ismay. I hope that it never gets put to the test.