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History See other History Articles Title: The Titanic Conspiracy... The Titanic Conspiracy... There are a number of good reasons to believe that the vessel which sank on the night of April 14/15 was in fact Titanic's slightly older, and very similar, sister ship Olympic . Olympic and Titanic were the first two of three sister ships, each intended to be about 850 feet long and weighing in at between forty and forty five thousand gross register tons apiece. As completed they would turn out to be slightly more than 882 and a half feet long and have a gross register tonnage 45,324 tons and 46,329 tons respectively. The third sister, Britannic , would be slightly larger at 887 feet 9 inches long and weigh 48,158 gross register tons. Britannic , which never entered service with the White Star Line, played a very minor part in what happened to her sister except to show us the British government's continued confidence in these vessels despite the fate of the class leader. The Olympic class ships were intended by their owners to be the safest, strongest, most opulent, and by a comfortable margin, the largest vessels afloat. The first two vessels of the class, Olympic and Titanic were constructed side by side at Harland & Wolff's Belfast Yard from a single set of drawings. As launched the two sisters were identical. Olympic's keel, yard number 400, was laid on 16 December 1908 and that of Titanic fifteen weeks later, on 31 March 1909. Work on the first ship progressed more rapidly than on the second with the consequence that by the time they were launched the time gap between them had opened to almost thirty two weeks. Olympic , with her hull painted white to aid photographers, was launched on 20 October 1910 and Titanic , with her hull painted the more usual black, on 31 May the following year. It has been said that Olympic was built with a bow fronted wheelhouse, as is shown on plans of the ship published in mid 1911. However, a photograph taken from the top of the huge steel gantry specially constructed by Harland & Wolff to enable them to build the vessels shows this not necessarily to be the case. This photograph, taken immediately after the ship was launched, appears to show a straight fronted wheelhouse, exactly as it appeared on earlier drawings of the ship. The record shows that the front shape of the wheelhouse was altered during the surviving ship's 1912/13 refit. Testimony confirms that after this refit the ship did indeed have a curved front to its wheelhouse, which begs the question, “What shape was it before the refit?” The wheelhouse was little more than a wooden shed built within the main bridge structure and could be, and probably was, altered more than once throughout the 25 year life of the ship. So easily converted was this lightweight wooden structure that its shape at any time during the lifetime of the ship is not only a matter of speculation but is completely immaterial. On the very same day that Titanic was launched Olympic , after two days of trials, and public examination, was handed over to her new owners, the White Star Line. She left Belfast that afternoon for Liverpool , the line's home port, where she would be opened for public inspection the following day. Then she moved on to Southampton and again the public were allowed aboard before the vessel began to prepare for her maiden voyage, which would begin on 14 June 1911 . On schedule, under the command of Captain Edward John Smith, the White Star line's senior captain, Olympic set of on her first voyage to New York and back, via Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now Colne) in Southern Ireland. She arrived in New York after a passage lasting five days, sixteen hours and 42 minutes, having made an average speed of just over 21 knots. After an uneventful and otherwise successful maiden voyage, as she was docking, the liner's stern collided with the tug O L Halenbeck , smashing the smaller vessels stern frame and rudder. It was not an auspicious beginning. As Olympic was leaving Southampton water on 20 September 1911 at the start of her fifth voyage to New York and back, still under the command of Captain Smith but with Trinity House pilot George William Bowyer effectively in control, she was rammed in the starboard quarter by the Royal Navy's old 7,350 ton armoured cruiser HMS Hawke . Both vessels were badly damaged in the collision. According to the received, official, version of events the cruiser attempted to overtake the accelerating liner on her starboard side. This placed the warship between Olympic and the Isle of Wight . As the Hawke , which was initially travelling faster than the liner, reached a point somewhere about abreast of the White Star ship's second funnel the liner matched and then surpassed her speed. By this time Hawke , trapped between Olympic and the land, was running out of sea room. Commander Blunt, on the Hawke , then decided to abandon his attempt to overtake and instead turn out into more open water by passing close under the liner's stern. As the smaller ship came closer to Olympic she was caught up in the suction effect, caused by the passage of the huge White Star vessel's hull through the water, and was drawn inexorably into her side. By way of explanation for the accident Commander Blunt later said that his helmsman had turned the ship's wheel the wrong way and before the mistake could be rectified the helm had jammed. Again according to Commander Blunt, immediately after the accident Hawke's helm freed itself and was once more operating normally. The story is, of course, nonsense. Hawke's steering gear, specifically designed so as not to jam, was operated by hydraulics, which can not jam unless the pressure within the system fails. This can only happen if a pipe bursts, a seal fails, or the pump ceases to operate. If the system does not lose hydraulic pressure then mechanical failure of the steering gear would inevitably result because of the tremendous forces applied by the hydraulics. In any event the cruiser's steering would have been useless until it had been properly repaired. It would certainly not be operating normally immediately after the collision as Blunt claimed. Hawke's bow had been badly distorted and torn in the collision and the iron ram which formed part of it had been completely torn off, or so the navy claimed. However, although somewhat mauled Hawke was able to make her way slowly into Portsmouth docks unaided. Olympic had not fared so well. She had a huge hole in her side. Two of her aft compartments were flooded. She was down by the stern. And her starboard main engine was out of commission. She was going nowhere in the immediate future. Luckily, the accident had happened at lunchtime when all of the passengers were in the dining saloons so there had been nobody in the second class cabins destroyed by Hawke's bow. Nobody was seriously injured in the accident but as Hawke pulled away from Olympic she dragged a lot of cabin furniture and some luggage out of the liner. A leather bag containing clothing, surgical instruments, diploma, medical books and other things belonging to Dr Downton was washed out of the hole and was picked up by a boatman and handed to the Customs officers at Cowes . Olympic , although badly damaged was in no danger of sinking so the ship was brought to a standstill and the anchor was dropped. While a quick assessment of the damage was made Captain Smith cut of all passenger communication with the outside world. Nobody was allowed to send wireless messages or to leave the ship. With his vessel now drawing rather more water than she had previously Smith was obliged to wait until the following day and a favourable tide before Olympic could return to Southampton for a more detailed inspection. However, it was apparent that the liner was too badly injured to continue her journey to America . In the evening the Southampton and Isle of Wight Company's passenger steamer Duchess of York took off about a hundred of Olympic's passengers who wanted to go to London , and took them to Southampton . Mr Phillip C Curry of the White Star Line was among them. He said that the rest of the passengers were quite happy about remaining aboard the damaged liner. The following day Olympic , assisted by tugs, had managed to make her way back to Southampton, to the Harland & Wolff repair yard where a proper assessment of the injury could be made, and the crew released. The visible damage to the ship above the waterline was impressive but it was as nothing compared to that below. Hawke's armoured bow, which had struck the liner about eighty five feet from her stern, had smashed a huge hour-glass shaped hole more then twenty five feet high and ten feet wide. The ram had penetrated far enough into Olympic to bend her starboard propeller shaft and fracture the crankshaft of the engine. The cruiser had also damaged all three blades of the starboard propeller, as she had disinterred her bow from the liner's vitals. For some reason never given the collision had made the turbine engine, situated on Olympic's centre line immediately above her keel, inoperable as well Also on 21 September White Star issued a writ against Commander Blunt, it being impossible to sue the Royal Navy, to recover the costs of repairing Olympic . This was immediately countered by a writ from the Navy against White Star to recover the costs of repairing their cruiser. The judgement of the court, delivered on 19 December 1911 : “The president (Sir Samuel Evans) accepted in all material respects the evidence from the Hawke and found that the collision was solely due to the faulty navigation of the Olympic .” Although the White Star Line would appeal that verdict all the way to the House of Lords in 1914 they never managed to get it overturned. Titanic’s starboard quarter, which some people believe shows discoloured plating where Olympic was repaired following the Hawke collision.The Royal Navy convened an inquiry into the accident on 22 September. Not surprisingly this inquiry, which received evidence from naval personnel only, found the White Star vessel entirely to blame for the accident and their own ship completely innocent of any wrong doing. Interestingly, the Navy had supposedly established the exact position where the accident occurred by recovering Hawke's iron ram, which, it was claimed, had been torn off in the collision, from the sea bed. The Royal Navy also claimed that HMS Hawke was out that day on speed trials and that she was at the Nab Buoy at 7.30 am . She ran at 96 RPM for four hours and reduced speed to 82 RPM off St Catherine's Point at 11.30 am . and then proceeded through the Needles channel. (RH 4.5.00) This could not be the truth as Hawke's best speed would not allow to make the necessary distance in the time available. 1 knot is about 15% longer than a statute mile. At her top speed Hawke could cover about twenty two and a half miles in an hour, or just over 28 miles in the time available. The distance from St Catherine's Point to where the collision occurred, making no allowance for turning around the Needles or negotiating past Hurst Castle (guarding the entrance to the western end of the Solent ) was something slightly more than thirty miles; almost exactly the distance she could have covered in the time available, steaming all out. Once any sort of allowance is made to allow her sea room to clear the Needles, Hurst Castle , or any other ships that might conceivably get in her way, and as we shall shortly see at least one vessel did get in the way, the figures make even less sense. Continued.... MORE AT SOURCE! www.titanicconspiracy.com/about2.htm
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They died on, that ship. And on Christmas Eve 1913, the 16th Amendment was ratified, ala Federal Reserve Bank. "This is suspicious at best. Sounds like a bunch of nutty conspiracy theorists, or, as others have pointed out, a government program to find nutty conspiracy theorists who could be dangerous."
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