Titanic sunk by U-boat?

[Koreana]

I meant to post this couple weeks ago, seeing a book on the Titanic reminded. Anywhoo... I saw a special on PBS that the Titanic could of been sunk by a U-boat. Has anyone else heard of this theory? I only caught the last 10 to 15 minutes of it but it was really interesting. Wonder how long this theory has been around...

Jun

 

[MK]

The Titanic was not sunk by a U-Boat. She sank in 1912 when England was not at war. Also torpedos cause explosions. There were none on the Titanic until the water hit the boilers about an hour into the sinking.

You must have seen a show about the Lusitania which was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland in 1915 by a U-Boat. Unlike the Titanic, she sank in 20 minutes. There were very few survivers.

 

[Undertow]

Not to bring this one back from the murky depths (lol wow I'm hilarious) but I've seen some videos of torpedoes exploding underneath a ships hull causing a large void in which the hull breaks in two, like snapping a twig.

Does anyone think this may be possible?

 

[Mike in Seattle]

No. There are also photos in existence of the iceberg with the paint streaks from the impact on it. Governments and the military are lousy at keeping secrets. It would've come out if there were any remote possibility of being the cause.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Here is the skinny from Wiki:

Submarine Involvement

There have also been stories of German U-boat involvement. By 1912, the new German navy was ready for war and had perfected the use of submersible ships. Lights seen by survivors, which are believed by historians to either be the nearby SS Canifornian or an unknown third ship, after the ship sank has been cited as possible evidence of a submarine. The theory claims that a German U-boat had been stalking the Titanic and that the sub fired a torpedo at the iceberg when collision between the Titanic and the iceberg seemed inevitable. This theory of the sinking was granted more credence following the 1915 torpedoing of the RMS Lusitania, though the motivation of such an act by the German navy is rarely satisfyingly explained. Indeed, despite their naval preparations at this time, the German monarchy in 1912 was not seeking a war with Britain and passenger accounts of the sensation of the impact do not tally with those who experienced a torpedo attack. The collision of the RMS Titantic and the iceberg created nothing more than a shudder, which was so slight that many 1st class passengers were not even awakened.

-dixon cannon

 

[Diamondback]

Does anyone think this may be possible?

On Titanic, no. Midpoint of keel is the structural weak point of any ship, all of the liners that were contemporary to Titanic broke in two like that when sunk.

Idea with torp-to-midpoint is by lifting that midsection, you break the ship's back, exploiting the natural weakness. Ever place a pencil beneath index and ring fingers but over middle finger, like:

I . R
---- (pencil)
-M
and slam that hand down onto a table, watching the pencil break in two? Same kinda effect...

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

Submarine Involvement

Lights seen by survivors, which are believed by historians to either be the nearby SS Canifornian or an unknown third ship, after the ship sank has been cited as possible evidence of a submarine.

-dixon cannon

You also have to wonder why a U-boat would be running lights while surfaced on a combat mission. Sort of like shouting"HEY! I'm over here, shoot at ME!" Perhaps you could chalk it up to hubris or pre-war lax standards, but why go through the trouble of an ultra-secret mission against a friendly powers civilian liner and then not follow through and keep it secret?

 

[Alan Eardley]

You also have to wonder why a U-boat would be running lights while surfaced on a combat mission. Sort of like shouting"HEY! I'm over here, shoot at ME!" Perhaps you could chalk it up to hubris or pre-war lax standards, but why go through the trouble of an ultra-secret mission against a friendly powers civilian liner and then not follow through and keep it secret?

Had the German Imperial Navy perfected silent explosives in 1912? One thing all the contemporary accounts of the sinking agree on is that there was no loud bang.


Alan

 

[Matt Deckard]

And the Pentagon was hit by a missile
The Terrorists that hit the towers were Jesuits controlled by Masons
What holocaust?
Elvis never left the building?

Come on guys... you can make up better stories than a Titanic torpedo.

 

[Edward]

The only Titanic conspiracy theory I ever heard was..... that it wasn't the titanic that sank at all. I only discovered this one last year myself, but then when the whole Titanic fever hit big time when Ballard found the wreck in 85/86 I was still very young.... Apparently it was a well known rumour in belfast back at the time. The story goes that the Sister ship, the Olympic, was involved in a collision with a Royal Navy ship in England somewhere (I don't recall the location, maybe it was Southampton itself, traditionally a navy base?). The boat was structurally severely compromised due to the impact, but as it was a military vessel that caused the damage, the insurance wouldn't have paid out, and the State at the time offered no recompense. In order to be able to recoup their losses, the story runs, the White Star Line switched the ship with the Titanic - the two liners were rebranded as each other, and the Olympic was sent out as Titanic on that fateful "maiden" voyage. Supposedly had it really been the titanic, it would not have been so badly damaged by the iceberg, and therefore not sunk so easily.

I've seen no conclusive proof of this one, though if the White Star Line could have been assumed to have been ruthless enough to send out a ship that they knew was flawed and would eventually sink at some point, it doesn't seem totally incredible as a theory.

The other one was the Mummy's Curse, though that's even more of a stretch!

 

[griffer]

Debunked-

http://www.amazon.com/Olympic-Titanic-Truth-Behind-Conspiracy/dp/0741419491

 

[Fletch]

The biggest joke about all this is the U-boat angle. People today obviously don't remember or study World War I.

It happened very suddenly, as a kind of truss collapse of royalty-based European alliances. It wasn't like WWII, which everyone saw coming for years. Nor was the Kaiser a proto Bin Laden, targeting terrorism on foreign ships before hostilities began.

 

[thebadmamajama]

And the Pentagon was hit by a missile
The Terrorists that hit the towers were Jesuits controlled by Masons
What holocaust?
Elvis never left the building?

Come on guys... you can make up better stories than a Titanic torpedo.

I do have to agree on that one...I've read just about every book on the Titanic since I was eight years old and the pieces don't seem to fit together. Plus, the Olympic WAS slightly smaller than Titanic, how do they account for a difference, pardon the pun, that HUGE, when people are expecting Titanic? Plus, I agree with the sound theory that you guys were talking about. Torpedo technology could not have been that sophisticated in '12 and anything THAT major would have made a major ruckus. Like they said, many first-class passengers had to be awakened. "The sound of marbles rolling on a wood floor" doesn't exactly sound like an explosion...

 

[J. M. Stovall]

It was more likely a ufo.

 

[dhermann1]

I recall another "theory" that there was a fire in the Titanic's boiler room for a couple of days before the sinking, and that they were speeding to New York in order to get it extinguished. Supposedly coal dust exploded and sank the ship. Not supporetd by any facts.
There are still mysteries regarding the Titanic, but of a much more subtle technical nature.
Speaking of the Titanic, I just came across a (not very good) poem written by my grandmother in the days after the sinking. The event really traumatized the world.

 

[Twitch]

There were only 12 U boats in existance when the Titanic went down! The 4 oldest U-1 to U-4 were relagated to training flotillas and the absolute fastest submerged speed of the best of the other 8 was 10 knots. This is so slow that pursuit of the Titanic hauling along at 21 knots would have been impossible unless a completely sychronicity put a U-boat, by chance, in a prime firing position. Otherwise it would have little hope of maneuvering ahead of and plotting an attack. Top speed surfaced was only 14 knots making any attempt at positioning for attack laughable. The speeds of German torpedoes in 1912 were 35 knots set for a range of 2,410 yards or 27 knots if set to run 5,470 yards. They had 353 lb. explosive warheads..

The images we see of ships exploding in the center and breaking in two are obviously valid if you've actually seen it. Most severe damage such as that was confined to un armored freighters of warships whose magazines exploded. By WW 2 when the break-in 2 films are from, saw torpedoes with 617-lb. warhead that used far more explosive ordnance. The Japanese Long Lance had a 893-lb. warhead. Make no mistake, a hit amidships from a torpedo of that size would blow a freighter in half.

 

[Alan Eardley]

There were only 12 U boats in existance when the Titanic went down! The 4 oldest U-1 to U-4 were relagated to training flotillas and the absolute fastest submerged speed of the best of the other 8 was 10 knots. This is so slow that pursuit of the Titanic hauling along at 21 knots would have been impossible unless a completely sychronicity put a U-boat, by chance, in a prime firing position. Otherwise it would have little hope of maneuvering ahead of and plotting an attack. Top speed surfaced was only 14 knots making any attempt at positioning for attack laughable. The speeds of German torpedoes in 1912 were 35 knots set for a range of 2,410 yards or 27 knots if set to run 5,470 yards. They had 353 lb. explosive warheads..

All true. Nor would a contemporary U-boot have the range to carry out such an attack in mid-Atlantic. As well as the speed, the darkness would pose a major set of problems for our putative U-Boot captain, even though the liner would be well lit, ranging is made more difficult at night.

This was 1912, not 1942.

Alan

 

[Edward]

Debunked-

http://www.amazon.com/Olympic-Titanic-Truth-Behind-Conspiracy/dp/0741419491

Cool, thanks for the link, I'll check that book out.

The "theory" I most favour myself is that the company put a hell of a lot of pressure onto the Captain to get to NY in record time and risks were taken... I remember reading in "A Night to Remember" (great book) that there were six ice warnings ignored - the last one didn't even reach the bridge. Add that in to the mix with the watertight bulkheads that didn't reach top deck level (I gather that if they had, the one chamber that would have filled with water wouldn't have been enough to sink it).

The thing that I still struggle with is that there were simply not enough lifeboats (I'm sure I read that even if the first boats hadn't left half empty, there's no way they could have got everyone into boats) for anything like the number of folks on there - and yet the White Star Line had provided more than obliged to by law at the time.

 

[thebadmamajama]

Hence the White Star Line enforced new saftey laws that changed the way of ships from that point forward after the intensive inquiry.

 

[Diamondback]

Captain Smith was also naturally very aggressive about wanting to beat the schedule, as I recall. Couple that to pressure from Ismay, the line owner who was also onboard (and survived), and...

And then you got the design flaws, plus the substandard steel... Before the break-in-two, IIRC, just the berg's impact, the total area of hull scraped open is less than the surface area of a person's skin.