The Titanic Disaster Hearings: the Official Transcripts of the 1912 US Senate Investigation [Mass Market Paperback]

Tom Kunz (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1998

Merely a day after Titanic survivors arrived in port in New York City, a United States Senate committee began an investigation into the wreck of the great "unsinkable" ship. For the first time in book form, here is the dramatic testimony of crew and passengers from all walks of life, as they recall the sights and sounds of the night of April 14, 1912.

From the manners of the day to the conduct fo those boarding the lifeboats, from acts of kindness to palpable greed, here is an unforgettable portrait of human nature in the face of the "Titanic" tragedy, in the words of the men and women who survived... J. Bruce Ismay, British officer of the White Star Line, who hopped into a lifeboat to save himself and never looked back to see her go down... Second officer Charles Lightoller's harrowing plunge as the sinking ship's force of suction pulled him under water... On-duty lookout Frederick Fleet's admission that the iceberg might have been avoided if the crew had been equipped with binoculars... Passenger Daisy Minahan, who recalled the refusal of an officer in her lifeboat to aid those adrift in the frigid waters... and many more witnesses to one of the most shattering events of our century. Illustrated with historical photographs, The "Titanic Disaster Hearings" is a vital piece of the puzzle that has sparked worldwide fascination.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When Tom Kuntz, the "Word for Word" section editor of the New York Times, started researching a column on the Senate hearings about the Titanic disaster, he discovered that this supposedly public information was tough for the public to come by--it was stuck away in archives on cumbersome microfiche. The Times just hates anything that comes between people and information--just look at its historic efforts to publicize the government's Vietnam policy in the recent book The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case. So Kuntz intelligently excerpted and published, for the first time ever, these transcripts, noting without fear or favor his own paper's participation in the then-common practice of checkbook journalism and presenting hundreds of pages of gripping eyewitness testimony. The Titanic Disaster Hearings also includes a helpful, if rather brief, index to the testimony, so you can look up "Lookout men, glasses for" and turn to the page with this heartbreaking discussion of the owners' inexplicable refusal to give the lookouts binoculars:

SENATOR SMITH: Suppose you had had [binoculars], could you have seen this black object [the iceberg] a greater distance?

MR. FLEET [a Titanic lookout]: We could have seen it a bit sooner.

SENATOR SMITH: How much sooner?

MR. FLEET: Well, enough to get out of the way...

"Here the world learned of Isidor and Ida Straus's decision to die together rather than separate under the 'women and children first' evacuation tradition," writes Kuntz. "Archibald Gracie vividly described people swarming up the Titanic's rear decks as the ship plunged deeper into the sea." One does not envy the wireless operators explaining how their state-of-the-art system managed to screw up so badly, nor Titanic officer Pitman, who claimed his passengers and crewmen refused his order to row back to pick up screaming survivors in their boat, which had room for 20 more people, because they feared those in the water would swamp them:

SENATOR SMITH: How many of these cries were there? Was it a chorus, or was it--

MR. PITMAN: I would rather you did not speak about that.

SENATOR SMITH: I would like to know how you were impressed by it.

MR. PITMAN: Well, I can not very well describe it. I would rather you would not speak of it.

SENATOR SMITH: I realize that it is not a pleasant theme, and yet I would like to know whether these cries were general and in chorus, or desultory and occasional?

MR. PITMAN: There was a continual moan for about an hour.

There are 32 useful pictures in the book, but its raison d'être is words, which Kuntz has compiled and arranged in an addictively readable fashion.

From Library Journal

This multiperformer presentation of the inquiry that took place the day after the Titanic survivors disembarked in New York City is quite insightful. Sen. William Smith proposed and then led an investigation to find out the causes of the sinking of the unsinkable. The voices of the crew, the women, the officers, the wireless operators, and J. Bruce Ismay (managing director of the White Star Line) are all heard. The questioning of Senator Smith and the Commerce Committee reveal how unprepared the vessel was for such emergencies. From Ismay, who spoke to Capt. Edward J. Smith about putting the ship through its paces on its maiden voyage, to Frederick Fleet, the lookout on the Titanic who wondered why the crow's-nest had binoculars for the Belfast to Southampton run but not for the Southampton to New York route, this primary material has been brought to life, remarkable as it is. Highly recommended for all libraries.?Kristin M. Jacobi, Eastern Connecticut State Univ., Willimantic
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (March 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671025538
• ISBN-13: 978-0671025533
• Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 1.4 x 6.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,140,179 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great reading for the Titanic enthusiast that has questions. August 23, 1999

By [e-mail]

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I've slowly gathered more and more information about the Titanic disaster and this book gives voices to those old photos we've all seen. It truly is an unfolding of human drama and you can feel the frustration and tension in the questions and answers. I found myself reading the answers in a British accent! Not only do these transcripts add a personal dimension to the characters, but they also give first-hand accounts and facts, facts, facts. I love that!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars INTERESTING, INFORMATIVE, SPELLBINDING December 26, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I am a fourteen year old fanatic on the subject of the Titanic, and I feel that this is the ultimate book of the Titanic disaster. A real infomative book that any Titanic buff should own. This book is a real bible of the disaster of the century. It discusses issues, and topics that weren't quite heard about before. It is a factual recollection from passengers and crew as the recount the sights and sounds of that fatefull night in April of 1912, with an interesting intro by the author, Tom Kuntz. I like the fact that this book displays very interesting statistic at the end of the text. Sometimes there are parts that you would really like answers to but the "interviewees" can't remember them, that could be frustrating if your like me (wanting the scoop on every little detail). Anyway I love this book and am really glad it is a part of my Titanic collection.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Unsinkable and Unthinkable! The Senate Investigates Titanic! April 6, 2004

By Kelly Langston-Smith

Format:Mass Market Paperback

This is the Titanic book you are looking for. Far from being one of the many novelizations or non-fiction novel type history reports, this is testimony straight from the survivor's mouths about what happened the night disaster struck. We are all familiar with C-Span senate hearings of the past few decades, but this is one of the interesting ones condensed into an exciting and informative volume. Questioning began mere days after the accident as the Carpathia pulled into New York with the few souls who made it. Even the slightly repetative nature of the senator's questions from person to person revealed a new fact or two about the sinking of the unsinkable ship.
For those whose knowledge of the Titanic comes mostly from James Cameron, this volume is a wealth of first hand information that didn't get covered in the blockbuster film. Most shocking was that the ship, the Californian, was within sight of the Titanic and saw her distress rockets but didn't come to her aid, even though they could have gotten there before the ship sank. This volume also covers other interesting aspects of the case like the yellow journalism practiced as papers vied for exclusive rights to stories, Bruce Ismay trying to get everyone on a ship back to England before they could be questioned in America and The Wall Street Journal giving false reports that Titanic was fine so that certain stocks didn't plummet. Many of the controversial aspects of the case are addressed to a satisfactory degree, but you can see some pat answers and bet hedging in some of the testimony.
Fascinating Stuff!