The Titanic Disaster Hearings (Mass Market Paperback)

by Tom Kuntz (Editor) ". . . SENATOR SMITH: Will you kindly tell the committee the circumstances surrounding your voyage, and, as succinctly as possible, beginning with your going..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, White Star, Cape Race (more...)

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 (March 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671025538
• ISBN-13: 978-0671025533
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #505,694 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great reading for the Titanic enthusiast that has questions., August 24, 1999

By	[e-mail] "thefuzz" (Texas, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

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!

5 of 5 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 (Atomic City, USA) - See all my reviews

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!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The real thing, a bible for the books and movies, August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This book is imposible to put down! The real stories by the survivors themselves. As I read other books on the Titanic I often find myself wondering back to this book for references. I am planning to read the book again in case I missed anything the first time. I am not much for reading but I was still trying to find time to read it even if it was for a minute. The editors introduction to each interview is very informative and helpful! I wish they had had video cameras in 1912 just so I could witness the true thing but this book is definetly good enough. At times it is a very emotional, and at other times it is exciting when Senator Smith barks down an interviewee. This is where the legendary stories originated from. I would have given it 6 stars but... A must read for any Titanic buff!!!