False. Here is an eyewitness account from Karl Behr. And another eyewitness account, from a fellow passenger on the collapsible lifeboat, William E. Carter (scroll three-fourths down the page).
Ismay was chairman and managing director of the White Star Line, not the owner.
An excerpt of the statement he gave to the Senate Inquiry on 20 April 1912:
And a statement that Ismay made to the Times of London in April 1912.
I personally think that asking whether the Titanic could have been saved if the watertight compartments had gone further up, or if the steel had been stronger, is rather like asking whether the WTC wouldn’t have collapsed if there had been better fireproofing on the floor trusses. It would be exceedingly difficult even today to design a ship that could sustain an impact with an iceberg and not sink, and it would have been impossible in 1912. Of course, the disaster could have been averted if a different course of action had been taken before the collision, but, once the ship had collided, I doubt that any different action or different design feature would have saved it.
A few common what-if scenarios about the Titanic:
Ice warnings: Captain Smith had a rather careless attitude about ice warnings, perhaps because he had never experienced a serious accident. (Although he had been the captain of the Olympic when it collided with a Royal Navy vessel, and there were crewmen on the ship that had been through several sinkings.) So did the radio operator – his ‘Shut up, shut up, I am busy, I am working Cape Race’ is a good sign that ice warnings took a low priority. Certainly, if the ice warnings had been heeded and the ship’s speed reduced, the impact of the collision would have been substantially greater, and it might not have sunk.
Watertight compartments: The Titanic’s watertight bulkheads went only a couple decks above the waterline. If too many were flooded, water could spill over the top of one into the next. If the bulkheads had gone all the way to the highest decks, some people believe the disaster might have been averted. I’m not sure – the Lusitania had bulkheads that went all the way to the top, plus longitudinal bulkheads, and it sank in 20 minutes. It’s possible, though, that higher bulkheads may have helped the ship stay afloat for as long as it did. Remember that the Titanic stayed afloat for a very long time, far longer than most foundering ships do, even today. (The Spirit of Free Enterprise and Estonia sank more quickly than the Titanic, IIRC.) The reason for the severe loss of life was the lack of lifeboats, not the lack of time to load them.
The coal fire: There was a coal fire aboard the Titanic, but it probably was only seen as a possible factor in the sinking in hindsight. Coal fires were quite common aboard steamers, and arose frequently if all precautions (sprinkling the coal with water) were not taken. It’s possible that the low, smoldering fire contributed to weakening of some of the ship’s steel, but IIRC the bunker involved was too far aft to be involved in the initial moments of the sinking.
The angle and speed of the collision: If the well-known hard-a-starboard (which means ‘turn the wheel all the way to the right so that the ship goes left’, IIRC)order hadn’t been given, the collision might have been head-on. This would have killed many crewmen in the forward compartments, but it probably wouldn’t have breached the hull in enough compartments to condemn the ship. It probably wouldn’t have reached New York intact, but there may have been enough time to get everyone off safely. Some people insist that fatal damage may have still resulted from a head-on collision. The speed is a factor too. The ship was travelling more quickly than it should have been in an ice field, and the quartermaster’s reaction when the iceberg was spotted was to stop the engines, then reverse them. (IIRC, the engines had to be stopped first, then put into reverse.) The order had probably not been completely carried out when the collision occurred. At any rate, stopping the engines severely limited the vessel’s ability to turn and may (speculation) have prevented it from avoiding the iceberg.
The Californian: Not an issue, in my opinion. I don’t believe the Californian could have reached the Titanic in enough time to pick up survivors, because it was quite distant (on the horizon) and very slow. I think the Californian issue is largely a way of creating blame for the disaster.
More lifeboats: Without question, even if the Titanic couldn’t have been saved, the people aboard could have if there had been more lifeboats. The Titanic stayed afloat after the collision for almost 2 and a half hours, and did not begin to list severely enough to prevent the launch of lifeboats until the last stages of the sinking. The ship was designed for enough boats to carry everyone aboard, and in fact had space for nearly 400 people more than were saved. Provided the owners didn’t fall for the profit-motivated trap of using collapsible boats (which failed utterly in the sinking of the Lusitania, and in 1912 were practically useless), 2.5 hours should have been enough to get everyone off the ship.
No, it means put the wheel to the right so the ship goes right. You may be thinking of a tiller, where directions are reversed.
Ismay got into a boat, but he never wore a woman’s shawl-he simply jumped in. Everyone saw it, but as he was the boss, no one said a thing-well, not to his face.
From what I gather, once he got on the Carpathia, he was in shock and had to be secluded.
In 1912, the steering mechanism on British merchant ships worked like a tiller—when the wheel was turned to starboard, the rudder pivoted to port—and helm orders were given accordingly. I misremember when that was changed, but I believe it was during the 1930s.