# What happened to Titanic's victims?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 17, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828 "2006-11-17T14:17:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/1 "2006-11-17T14:17:26Z")
Those who were trapped and went down with the ship. I can’t recall ever seeing bones anywhere on videos of excursions to the Titanic. Were bodies all crushed by the pressure into a pulp that drifted away, or did enough survive to be scavenged?
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2006, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/2 "2006-11-17T14:20:54Z")
They were eaten.
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### Author:  [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2006, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/3 "2006-11-17T14:35:01Z")
Dr Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck, said there were no human remains to be seen anywhere. He said the acidity of the seawater would have dissolved even bones after 70 years, but I don’t know whether he knew that or was just guessing.
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2006, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/4 "2006-11-17T15:12:48Z")
There are deep-sea critters which feed off of bones of whales. I imagine they would have played a part in destroying the remains.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/5 "2006-11-17T15:48:49Z")
I think the closest Ballard’s group came to finding human remains was a pair of boots. Apparently the ocean critters around the wreck don’t eat tanned leather.
Ballard’s book had a photo of a pair of boots, lying on the floor, in just the right positions they would be in if they had been on a body that ended on the sea-floor, an then the body had been eaten up.
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2006, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/6 "2006-11-17T15:52:41Z")
One of the videos from the sea floor near the Titantic showed a pair of trousers with two shoes near the cuffs. Nothing inside.
The worms and such in the mud on the seafloor at such depths are extremely efficient at recycling decomposing material that drifts down from the surface. Phosphorus (as found in bones) in a key limiting nutrient for life. The sea floor is typically quite deficient in it. So whatever lives there adapts to obtain it whenever it becomes available.
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### Author:  [@Gus\_Handsome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gus_Handsome)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2006, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/7 "2006-11-17T17:24:27Z")
150 victoms of the Titanic disaster were buried in Halifax cemeteries from May 3rd to June 12th, 1912.
My wife and I visited the Titanic Display at the Halifax Marine Museum last summer where we saw many interesting things including the different menus for the various classes of travel, many photographs, and an old deck chair.
This prompted us to visit the cemetery which is very close to the museum where many of the victoms now rest, including the famous grave of “the unknown child”
I don’t know if we are allowed to post links (I will try)
If not, do a google search of Fairview Lawn Cemetery+Halifax and you should get all the info you need.
Regards
cemetery photos :
[http://www.halifax.ca/history/tfairview.html](http://www.halifax.ca/history/tfairview.html)
this link shows where all the found victoms are buried:
[http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/victims\_unknown.php?angle=List](http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/victims_unknown.php?angle=List)
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### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2006, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/8 "2006-11-17T17:51:22Z")
**Johnny** got it in one.
Fish food.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2006, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/9 "2006-11-17T18:06:02Z")
[QUOTE=Rick]
**Johnny** got it in one.
Fish food.
[/QUOTE]
But if you run his quote with the next line to appear on the thread:
> [@](#):
>
> They were eaten
> [@](#):
>
> Alive At Both Ends
:eek:
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/10 "2006-11-17T18:46:44Z")
[QUOTE=Pushkin]
Those who were trapped and went down with the ship.
[/QUOTE]
But were any “trapped”? The ship took two hours and forty minutes to sink. Going by historical evidence (and not scenes from the movie), all passengers had time to get on deck, and put on a life vest. And Captain Smith relieved all remaining crew from duty several minutes before it sank below the waters. Except for those in the wireless room and possibly those engineers at the electrical generators, there would be no reason why any crew would have been below decks at that point, anyway.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/11 "2006-11-17T18:57:20Z")
Altogether, 328 bodies were recovered floating in the area of the sinking.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/12 "2006-11-18T01:19:02Z")
[QUOTE=Rick]
Fish food.
[/QUOTE]
\*This ship won’t fly, you cannot swim, the shore is miles behind
You’ll be a dish for happy fish but you will never mind.
You’ll never mind, you’ll never mind,
Oh come and join the Air Force and you will never mind. \*
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### Author:  [@Operation\_Ripper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Operation_Ripper)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/13 "2006-11-18T01:48:07Z")
[QUOTE=Walloon]
Altogether, 328 bodies were recovered floating in the area of the sinking.
[/QUOTE]
Can you imagine pulling that duty?
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### Author:  [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/14 "2006-11-18T02:45:02Z")
[QUOTE=Operation Ripper]
Can you imagine pulling that duty?
[/QUOTE]
I read eyewitness accounts once from passengers on the Carpathia, describing what it was like to pass through the area where the bodies were…seeing a mother floating in her life vest, clutching a baby, for example. (Shiver)
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### Author:  [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/15 "2006-11-18T03:22:31Z")
[QUOTE=Northern Piper]
Ballard’s book had a photo of a pair of boots, lying on the floor, in just the right positions they would be in if they had been on a body that ended on the sea-floor, an then the body had been eaten up.
[/QUOTE]
Didn’t they find bones, though, when they excavated that Confederate submarine which went down 50 years earlier? Is there _more_ scavenging at great depths than there would be close to shore? Or was it just a matter of the submarine being more structurally intact, so that ocean life couldn’t get at the bodies?
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/16 "2006-11-18T03:37:43Z")
[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig]
Didn’t they find bones, though, when they excavated that Confederate submarine which went down 50 years earlier? Is there _more_ scavenging at great depths than there would be close to shore? Or was it just a matter of the submarine being more structurally intact, so that ocean life couldn’t get at the bodies?
[/QUOTE]
I’d say it has more to do with depth than the structural integrity of the vessel. The [bone-eating worms](http://staff.science.nus.edu/~sivasothi/biorefugia/2004/07/deep-sea-adaptations-whale-bone-eating.html) I mentioned earlier are only found in very deep waters.
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### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/17 "2006-11-18T04:28:01Z")
[QUOTE=Rick]
Fish food.
[/QUOTE]
In her informative and very entertaining book _Stiff_, Mary Roach mentions in passing that crabs really, really like eating human flesh. So… food for more than fish, probably. 🙂
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/18 "2006-11-18T04:59:21Z")
Do drowning victims sink, and the floating victims dead of freezing?
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/19 "2006-11-18T06:10:15Z")
Not sure what your question is. Maybe you should restate it.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/20 "2006-11-18T06:18:26Z")
The life vests were filled with cork. Despite its fame for buoyancy, [cork eventually absorbs water and sinks](http://apt.allenpress.com/aptonline/?request=get-abstract&issn=0735-6161&volume=025&issue=04&page=0339).
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