# 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:** 18
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/21 "2006-11-18T11:18:54Z")
Titanic sailed with 2229 people on board, 1316 passengers and 913 crew.
Of these, 713 survived, 498 passengers and 215 crew.
That leaves 1516 people who died.
Bodies fo 335 people were recovered.
The 3 ships hired by White Star Lines to go out and pick up bodies retrieved 328 bodies. Because they ran out of embalming supplies, they buried 119 bodies at sea, and brought 209 back to Halifax. Of those, 59 were claimed by relatives, and 150 were buried in Halifax cemeteries.
Other ships traveling the Atlantic found 7 more bodies – all of them were buried at sea.
This leaves 1181 people who died, whose bodies were never recovered. Presumably, all those bodies sank either on the Titanic or in the near vicinity.
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### Author:  [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/22 "2006-11-18T16:09:26Z")
[QUOTE=Walloon]
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.
[/QUOTE]
According to some accounts the French and Italian staff of the _à la Carte_ restaurant were herded into their quarters and locked in.
Also, most of the engineering department stayed at their posts to keep the lights, pumps, etc. going. Since the lights didn’t fail until just before the ship foundered, it’s unlikely that many of them made it topside.
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/23 "2006-11-18T17:51:12Z")
Many passengers were trapped:
[http://www.history.uk.com/articles/index.php?archive=3](http://www.history.uk.com/articles/index.php?archive=3)
> [@](#):
>
> Titanic sank at 2.20am. More than 1,500 people died, either trapped on board or drowned in the icy waters, before rescue ships arrived. In total just 705 people were plucked from the sea. Of the first class passengers, who disembarked first, 210 people were saved. Only 200 steerage class passengers survived.
I recall somewhere that the steerage class area had gates that were kept locked, unlike the movie. I’m trying to find a link, but all I see so far are from movie reviews:
[http://www.eslnotes.com/movies/pdf/titanic.pdf](http://www.eslnotes.com/movies/pdf/titanic.pdf)
> [@](#):
>
> Among the dead were some of the richest people alive, but in fact the majority of those who died were relatively poor people who were trapped in the bottom of the ship, in what was called the‘steerage’ quarters.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/24 "2006-11-18T17:57:03Z")
Apparently the Edmund Fitzgerald lies in a frigid oxygen-free zone and the bodies of the men
aboard that ship are still there…
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/25 "2006-11-18T18:01:08Z")
[QUOTE=John DiFool]
Apparently the Edmund Fitzgerald lies in a frigid oxygen-free zone and the bodies of the men
aboard that ship are still there…
[/QUOTE]
I have a hard time believing that. The waters of the lake aren’t \*that \*deep or cold. Why would it be completely free of oxygen?
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/26 "2006-11-18T18:03:30Z")
[QUOTE=John DiFool]
Apparently the Edmund Fitzgerald
[/QUOTE]
An excuse for me to mention the [Sultana](http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/sultana.htm) where more lives were lost in the Mississippi than on the Titanic.
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/27 "2006-11-18T18:07:01Z")
There’s an article on whether the [gates](http://home.comcast.net/~bwormst7/Symposium/gates.html) actually existed, but it’s Powerpoint and I can’t open it.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/28 "2006-11-18T18:11:31Z")
[QUOTE=Lissa]
There’s an article on whether the [gates](http://home.comcast.net/~bwormst7/Symposium/gates.html) actually existed, but it’s Powerpoint and I can’t open it.
[/QUOTE]
Here’s the link they mention.
[http://titanic.marconigraph.com/mgy\_cameron1.html](http://titanic.marconigraph.com/mgy_cameron1.html)
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/29 "2006-11-18T18:14:15Z")
[QUOTE=Lissa]
There’s an article on whether the [gates](http://home.comcast.net/~bwormst7/Symposium/gates.html) actually existed, but it’s Powerpoint and I can’t open it.
[/QUOTE]
One more thing and then I’ll shut up about the gates: [Here](http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/5811/84039.html) is a very interesting thread on Encyclopedia Titanica about the possibility of gates keeping passengers belowdecks. (Yeah, it’s a messageboard, but a lot of these people seem to know what they’re talking about, citing floorplans and whatnot.)
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/30 "2006-11-18T18:18:17Z")
**Musicat** , that’s a pretty vague reference, and doesn’t explain what the author means by “trapped”.
From a _Titanic_ FAQ:
> [@](#):
>
> **Were third-class passengers deliberately kept below decks?**
> Both the British and American inquiries found that there was no evidence to suggest that third-class passengers were deliberately kept below decks, although it is true that third-class passengers did not make their way to the Boat Deck until very late in the sinking.
From the official British investigative report:
> [@](#):
>
> It has been suggested before the Enquiry that the third-class passengers had been unfairly treated; that their access to the boat deck had been impeded; and that when at last they reached that deck the first and second-class passengers were given precedence in getting places in the boats. There appears to have been no truth in these suggestions. It is no doubt true that the proportion of third-class passengers saved falls far short of the proportion of the first and second class, but this is accounted for by the greater reluctance of the third-class passengers to leave the ship, by their unwillingness to part with their baggage, by the difficulty in getting them up from their quarters, which were at the extreme ends of the ship, and by other similar causes. The interests of the relatives of some of the third-class passengers who had perished were in the hands of Mr. Harbinson, who attended the Enquiry on their behalf. He said at the end of his address to the court: ‘I wish to say distinctly that no evidence has been given in the course of this case which would substantiate a charge that any attempt was made to keep back the third-class passengers … I desire further to say that there is no evidence that when they did reach the boat deck there was any discrimination practiced either by the officers or by the sailors in putting them into the boats.’
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### Author:  [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/31 "2006-11-18T18:18:18Z")
Free Powerpoint viewer:[PowerPoint](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=428d5727-43ab-4f24-90b7-a94784af71a4&displaylang=en)
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/32 "2006-11-18T18:20:04Z")
One of the Powerpoint slides describes the escape of two third class passengers.
“…a strapping lad from (her native area) talked the guard into opening the gate long enough for the two girls to slip through.”
Breaks your heart.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2006, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/33 "2006-11-18T18:37:08Z")
[QUOTE=OttoDaFe]
Also, most of the engineering department stayed at their posts to keep the lights, pumps, etc. going. Since the lights didn’t fail until just before the ship foundered, it’s unlikely that many of them made it topside.
[/QUOTE]
This assumes that the generators and pumps couldn’t operate even 15 minutes on their own?
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2006, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/34 "2006-11-19T03:29:36Z")
[QUOTE=Walloon]
This assumes that the generators and pumps couldn’t operate even 15 minutes on their own?
[/QUOTE]
As I understand, the flooding kept tripping breakers which had to be manually switched back on for the devices to operate.
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### Author:  [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2006, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/35 "2006-11-19T04:58:55Z")
Didn’t \*American \* law require 3rd class passengers be kept seperate from 1st and 2nd class or else 1st and 2nd class passengers would have had to have been quarantined on Ellis Island?
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2006, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/36 "2006-11-19T16:11:08Z")
[QUOTE=alphaboi867]
Didn’t \*American \* law require 3rd class passengers be kept seperate from 1st and 2nd class or else 1st and 2nd class passengers would have had to have been quarantined on Ellis Island?
[/QUOTE]
That’s a factor mentioned in the PP show, which is quite long and has a wealth of information – I recommend it. Briefly, there were “barriers”, some of which were only waist-high gates, not floor-to-ceiling gates. However, there were reports of crew members stationed at some barriers to prevent people from crossing over.
The PP authors seem to thing that the tale has grown in the telling and many assumptions have been made, some due the authors’ writing styles, that cannot be substantiated. Their conclusion is that there were no locked gates that prevented passengers from getting through.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/37 "2006-11-19T16:52:47Z")
Slide 25 describing Kathy Gilnaugh’s experience seems to be about a locked gate, although I presume it could only be “guarded”.
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-titanics-victims/380828/38 "2006-11-19T16:54:45Z")
Gotta post this every time shipwrecks come up:
```
Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
```
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,
Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon,
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As ’t were in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems.
King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 4.
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