A Night to Remember

At 11:40pm on April 14, 1912, lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginal Lee were stationed in the crow’s nest of the RMS Titanic. The Titanic had received several ice warnings throughout the day. The absence of a moon and the uncharacteristically calm waters of the Atlantic made the obscure shape directly in the Titanic’s path difficult to see until the Titanic was nearly on top of it, steaming ahead at 22.5 knots. Fleet rang the watch bell, picked up the receiver connecting him to the bridge, and called out the alert, “Iceberg, right ahead” (2). First Officer William Murdoch ordered the ship’s engines stopped, the vessel turned hard to port, then the engines reversed. Simultaneously, Murdoch initiated the closing of the ship’s watertight doors. After 37 seconds ticked by, the Titanic’s bow began to turn. Fleet and Lee didn’t feel the judder as the jagged ice carved punctures into the ship’s hull, but many aboard did. Awakened, Captain Edward James Smith reported to the bridge.

First-class passengers playing cards in the dining saloon noticed a slight vibration beneath them; two stewards privately concluded that the Titanic must have thrown a propellor blade which would require a return to the shipyard in Belfast, Ireland.