Switched at Berth: The Sinking of the Titanic/Olympic

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Jen! This isn't a crime-related topic! What are you doing posting this?" Well, my lovely readers, I'm going to come right out and make the statement that I believe the sinking of the RMS Titanic was criminal in nature. And I'm going to explain why.

A few years ago, I served as a guest on the Conspiracy Therapy podcast's episode dedicated to the Titanic conspiracies. Ryan, Larry, Josh, April, and I discussed the sinking and what could've caused it. Was it more than a simple twist of fate or even human negligence? Did someone (or something) have it out for the doomed ocean liner? Was it even the Titanic that sank?

I'm going to go ahead and assume that most of you know what happened on the night of April 14-15, 1912. For those who don't, a brief summary courtesy of Wikipedia:

RMS Titanic sank in the early morning of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean, four days into the ship's maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. The largest passenger liner in service at the time, Titanic had an estimated 2,224 people on board when she struck an iceberg at around 23:40 (ship's time)[a] on Sunday, 14 April 1912. Her sinking two hours and forty minutes later at 02:20 (ship's time; 05:18 GMT) on Monday, 15 April, resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 people, which made it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

Titanic received six warnings of sea ice on 14 April but was travelling near her maximum speed when her lookouts sighted the iceberg. Unable to turn quickly enough, the ship suffered a glancing blow that buckled her starboard side and opened five of her sixteen compartments to the sea. Titanic had been designed to stay afloat with four of her forward compartments flooded but no more, and the crew soon realised that the ship would sink. They used distress flares and radio (wireless) messages to attract help as the passengers were put into lifeboats. In accordance with existing practice, Titanic's lifeboat system was designed to ferry passengers to nearby rescue vessels, not to hold everyone on board simultaneously; therefore, with the ship sinking rapidly and help still hours away, there was no safe refuge for many of the passengers and crew. Compounding this, poor management of the evacuation meant many boats were launched before they were completely full.

As a result, when Titanic sank, over a thousand passengers and crew were still on board. Almost all those who jumped or fell into the water either drowned or died within minutes due to the effects of cold shockand incapacitation. RMS Carpathia arrived on the scene about an hour and a half after the sinking and rescued the last of the survivors by 09:15 on 15 April, some nine and a half hours after the collision. The disaster shocked the world and caused widespread outrage over the lack of lifeboats, lax regulations, and the unequal treatment of the three passenger classes during the evacuation. Subsequent inquiries recommended sweeping changes to maritime regulations, leading to the establishment in 1914 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), which still governs maritime safety today.

So, how could a supposedly "unsinkable" ship founder on her maiden voyage? Why plow through a North Atlantic ice field full-steam ahead on a moonless night (aside from the desire to win the coveted Blue Riband)? The Titanic was supposed to be the "ship of dreams", so how did it become such a nightmare?

We may never know the truth, but there are some clues that point us in the direction of a conspiracy.

Let me explain. The Titanic was the middle child - the second of three liners - in a set of sisters. The Olympic was completed in May 1911 and had been constructed alongside her younger sister, the Titanic. The Britannic was completed in 1915 but sank in 1916 after hitting a mine in the Aegean Sea.

Olympic was something of a trouble-maker. White Star Line prided itself on outdoing the Cunard Line's Lusitania and Mauritania with its three new sister ships, but in September 1911, Olympic ran into the cruiser HMS Hawke. The Hawke's powerful bow rammed Olympic on the starboard side, close to her stern. This punctured Olympic's hull above and below her waterline, leading to the flooding of two watertight compartments. The propeller shaft was also damaged in the collision. Olympic limped back to port for repairs, but no lives were lost in the accident. Repairs would be expensive, extending into what in today's money would be millions of dollars.

Guess who was the captain of the Olympic when she collided with the Hawke? Why, it was none other than Edward Smith, the captain who went down with the Titanic (and who was set to retire after its maiden voyage).

Guess what was also known to be a construction flaw in both the Olympic and Titanic? The hull and rivets. At the high speed the Titanic was going, the hull and rivets failed due to their high sulfur content and the freezing water temperatures. In other words, all three factors explain why the impact with the iceberg caused too many watertight compartments to flood. The ship wasn't built to designer Thomas Andrews' (who perished in the sinking) standards, and he, at least according to Tom McCluskie, knew the rivets were subpar. Also, thanks to McCluskie, we know that Harland & Wolfe's records indicate that the ship's builders knew after the fact that Titanic had broken apart while sinking but didn't go out of their way to make this public knowledge. (In fact, it was only through the accounts of survivors like 17-year-old Jack Thayer that anyone in 1912 had reason to believe the ship split in two.)

So, what am I getting at here? I'm getting at the idea that the Titanic could have been deliberately sank, that it might have actually been swapped with the Olympic, and that White Star might've done so as part of an insurance scam.

But what proof is there that the Titanic was actually the Olympic​? Well, here are a few items to consider:

1. Multiple passengers noticed a list to port when Titanic departed Southampton. This could've been due to the crew improperly trimming bunkers and cargo, but it could've also been due to the damage Olympic received from the Hawke. Of course, after the collision with the iceberg, the ship's list shifted more noticeably to starboard, the side it impacted on.

2. Swapping the two ships would've been relatively simple. Most items on board Titanic were standard-issue White Star Line, bearing no indication to which ship they belonged. Name plates could've quickly been switched.

3. The Titanic was the only ship in the fleet with its name riveted over the top of the hull; all others had it emblazoned. Recently, images of the wreck show that there might be the letters "MP" stamped into the hull, which are now visible due to the riveted-on letters falling off.

4. Take a look at the portholes on A-Deck in the image of the Titanic wreck. They are rectangular and unevenly spaced, just like those on the Olympic - and not on the pre-launch Titanic!

The last serious indicator that the sinking of the Titanic might have been planned is that, oh, how convenient!, the Federal Reserve was able to be created in 1913.

That's right. Centralized banking wasn't a thing in America until after the Titanic sank. It was, however, something that one of her top financiers, J. Piermont Morgan, advocated for. Perhaps ol' JP got inspired after reading Morgan Robertson's 1889 almost-verbatim telling of the sinking of a ship called the Titan. Robertson was the son of a ship's captain who sailed the Great Lakes. He also rather conveniently died due paraldehyde poisoning in 1915.

JP had booked himself First Class on the Titanic's maiden voyage and even had a special bathtub installed in his room. However, JP apparently took ill right before the voyage and was caught playing hookie in France as the ship he financed sank. Calling in "sick" to work has never looked so scumbag-y.

Who also played hookie? Ismay's wife was one; she was spotted in Wales, looking rather healthy that April. Milton Hershey (a close friend of JP Morgan's and the founder of the Hershey food empire) also called off the trip at the last minute.

Oh yeah, did I mention that three powerful opponents to the creation of a centralized banking system were on board? John Jacob Astor, Isidor Straus, and Benjamin Guggenheim were all traveling First Class, and all three (as well as Strau's devoted wife and Guggenheim's manservant) went down with the ship.

The Rothschild and Rockefeller families are other key players in this conspiracy theory. They were essentially viewed as banking agents for the Jesuits, who were keen on bringing down the Roman Catholic Church, its pope, and its wealthy status. (Oh, and Captain Smith? Jesuit.) The Jesuits were desperate to create a centralized banking system in America. It was a way to expand their wealth by getting America needlessly involved in major wars. (Just think about how rapidly World War I approached after the Titanic sank.)

Let's also note that it was the Irish Jesuit priest, Father Francis Browne, who captured the last photographic images of the Titanic before she left Queenstown, Ireland (her final port-of-call). One image in particular shows Captain Smith peering over the bridge. Could these two men have met for a private discourse before the ship set sail? Certainly. Critics and conspiracy theorists cite the following Jesuit oath as an explanation as to why Smith might've been so easy for the Order to manipulate:

​I should regard myself as a dead body, without will or intelligence, as a little crucifix which is turned about unresistingly at the will of him who holds it as a staff in the hands of an old man, who uses it as he requires it, and as it suits him best. — R. W. Thompson, The Footprints of the Jesuits, Hunt and Eaton, p. 54.

In other words, if Smith was given the order to sink the ship, he might've viewed himself as powerless and already a member of the deceased. But could he be so heartless, so lacking in compassion for the 1,500 other lives that were taken that night? Could anyone be that ruthless, that driven by greed?

Honestly, I can't say for certain that the Titanic was sank as part of a cruel scheme enacted by power-hungry people. But damn, there is quite some compelling evidence to suggest so. The 700 who survived, 1500 who died, and all of their loved ones deserved better. They deserved answers for this unfathomable tragedy, and after two international inquests, they never really got them.

All I can say is: Follow the money...

References

Titanic's Last Secrets: The Further Adventures of Shadow Divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler by Brad Matsen

The Wreck of the Titan by Morgan Robertson