During a briefing at Blockhouse 34 of the Cape Canaveral Missile Test Annex in 1962, three of the most important men in the history of American space exploration were photographed sitting in the front row, President John F. Kennedy, who had promised that man would land on the moon by the end of the 1960s, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who would later serve as President during some of the most important missions to outer space, and Kurt Debus, the first ever Director of the Kennedy Space Centre, who previously served as an Staffelrottenführer in the SS and a key architect in the Nazi V2 Rocket Project, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of people.
A photo of the three men, Johnson, Debus and Kennedy (left to right)
By May 1945, the Third Reich was in pieces. With the Führer dead, many high ranking Nazis and military officers, fearing Allied capture for their part in war crimes, including the Holocaust, either committed suicide or fled to South America. Most notably, Martin Bormann, Nazi Party Minister, Joseph Goebbels, Reichminister of Propaganda and Chancellor, and Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler all committed suicide in the final days of the war or in the weeks following, whilst Josef Mengele, a physician and anthropologist, specialising in human experimentation at Auschwitz, and Adolf Eichmann, a high ranking Party Member and Government Official, fled to Argentina, with the latter of the two being captured and executed in 1961 for his role in designing the Holocaust.
However, SS Sturmbannführer Wernher von Braun was less worried than most. In fact, he was bordering on confident, having approached the United States directly with his location, patiently and calmly waiting for their arrival. As a key architect behind the V2 Rocket, Braun was confident that his knowledge would be useful to the United States Government. As predicted, his captors gave him a warm welcome.
Braun (centre, civilian clothes) photographed with Wehrmacht Generals, such as Walter Dornberger, Friedrich Olbricht and Heinz Brandt in March 1941
What was more surprising, however, that this was occurring all across the collapsing Third Reich and during the years of occupation by the Allies. Whilst the Second World War had concluded, the Cold War was beginning to brew, and the Americans were determined on getting the upper hand against the Soviet Union. In all, over 1,500 Nazi Scientists were extracted from Germany between 1945 and 1962, in order to work on the American Space Programme, including Braun and the aforementioned Debus. Whilst Braun had handed himself over to the Americans, other scientists had to be found and extracted. These missing scientists were compiled in a list that, in an unsuccessful effort to dispose of evidence, was flushed down the toilet.
The operation, Operation Paperclip, was named after the paperclips that they would attach to the files, indicating they contained classified information such as Nazi affiliation or suspected war crimes and that all these should be overlooked in the name of advancing American science. For instance, Braun had overseen an SS Operation that involved forced labour at concentration camps.
A group of Rocket Scientists at Fort Bliss, Texas
The United States was not the only one involved in this practice. Whilst the British and French did not have the resources to exfiltrate German scientists without kidnapping or stealing patents, the Soviets used other more brutal methods in order to get the information they needed, such as bribery and forced relocation. The US method was the most controversial, however, offering a clean slate, the willing relocation of entire families and US citizenship.
Naturally, this massive influx of Germans into the United States raised a lot of eyebrows in the media. In response, the government did what every politician learns not to do on day 1 and told the truth. Immediately, there was mass public outcry, from influential figures such as Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The first page of a transcription of a protest telegram about Operation Paperclip sent to Harry S. Truman by the Council Against Intolerance In America
Many criticised that the victims of these mens atrocities in the Holocaust struggled greatly to get US Citizenship, ultimately to often get denied whilst the men who perpetrated the Holocaust got a fast track. In addition, there were also those who criticised the fact that former Nazis were now in Government positions, from an aspect of national security. However, as Cold War tensions grew, the argument that these scientists were necessary to combat the Soviet threat grew increasingly stronger.
Braun’s work at NASA involved getting the first American Satellite into orbit after the Soviet Sputnik, as well as the creation of the Saturn V rocket, which helped man land on the Moon. The work of other scientists involved in Paperclip ended up creating the jet engine and advanced pharmaceuticals research, but also developed chemical weapons such as Agent Orange, well known for its use in the Vietnam War.
Braun and Debus in front of Saturn 500F
Whilst these advances in science allowed the US Government to brand paperclip as success, hindsight casts doubt on this judgement. Whilst many minds taken to America in Paperclip were seen as geniuses, such as Braun, many were just your average Joe, who, upon contract completion, either returned to Germany or went to normal civilian life, assimilating amongst the populous. The ethical questions about bringing in scientists from such an evil regime to work on projects of national security still do not have full conclusive answers. However, it is undeniable that these men, no matter how abhorrent and evil their past was, changed our understanding of the universe at large.
On May 2nd, 1945, the 77th and 307th Infantry Division alongside the remnants of the 96th and 381st looked up at the intimidating Maeda Escarpment on the island of Okinawa, known to the soldiers as Hacksaw Ridge, a 400 foot cliff which was a natural barrier to a series of trenches, tunnels and fortifications set up by the Imperial Japanese Forces. The climb up Hacksaw Ridge would determine the outcome of the Battle of Okinawa.
A photo of Hacksaw Ridge
By April of 1945, the Empire of Japan was on the ropes. With all their allies in the Axis Powers out of the picture, with Mussolini dead at a service station and Hitler cowering in the Führerbunker, the Japanese were the last members of the Axis with their homeland intact. Facing increasing partisan activity from the Chinese, causing massive losses on the front, and the United States having captured almost every island of theirs in the Pacific, including Iwo Jima a month prior, the last obstacle between the Americans and mainland Japan was the small island of Okinawa.
Located just 563km (350 miles) off the coast of Kyushu island, the southern most part of mainland Japan, Okinawa was a 1,207km² island, home to a vast amount of naval and air bases that would be useful in the event of an invasion of mainland Japan by the United States. Despite the fact that the 10th Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr, and the 5th Fleet, overseen by Admiral Raymond Spruance, vastly outnumbered the Japanese forces on Okinawa, the Japanese had come prepared.
Map of Japanese Army positions on Okinawa
Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima of the Japanese 32nd Army stationed only what was necessary in other parts of the island, focusing the majority of his forces in the south, due to its irregular and hilly terrain, opting to build a vast complex of tunnels, trenches and fortifications. By April, they had constructed 96km (60 miles) of tunnels, enough to accommodate the entire 32nd Army and everything it needed to fight against the Americans. In order to prevent the Americans from getting any supplies of their own, command ordered the massacre of every livestock animal on the island and that the civilians and soldiers live off sweet potatoes instead of the traditional rice.
By now, the Japanese fighting doctrine of Fumeiyo Yorimo Shi, or Death Before Dishonour, had really been set in stone, with many Japanese soldiers, airmen and naval vessels doing suicide runs against American forces. With the infantry, “Banzai attacks”, in which mass numbers Japanese infantry would run at American forces with bayonets screaming “Tenno Heika Banzai” meaning “Long live the Emperor” had become common place. Planes would often fly into American naval vessels, in what were dubbed Kamikaze attacks, named after the Japanese term for “divine wind”, which dates back to at least the 13th century.
A GIF of a Kamikaze aircraft crashing into a US Warship in May 1945
On March 25th, 1945, the US Navy began shelling the island in a week long bombardment in order to soften up defences and support mine clearing. The next day, US Marines landed in the archipelago of Kerama Retto, rooting out Japanese forces there over the next five days, with its capture providing a sheltered anchorage for ships attacked by Kamikaze strikes. Eventually, the full battle began on April 1st, known as L-Day. However, the beach head was formed relatively easily, due to the fact that there was literally no Japanese resistance at the beaches that they landed at.
Having eventually secured a decent chunk of the island, with 60,000 US Troops having landed, they eventually encountered opposition in the North and South. Whilst the North was very easily taken care of, the South, where all the fortifications were, was a bloodbath. Americans would often advance into carefully prepared Japanese killing zones where they were slaughtered in their hundreds by concealed machine guns and mortars. Their idea for an offensive would involve mass artillery shelling of Japanese positions before advancing towards the Japanese pillboxes, which often included the use of flamethrowers against Japanese positions. However, this strategy lead to little success, due to the Japanese remaining sheltered in their fortified tunnels, and caused more bloodshed on both sides, as the Japanese would often launch night attacks after Americans had captured positions. Eventually, the battle reached a stalemate on the Shuri Line, a heavily fortified area located near Shuri Castle.
Meanwhile, Operation Ten-Go went ahead, a one way suicide mission by the Japanese, dispatching the Yamato, the largest battleship ever constructed, to counter offensives by the US Navy on Japanese infantry positions. It was spotted before it could reach Okinawa and was sunk, along side 5 of its escort ships and the destruction of 100 Japanese fighters, largely in Kamikaze attacks, by an American carrier force, which only lost 10 fighters in comparison. It demonstrated US air superiority and served as a great anti-climax to the largest battleship to ever be made.
A photo of the Yamato being attacked
Despite the stalemate and consistent bloodshed, Buckner refused to change his tactics, much to the surprise of both US Army high command and the Japanese. Whilst a somewhat successful counter offence was launched by the Japanese after his refusal to change tactics, they still lost 7,000 men in doing so. This allowed Buckner’s forces to gain the upper hand and gain back half a mile of land
During the stalemate on the island, a combat medic known as Desmond Doss served at Hacksaw Ridge, managing to rescue hundreds of men from the rain of fire without being armed with a single weapon due to his Christian beliefs. He was awarded the Medal of Honour, of which Truman said “I’m proud of you. You really deserve this. I consider this a greater honour than being president.” Doss passed away in 2006 due to breathing complications and his memory was immortalised in the 2016 Mel Gibson Film “Hacksaw Ridge”, in which Doss is played by Andrew Garfield.
Desmond Doss receiving the Medal of Honour
Over the next few months, the situation became progressively more dire for the Japanese. Whilst spring rain had slowed the American advance even more than before, Nazi Germany had surrendered and more forces from Europe were now available. In a desperate effort to maintain control over the island, mass Kamikaze strikes were ordered against American Vessels, including the USS Bunker Hill and the USS Enterprise, knocking both vessels out of the war.
Eventually, the Shuri Line became untenable by late May. The Japanese began organising a retreat in stages to the Kiyan Peninsula, the southern most point of the island. Starting on May 24th, the Japanese slowly retreated down the island towards the peninsula. Despite the death of Buckner on the battlefield during an artillery strike, making him the highest ranked US Military officer killed in action during WW2, the entire Japanese garrison was massacred to a man, with a little over 7,000 troops surrendering to the Americans out of the 110,000 stationed on Okinawa before the battle. Out of shame, Ushijima committed Seppuku or more commonly referred to as Harakiri, a traditional Samurai form of suicide via disembowelment, on June 21st. The military garrison on Okinawa had also used much of the civilian population as human shields and convinced many of them to commit suicide or simply killed them, in order to cover up their atrocities perpetrated on the island, saying that the Americans would do worse. The Americans too lost many men in the battle of Okinawa, leading them to question if a mainland invasion of Japan would simply cost more lives, possibly influencing the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan 2 months later.
US Marine Corps plane flying over the razed capital city of Okinawa
When we went to Nohra, […] we took a day trip into Buchenwald. […]It was just unbelievable to see. You couldn’t—there was so much of it, you couldn’t grasp at all. We just see these people standing, you see the bodies. You see the ashes. You see the ditches. It’s just—I can’t really describe it to tell you, you know, how horrendous it was to see these people treated like animals. You might see even worse than that.
Andrew Kiniry, 45th Evacuation Hospital, describing when the 3rd Army liberated Buchenwald
As the allies advanced from the West and the Soviets from the east, many expected to see the remnants of training camps or POW camps. What they found was beyond their wildest nightmares.
What they found were thousands upon thousands of men, women and children, all on the brink of starving to death, who had been left abandoned in fences like cattle. Not only were these people but specific groups of people. Some were disabled, some were gay, some were slavs. But the most notable among these groups of people were the Jews. The soldiers thought they had seen the worst of it but they were very wrong.
A group of child prisoners at Auschwitz
They found large gas chambers, in which the prisoners would be put inside, under the pretence of having a shower to cleanse themselves. Then, Zyklon B, a pesticide, would be poured in through the showers. Deaths could take anywhere between 3 minutes to 30. The bodies were then dragged out and burnt in ovens nearby. The specific targeting of Jews was called Germany’s “Final Solution”, which involved the eradication of the Jewish population from Europe. This was known as the Holocaust, but many Jews today prefer to call it the Shoah.
Over 5.7 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Others killed included 2-3million Soviet POWs, 1.9 million Poles, 1.5 million Romani, 250,000 disabled people, 170,000 Freemasons, 25,000 Slovenes, 15,000 homosexuals, 5,000 Jehovahs witnesses, 7,000 Spanish Republicans as well as countless others. Around half of the Jewish deaths were attributed to the gas chambers, whilst the rest were due to forced labour in the camps, starvation in the camps and ghettos as well as mass shootings, most notably by the Einsatzgruppen, a death squad that tailed the Wehrmacht in their march east.
Upon discovery of the concentration camps, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, told his men to film the horrors they encountered. The film reels were then compiled into a 1 hour long documentary, shown as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials and the Trial of Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, after his capture in 1961
Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses – because somewhere down the track of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened
Dwight D. Eisenhower speaking to his men about the Concentration Camps
Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, George Patton and American forces at Ohrdruf concentration camp, a part of the Buchenwald network
The survivors were liberated, many only to find that their homes had been repossessed. Many Jews sought shelter in Palestine whilst others stayed in Europe, where persecution still occurs to this day. To this day, people still deny these events happened, either that the statistics are overestimates or that such things never occurred and is simply a victim complex made by Jews, despite the countless amount of evidence recorded not just by the Allies and Soviets but by the Germans themselves. Many cite the Holocaust as the greatest humanitarian tragedy in history.
By Februrary, 1943, the Wehrmacht had just suffered a great loss at the Battle of Stalingrad, in which German forces had just suffered 800,000 casualties and the hands of the Red Army. With German Morale low, Dr Joseph Goebbels, Reichminister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, took to the stage of the Berlin Sportpalast to deliver a speech that would change the German attitude to the war.
A photo of the rally on February 18th, the banner reading “Totaler Krieg – Kürzester Krieg” or “Total War – Shortest War” in English.
The German nation is fighting for everything it has. We know that the German people are defending their holiest possessions: their families, women and children, the beautiful and untouched countryside, their cities and villages, their two thousand year old culture, everything indeed that makes life worth living. […] Total war is the demand of the hour. […] The danger facing us is enormous. The efforts we take to meet it must be just as enormous. […] I ask you: Do you want total war? […] I ask you: Is your confidence in the Führer greater, more faithful and more unshakable than ever before? Are you absolutely and completely ready to follow him wherever he goes and do all that is necessary to bring the war to a victorious end? […] Now, people rise up and let the storm break loose!
The applause that ruptured from the hall after this was enormous, with chorus’ of Sieg Heil and chants of “Führer command, we follow!” Nazi banners are raised high. Little do they know, the German people just signed their own death sentence.
As winter set in on the Western Front, the war was not looking great for Germany. With almost all of France liberated, the Italians firmly losing and the Soviets at the gates of Warsaw, Hitler needed a miracle in order to win the war. His miracle would come in the same plan he conducted four years prior.
Map of the war by December 1944
The largely undefended and heavily wooded Ardennes region of Belgium and France began to look promising for Hitler once again. Having initially invading France in 1940 using the same area as a breakthrough point, Hitler planned to push a surprise attack through the area, cutting off most of the Commonwealth forces in the Netherlands, forcing them into another Dunkirk style evacuation. Many questioned the validity of the plan. Whilst Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Wehrmacht High Command, was in fully support of the plan, many others, such as Field Marshals Gerd von Rundstedt and Walter Model as well as General Siegfried Westphal, were much more hesitant, fearing that the attack might not even reach the Meuse River. Despite their concerns, they kept silent for fear of being accused of defeatism, which, by this point, had become a crime in Nazi Germany.
Nicknamed Operation Wacht Am Rhine, after a famous Prussian patriotic anthem, every member of high command involved in the offensive was sworn to secrecy at the threat of death, with regimental commanders only being told a day before the attack. In order to not alert American Forces, soldiers used the cover of night in order to advance from town to town, covering up their vehicles when daybreak came. Complete radio silence was enforced during the whole operation. This secrecy had clearly worked, as the Allies were not expecting an attack in any capacity, with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery of the 21st Army Group confident that the Germans would not counter attack. Whilst the Germans were vastly disadvantaged, in terms of manpower and resources, they weren’t exactly fighting the cream of America’s crop. The defence force in the Ardennes was only seven divisions, most of whom were either new to combat or had been redeployed as an in-work vacation.
American Troops on deployment in the Ardennes
Despite the lack of fuel that was desperately needed in an operation through the terrain of the Ardennes, the 6th Panzer Army, commanded by Waffen-SS General Sepp Dietrich, the 5th Panzer Army, lead by General Hasso von Manteuffel, and Erich Brandenberger’s 7th Army, began the assault on December 16th, attacking the North, Centre and South respectively, with the Panzer forces set to capture Antwerp and the 7th protecting the flank from American General George S. Patton’s 3rd Army. Dietrich’s main objective was to capture the key bridges over the Meuse within the first 24 hours of the assault, before an advance onto Antwerp, whilst Manteuffel was to capture Brussels. Before these objectives could be reached, however, St. Vint and Bastogne had to be secured first, as it was crucial for maintaining supplies.
The 1st SS Panzer Division of the 6th Panzer Army was given special care by Hitler, as it contained the most elite troops of the Waffen-SS, including the Peiper Unit, consisting of nearly 5,000 Waffen-SS troops with 800 of their vehicles commanded by SS Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant-Colonel) Joachim Peiper. The full assault was preceded by Operation Grief, in which a brigade commanded by SS Standartenführer (Colonel) Otto Skorzeny adopted American customs, dressed in American uniforms and infiltrated American territory in order to capture bridges, by tampering with road signs, cutting telephone wires and minor acts of sabotage. American forces became so paranoid of encountering one of Skorzeny’s men that they distrusted everyone in an American Uniform, even holding General Omar Bradley, commander of Twelfth Army Group, captive for a short period.
Whilst Dietrich’s Army began with an artillery barrage of American positions, Manteuffel’s fighting force did not go in guns blazing, instead opting for the element of surprise. Despite this disobeying Hitler’s orders of the artillery barrage, the tactic worked well across the board, with many American forces retreating out of fear, with one officer recounting his men wetting themselves and vomiting. The heavy snow also meant that the Allies could not use their superior air power on the battlefield.
A German machine gunner in the Ardennes, December 1944
Despite the vast and quick progress, this was not consistent across the whole German front. Lieutenant Lyle Bouck of the American 99th Division, for instance, valiantly fended off German forces for the whole day with only 18 men, killing or wounding 400 Germans whilst losing only one man. This vexed Peiper so much that he ordered his unit to advance hard on the enemy position, including into a minefield, losing 5 tanks in the process. Meanwhile, the 326th Volks Grenadier Division advanced north, attempting to cut off American reinforcements but were sabotaged by their own artificial moonlight made out of bouncing spotlights off clouds, which silhouetted them in the horizon, where they were picked off like sitting ducks. In addition, the weather also meant decreased visibility and movement ofr their vehicles, slowing the advance significantly.
Despite these setbacks, German High command was satisfied with initial progress on the first day. However, due to the slower advance, Eisenhower was given ample time to move reinforcements to the front, including the famous 101st Airborne Division, to defend the town of Bastogne and block the German Advance. Meanwhile, Peiper’s unit ignored the orders of Hitler due to muddy paths, instead capturing different towns, where they would massacre POWs and civilians during the Maldemy Massacre, wherein 84 civilians and POWS were executed.
A photo of dead US Soldiers in the aftermath of Maldemy
As casualties mounted on the front, especially in the besieged town of Bastogne, an emergency meeting was called between Patton, Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, who ordered that the 7th Army cover for Patton’s position in the south, whilst his 3rd Army moved north to relieve the 101st Airborne and the 28th Infantry Divisions. Even with continuous artillery fire that prevented the Germans from capturing the city, they managed to encircle the 101st and 28th. The Germans were incredibly confident with a potential victory at Bastogne. Despite not having the strength to destroy the defenders of Bastogne, General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz of the XLVII Panzer Corps sent a demand for surrender to General Anthony McAuliffe, commander of the Bastogne Garrison and Artillery Commander of the 101st, simply responded with the following.
To the German Commander.
NUTS!
The American Commander.
McAuliffe’s response to Lüttwitz’s demand for surrender
Eventually, the snow began to ease up, allowing for Allied air superiority to make a comeback, conducting a massive supply drop onto the besieged troops at Bastogne, whilst fighter bombers proved extremely effective at breaking up German attacks. Despite this, Patton strill struggled to breach the German encirclement, repeatedly vexed by blown bridges, activities done by American engineers in order to slow the Germans earlier in the battle.
German Chief of the General Staff, Heinz Guderian, urged Hitler to withdraw forces from the Ardennes, citing it as a massive failure and to put more supplies into the East. However, German forces had just captured Celles, the furthest west of the advance, which buoyed Hitler’s spirits, and so the struggle went on.
Despite this achievement, supplies were running low, to the point where not even a full withdrawal was feasible. When American forces recaptured Celles, they found starved and exhausted Panzer troops greeting them. Runstedt now had to inform Hitler that the plan was a mass failure, to which Hitler, in a fit of rage, dismissed him. Eventually, Patton relieved Bastogne in the most Patton way possible, via a reckless charge from the north, accompanied by storms of napalm.
In a moment of delirium, Hitler commanded that no effort be spared in crushing Bastogne, having forgotten the objective of Antwerp entirely. In attack after attack, more and more lives were lost to Allied Air Superiority and artillery fire, with the Germans eventually giving up and retreating by January 11th of 1945. The Battle of the Bulge, which it was later dubbed, served as the last major offensive operation by the Third Reich, which only delayed the inevitable and now it was a desperate retreat back to Berlin.
American forces marching with an M1 Sherman in the Battle of the Bulge
John F. Kennedy was, in 1941, a young up-and-comer in the political and law world. His father, Joseph Kennedy, was appointed as the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom by Franklin Roosevelt. Once World War 2 had begun, Joe spoke on this, saying that “Democracy is finished in England. It may be here [in the United States]” and was forced to resign his position due to the controversy around this statement. Due to his father’s position in government, the young John travelled all across Europe, accompanying his father on diplomatic missions during the lead up to the war. During this time, he wrote his thesis for Harvard, on Neville Chamberlains appeasement methods with Adolf Hitler. The thesis was published and, as one of the first sources of information about these events, quickly became a best-seller. Kennedy was adamant that the US must intervene in the war, opposing his father’s beliefs.
A photo of the young JFK in 1941
He attempted to join the Officer Candidate School, but wasn’t allowed in due to his physical health, which may have included the chronic back pain that he may have had since he was very young. Eventually, he was assigned to the United States Naval Reserve, commissioned to ensign in October of 1941.
Once Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Japanese, the US was thrust into World War 2. In January of 1942, Kennedy was assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence field office in Charleston. Kennedy had wanted to command a Patrol Torpedo Boat but believed that he would be stopped from doing so due to his medical conditions. His father ended up falsifying medical records and convincing PT command that his son’s presence would bring good publicity. He completed his sixth months training and was assigned to the PT-101. Not wanting to be stuck in the Panama canal, Kennedy convinced the Massachusetts Senator to assign him to the South Pacific in order to get some real combat action. By April 1943, he had been assigned to the PT-109.
A model of the PT-109
The PT-109 was a 80 foot (20m) long patrol torpedo boat. It had 3 twelve cylinder, 1,500 horsepower engines, and had a top speed of 41 knots (76 km/h or 47 mph). It was fitted with four 21-inch torpedoes and a 20mm anti-aircraft gun and four .50 calibre machine guns but was not equipped with a radar. At the start of the ship’s deployment, it had a crew of 15:
Lieutenant and Commanding Officer John F. Kennedy
Executive Officer Leonard Jay Thom
Quartermaster, cook and signalman Edgar E. Mauer
Radioman John E. Maguire
Gunners Raymond Albert, Charles A. Harris, Harold W. Marney, Maurice L. Kowal, Edmund T. Drewitch, Leon E. Drawdy and William Johnston
Motor Mechanics Gerald E. Zinser and Patrick Henry McMahon
And Torpedomen Raymond L. Starkey and Andrew Jackson Kirksey
The crew of the PT-109. Top row left to right are Al Webb (friend and not a crew member) Leon E. Drawdy, Edgar E. Mauer, Edmund T. Drewitch, John E. Maguire. Bottom row left to right are Charles A. Harris, Maurice L. Kowal, Andrew J. Kirkesy, Leonard J. Thom, and John F. Kennedy.
In June of 1943, Drewitch had to be discharged after an injury occured when a depth charge was dislodged and landed on his bunk bed. Kowal and Drwady were both injured in July during an attack from Japanese Aircraft.
By the time of the 109’s final mission, there were 13 men aboard, as George H. R. Ross was assigned after his boat was destroyed and was an observer aboard the boat. A 37mm gun was lashed down to the front of the boat in August.
On the night of August 1st, fourteen PT boats, including the 109, were assigned to Kolombangra, an island in the middle of the Solomon islands, where 4 Japanese destroyers were alleged to appear, carrying food supplies and 900 Japanese soldiers to the Japanese Garrison on the island and were set to pass through that night. Their orders were to repel or block the Japanese advance to the island. 24 torpedoes were shot from 8 of the PTs and not one hit the convoy. The entire convoy arrived unscathed at the Naval Base in Kolombangra, due to attacks taking place at night and radio silence being enforced throughout the PTs
The region that the PTs were assigned. The naval base is stationed on the south of the island and was coming south through the Vella Gulf
At around 2:27 am, Kennedy spotted a Japanese destroyer, the Amagiri, returning from the base, heading north, straight at them. Kennedy decided to turn the boat to attack the destroyer with a torpedo and the newly mounted 37mm. Ross was assigned to the 37mm but he unfortunately suffered from night blindness, meaning that the could not effectively attack the boat. Within the next ten seconds, the 109 began to turn to the starboard side, with the Amagiri being commanded to match the turn.
The collision path of the two boats, graphics by Historigraph (YouTube)
After having made a sharp right turn to avoid a potential collision, the PT-109 was rammed by the Amagiri and split in half. A large fireball erupted from the 109, rising to around 100ft (30m) in the air. Some of the oil that had spilled from the boat had ignited the surface of the water. Kirksey and Marney were killed instantly, whilst McMahon was burnt from being thrown into the flaming water.
A drawing of the crash
The 11 survivors clung to the side of the bow, that had not yet gone under water. They drifted south, down the Vella Gulf. Eventually, Kennedy decided that they needed to reach land before another destroyer found them or the bow sunk. The two largest islands wither side of them, Kolombangara and Ghizo were, at the time, occupied by Japanese forces. Kennedy decided to go to the small Plum Pudding Island, about 3.5 miles (5.6km) south west of their position. Unfortunately, McMahon was unable to swim, as well as two others who had been badly injured during the crash. Kennedy decided to make a raft out of a spare piece of drift wood, broken off from the boat. He then loaded two of the injured men onto the raft, whilst he hoisted McMahon onto his back and swam to Plum Pudding Island. They started the swim at 2pm on August 2 and lasted 4 hours.
Eventually, Kennedy with McMahon on his back reached the northern tip of the island, with the other 9 survivors arriving a little behind. The nearby American naval base at Rendova had received word of the 109’s crash but due to the size of the fireball reported believed that there would be no survivors so no rescue attempt was made. However, American coast watchers on Kolombangara had seen the wreckage of the bow drift down the gulf, who sent out the message to look out for any survivors
Both Kennedy and Ross swam out relatively far off the coast of the island on separate occasions. Both times came up fruitless. The crew had now been stranded for 2 days and were beginning to get hungry and thirsty. Kennedy organised the group to swim a mile (1.6km) south to the larger island of Olasana in search of supplies. Upon arrival, there was no fresh water and nothing to eat but unripe coconuts. That night, the weather worsened, meaning that they could not travel to another island in search of supplies
The next day, Kennedy and Ross swam half a mile over to Naru Island, finding an abandoned wreckage of a Japanese Barge upon their arrival, where there was food, water and other various supplies, including a small canoe. Meanwhile, a patrol boat of Solomon Natives, on the orders of the coast watchers, were investigating the barge from the water and saw Kennedy and Ross aboard the island, heavily sunburnt. Believing them to be the survivors of the barge, they decided to turn away from Naru Island, heading north to Olasana for some water. They passed by the beach, spotting the rest of the heavily sunburnt crew, believing them to also be Japanese. However, Thom’s distinct blonde beard made them realise that they were not Japanese.
The scouts informed the coast watch of the survivors, who immediately organised food and provisions to be sent over to the crew. A torpedo boat was then deployed to rescue the crew and brought them back to the base on Rendova. Battered, bruised but breathing, the crew had made it home.
The much more seriously injured crew were treated while the rest were reassigned to other PT boats. Kennedy would later go on to tell this story of survival whilst campaigning for Senator of Massachusetts and President of the United States.
A campaign parade for JFK’s 1960 Presidential Campaign
Amelia Earhart, one of, if not the most famous woman in the world. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a plane, the first time she was accompanied by 2 male pilots who flew the plane however the second time, in 1932, she flew solo and almost died multiple times but managed to make it over the course of just two days, only being the second person to do that trip. Just a reminder only this took place almost 30 years since the invention of flight. She flew from LA to Newark without refuelling, setting a world record for longest distance flown without refuelling once. She was also the first female pilot to complete a nonstop transcontinental flight. She was nicknamed the Babe of the Sky, and rightfully so, there was nothing she couldn’t do. That was until the fateful year of 1937.
A photo of Earhart in a cockpit
On May 21st 1937, Amelia Earhart took off with navigator Fred Noonan, a heavy drinker but very skilled aerial navigator, from Oakland, California in a modified twin engine Lockheed Electra L-10E. This was her second attempt, since her first was short lived after she crashed during her take off at Honolulu in Hawaii. If this mission was accomplished, she would be the first pilot, man or woman to circumnavigate the globe, not only boosting her already incredibly high popularity but also helping the finances of her family.
She, along with Noonan, were useless when it came to wireless code. This made her throw her CW Transmitter, a telegraph code key, off the flight, saying it would be “dead weight.” with just her and Noonan on board. They flew for 42 days, 2 days over their ETA for when they would finish. That date was July 2nd of 1937, at 10 am local time, when they prepped to leave Lae in New Guinea with full tanks of fuel, modified to carry 119.8 gallons instead of the usual 24 gallons, with only 7,000 miles until her final destination of California and a planned stop on Pacific Island of Howland, taking about 18 hours.
The Radio Operator at Lae, Harry Balfour, planned for him and Earhart to send transmissions to each other every hour, later noting that headwinds were stronger than thought to be that day, sending 3 transmissions of his findings, none of which appeared to be received. For those non aerial enthusiasts, like myself, high headwinds effect plane speed, gas consumption and length of flight.
Earhart’s previously blocked transmissions reported her speed, 140 knots or 161.1 miles per hour, and her altitude, 7,000 feet and that everything was fine. Her next transmission stated she had climbed 3,000 feet to 10,000 feet, believed to be to avoid cloud cover or mountains, but would also use up fuel. These transmissions, as I said earlier, were delayed but by this point, an experienced pilot such as Earhart would’ve noticed the headwinds by this point. As they neared the island, it is possible the plane was only on 97 gallons of fuel, which would get you about 1200 kilometres.
A ship next to Howland Island, called the Itasca, transmitted communications with Earhart. 14 hours and 15 minutes into the flight, Earhart sent a message to the Itasca about “cloudy weather” They were very close, so Earhart, in one of her last transmissions with the ship, said “We must be on you but cannot see you.” She then later said, “Gas is running low.” The final words heard from Amelia Earhart at 8:43 am are as follows “We are on the line 157, 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait.” The line 157, 337 is past Howland Island. She was also described as frantic in her final words.
As you probably guessed, Earhart never landed on Howland Island. As such, the Itasca search the waters northwest of the island. Soon, USS Colorado joined the search in the south and USS Lexington in the northeast. The ships search finished on July 18th. To this day, the Electra, Noonan and, most importantly, Earhart have never been found. Now, it’s time to get the tin foil hats, because it’s time to look into some theories as to what happened.
Theory #1
An image of the waters from 1937
The first is the most widely accepted and simple one, that the Electra ran out of fuel and crashed in the waters around Howland Island. Sceptics of this theory say that with that amount of fuel, the plane should’ve flown for 24 hours instead of Earhart’s recorded 20, but due to headwinds, it caused more fuel consumption and according to the Jet Propulsion Centre said her plane was out of fuel when she vanished. This was caused by the aforementioned headwinds and the 3,000 foot climb. The waters around Howland Island are 18,000 feet deep and in 2002, when Nauticos launched an investigation, searching a 2,000 square nautical mile radius, in 15 years, they found nothing, using sonar mapping to search the seabed floor.
Theory #2
An old photo of Nikumaroro
The second theory is that she became a castaway at Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro, which is only 350 nautical miles south from Howland. The island is along the 157, 337 line. Two years later, a British Colonial Officer, Gerald Gallagher, found campsite remains on Nikumaroro. He also found a sextant, a tool used to determine latitude and longitude on aircraft, and the remains of a skeleton of a human, which were analysed by physician, D.W. Hoodless, who determined they belonged to a man who was short, stocky and a of European background, which could be neither of the 2. Unfortunately, after this, the bones were disposed of, preventing DNA analysis in the future.
But, The International Group for Historical Aircraft Recovery, or Tighar for short, determined that it could belong to a just above average height woman of European descent. Amelia was 5’7”. The director of Tighar said that the reason that only partial bones were found there was because of the coconut crabs that live on the island, which have special claws designed for cracking, you guessed it, coconuts. They can also grow up to 3 feet long and are the largest anthropoids on land.
A photo of a coconut crab
He also saw a photo taken in 1937 from a British ship at Nikumaroro of, what appears to be, landing gear from Earhart’s plane. Several transmissions believed to be that of Earhart’s. we heard in the week following the incident and all of them coincided with low tide. Teenage Radio operator, Betty Klenck, heard on her shortwave radio, “This is Amelia Earhart. Help me!”, a female voice arguing with a male voice and “Water’s knee deep! Let me out!” She listened for 3 hours and recorded everything. Her father reported it to the coast guard, who didn’t pay attention to it, since this was happening all over the world in the days following the vanishing.
The director of Tighar found, in 1991, a partial rubber soul of a shoe, branded “CAT’S PAW RUBBER COMPANY USA”, the same type of shoe Earhart was wearing at the time of the flight and in a photo taken in Indonesia shortly before her disappearance. But the sole was a size 9, too big for Earhart’s 7.5. He also found a 19 inch by 23 inch plate of aluminium, believed to be from the tail of Earhart’s plane. However, veteran pilot, Elgen Long says otherwise, saying there is no chance of it being as such, and so did a Lockheed employee who made the Electra. Planes flew over Nikumaroro in search of Earhart and saw nothing on the island.
Theory #3
Another theory is from retired US Air Force Colonel, Rollin C. Reineck, that Earhart was in cahoots with the US Secret service. He states that Amelia had a plan B, that if she couldn’t find Howland Island, she was to land at the then Japanese occupied Marshall Islands, only being 800 miles away from Howland Island. This would let the US Air force scout the Marshall Islands under the guise of searching for Earhart. The citizens of the Marshall Islands say that they saw the Electra crash off the coast of their island. But the plan went south when they were found out by the Japanese and taken as POWs but released after the war. They then took on assumed names, Amelia’s was Irene Craigmile but married to become Irene Bolam. This is thought to be inconclusive, as the real Irene Bolam sued Rollin for the book he wrote on it and the resemblance between Bolam and Earhart is very weak.
An alternate timeline to this theory is that Noonan and Earhart we executed in the POW camps. A general met a group of US Marines in 1944, who were guarding a hangar with Earhart’s Electra inside on the formerly Japanese Island of Saipan. They then subsequently destroyed the plane. At the National Archives, an obscured image of Earhart and Noonan was found, but was proven to be taken in 1935 by two bloggers. Also, given the dire fuel situation, she wouldn’t be able to make it to the Marshalls.
The photo allegedly featuring the two
Theory #4
This brings us to our final theory, that Earhart was abducted by aliens. There is basically 0 evidence and the tinfoil hat I mentioned early is very tight on this one but an episode of Star Trek adapted the idea.
All this being said, until her Electra, Noonan’s and Earhart’s bodies or any conclusive evidence to where famous Aviator, Amelia Earhart, might be is found we will never truly know the answer.
Throughout the 1920s, stock prices in the United States were rising rapidly, driven largely by speculative investments. People were borrowing money in order to buy shares and stock in companies, and many believed the market would keep rising forever. The problem was that stock prices became vastly overinflated and disconnected from the actual value of the companies. In addition, unequal wealth distribution between the rich and poor was rife. While some were getting richer, the majority of workers weren’t seeing wages grow at the same pace. Additionally, industries like farming were struggling with overproduction and falling prices. The agricultural industry was hit especially hard by a series of droughts, further damaging the economy. With no regulations, banks were poorly managed and the system was vulnerable to mass withdrawals, which would become a problem when confidence in the market collapsed.
On October 22nd, 1929, also known as Black Tuesday, investors started to realise the market was overvalued. Stock prices began to fall rapidly. A panic began to set in, and many tried to sell their stocks all at once. This led to a market panic, and the New York Stock Exchange had to call in bankers to try to stabilise the situation. Despite their efforts, the market continued to tumble. On October 29th, now known as the infamous Black Tuesday, the stock market completely collapsed. There was an overwhelming wave of selling, with nearly 16 million shares traded. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a stock market index of prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States, lost 12% of its value on that single day.
A graph of the value of Dow Jones
This began the Great Depression, a severe and prolonged economic downturn that began in 1929 and lasted through most of the 1930s, becoming the longest and deepest economic depression of the 20th century. It affected not just the United States but many countries around the world, with devastating social, political, and economic consequences. Unemployment reached unforeseen highs, many families lost their homes and political instability was rife.
In the United States, Democrat Candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced the New Deal, a series of programs aimed at providing relief, recovery, and reform. These included public works projects, banking reforms, Social Security, and labour protections. While the New Deal did not end the Great Depression, it helped alleviate some of its worst effects and reshaped the role of government in the economy. Roosevelt is largely considered to be one of the greatest Presidents in US History and fundamentally remodelled the Democratic Party into what it is today.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States (1933-1945)
In the United Kingdom, the Great Depression lead to the rise of Keynesianism, a belief that during times of economic downturn, governments should step in and increase public spending to stimulate demand. This idea became a cornerstone of post-depression economic policy. This was a system that ran strong in the United Kingdom up until 1979 and the radical neoliberalism of Margaret Thatcher.
Clement Attlee, Labour Prime Minister (1945-1951)
In Germany, the Depression led to the rise of the Nazi Party, an extremist far right faction that believed that the previous democratic Weimar Government had led Germany to failure, led by Adolf Hitler. He capitalised on the widespread discontent and promised to restore Germany’s economy. He then used state-led economic programmes to reduce unemployment and revive the economy, whilst also putting much of the blame for the crash on the Jews as a scapegoat. As a result, anti-semitism was widespread in Germany, leading to the ultimate acceptance of state sponsored anti-semitism, such as Kristallnacht and eventually the Holocaust. Hitler later went on to start World War 2, which lead to over 70 million people dying.
Alcohol had long been a central part of social and cultural life in the United States. From the earliest days of European settlement, it was widely consumed across all levels of society. Colonial settlers brought beer and spirits with them across the Atlantic, and by the time of the American Revolution, alcohol was already deeply embedded in daily life. Even prominent figures such as George Washington were known to provide their troops with regular rations of alcohol. By the 19th century, consumption had reached particularly high levels. Americans drank significantly more alcohol per person than they do today, with whiskey, beer, and cider forming a routine part of everyday life.
A group of Americans drinking in a bar in the 19th Century
However, this widespread consumption increasingly became a source of concern. Excessive drinking was associated with poverty, domestic violence, and declining workplace discipline, particularly in rapidly industrialising urban centres. Much of the early opposition to alcohol emerged from religious and social reform movements. Among the most prominent was the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1874. Its members, many of them women affected by the consequences of alcohol abuse within the home, campaigned for temperance, initially advocating moderation, and increasingly promoting complete abstinence. Their activism took the form of public demonstrations, petitions, and organised campaigns aimed at closing saloons and restricting access to alcohol.
Over time, the movement expanded beyond moral persuasion into political action. A key turning point came with the rise of the Anti-Saloon League in the late 19th century. Unlike earlier reform groups, the League focused almost exclusively on prohibition and operated with a highly organised and strategic approach. Under the leadership of Wayne Wheeler, it became one of the most effective lobbying organisations in American history. Wheeler and the League built broad support by tailoring their arguments to different audiences. To industrialists, alcohol was presented as a threat to productivity and efficiency. To workers, it was framed as a social ill that worsened living conditions. Religious groups were mobilised on moral grounds, while others were persuaded through appeals to public order and national strength. This flexibility allowed the movement to unite groups with otherwise very different political and social views.
A photo of Wayne Wheeler
By the early 20th century, prohibition had become a major national issue. At the same time, broader developments were helping to shift opinion further in its favour. When the United States entered the World War I in 1917, temporary restrictions were placed on alcohol production in order to conserve grain for the war effort. Anti-German sentiment also played a role, as many breweries were owned or associated with German-American communities, making beer in particular a target of suspicion and criticism. Another significant factor was economic. Alcohol taxes had long provided a substantial portion of federal revenue. However, the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, which introduced a federal income tax, reduced the government’s reliance on alcohol-related income. This removed one of the major financial obstacles to prohibition.
With public support growing and political resistance weakening, the movement achieved its ultimate goal. In 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified, banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors across the United States. Its provisions were enforced through the Volstead Act, which defined the scope of the ban and established mechanisms for enforcement. Prohibition was introduced as a solution to a range of social problems, from crime and poverty to public health and morality. Yet almost immediately, it became clear that enforcement would be far more difficult than its supporters had anticipated. Despite the legal ban, demand for alcohol did not disappear. Instead, it moved underground, setting the stage for a new and often more dangerous phase in American social and political life.
By the autumn of 1918, the German Empire was collapsing. The great Spring Offensive, Germany’s final attempt to win the war before American troops arrived in overwhelming numbers, had failed. Since August, the Allies had launched what became known as the Hundred Days Offensive, forcing the exhausted German Army steadily backwards along the Western Front. Food shortages were crippling the civilian population, Allied naval blockades had strangled the German economy for years, and strikes and protests were breaking out across the country. Even senior German generals, including Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, accepted that military victory was now impossible.
(L-R) Hindenburg, Kaiser Wilhelm and Ludendorff discussing military strategy
Germany’s allies fell one after another. Bulgaria surrendered in September, the Ottoman Empire signed an armistice in October, and Austria-Hungary began to disintegrate as its many nationalities declared independence. Germany now stood alone. In late October, sailors at the naval base of Kiel mutinied rather than sail on what they considered a suicidal final mission against the Royal Navy. The rebellion spread rapidly across Germany, with workers’ and soldiers’ councils taking control of major cities. Faced with the prospect of revolution, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated on 9 November and fled across the border into the neutral Netherlands. That same day, Germany was proclaimed a republic, with Friedrich Ebert becoming Chancellor and leading a new democratic government determined to end the war as quickly as possible.
The new government requested an immediate armistice. To negotiate it, a German delegation led by politician Matthias Erzberger travelled through the devastated battlefields of northern France before arriving in the Forest of Compiègne. There, deep in the woods, stood the private railway carriage of Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Supreme Allied Commander. It was an intentionally symbolic setting. Germany, which had dictated harsh peace terms to defeated Russia just months earlier, now found itself on the receiving end.
A carriage of the same design on display in a museum. The original carriage was destroyed by the SS in 1940
When the German delegation entered Foch’s railway carriage during the early hours of 8 November, they hoped that President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points might provide the basis for a relatively moderate peace. Instead, Foch bluntly asked what they wanted before presenting them with a lengthy list of Allied demands. There would be virtually no negotiation. Germany was ordered to evacuate Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Alsace-Lorraine, withdraw all forces east of the Rhine, and allow Allied occupation of bridgeheads on the river. Thousands of artillery pieces, machine guns, aircraft, locomotives and railway wagons were to be handed over, while the powerful German High Seas Fleet was to be interned. The Allied naval blockade would remain in place until a permanent peace treaty had been signed.
The German delegates considered refusing the terms. They knew they were severe and feared the reaction at home. Yet the alternative was equally bleak. The German Army was exhausted, revolution was spreading through the country, and the Allies were preparing to continue their offensive if negotiations failed. With no realistic prospect of improving their position, Erzberger signed the armistice shortly after 5 a.m. on 11 November 1918.
An illustration of the French and German delegations discussing the terms of surrender
Although the agreement had been signed, the fighting did not stop immediately. The ceasefire would not take effect until 11 a.m., giving armies six more hours of combat. Across the Western Front, artillery continued to fire, patrols continued to clash, and commanders launched attacks to improve their positions before the deadline. More than 10,000 men became casualties during those final hours, including around 2,700 killed. Among the last was the American soldier Henry Gunther, who charged a German machine-gun position just one minute before the armistice came into force and was shot dead at approximately 10:59 a.m.
Then, at exactly 11 o’clock on the morning of 11 November 1918 – the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month – the guns fell silent. After more than four years of industrialised warfare, the First World War had finally come to an end. The armistice did not bring lasting peace, however. It merely paused the fighting while diplomats prepared the Treaty of Versailles, whose controversial terms would reshape Europe and sow many of the grievances that contributed to the outbreak of the Second World War just two decades later.
RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat by the time of her construction in 1912. The second of three in a line of Olympic-class ocean liners, she had passenger accommodation described to be “of unrivalled extent and magnificence,” especially the first-class section, which contained a Grand Staircase, Turkish baths, a pool, and high-end dining, including the luxurious À la Carte Restaurant. Even third-class, despite being less luxurious than second or first-class, was still deemed in higher quality than its contemporary counterparts. White Star Line, the company that created the Olympic-class ships, stated that the class “as far as it is possible to do so, [is] designed to be unsinkable.”
An image of the Titanic setting sail from Southampton
Whilst it was common practice for many companies to claim their ships were unsinkable, White Star Line specifically highlighted the bulkhead system, which was designed in a way that the Titanic could stay afloat with any two adjoining out of its 16 main compartments open to the sea. In addition the height of the bulkhead deck above the water line in flooded condition was well above the requirements, and the vessel would have been able to float with 3 adjoining compartments flooded in 11 of 14 possible combinations. The subdivisions could be sealed from each other with cast iron watertight doors.
The ship, under the command of Captain Edward John Smith, set off on its maiden voyage from Southampton on April 10th, 1912. Almost immediately, the ships bad luck began, when she nearly collided with the SS City of New York while departing the harbour, leading to her departure being delayed by 45 minutes. Eventually, she arrived in Cherbourg, France, to take on more passengers before once again stopping in Queenstown, Ireland, before departing to her final destination of New York City on April 11th. By the time she left the shores of Ireland, she had 892 crew members on board and 1,320 passengers. Among her passengers was Joseph Bruce Ismay, the chairman and managing director of White Star Line, and Thomas Andrews, the managing director of the company that built the Titanic in Ireland. One crew member of note was Harold Bride, one of the wireless operators. The passengers of first-class consisted of some of the richest people in the world whilst third-class consisted of many immigrants seeking a new life in the land of opportunity. Many of these people would not make it to shore.
Last image of the Titanic, taken off the coast of Ireland
Over the next few days, multiple warnings were issued regarding icebergs in the North Atlantic. The last one, on April 14th, was from the German Ship Amerika at around 13:45, and was relayed to Captain Smith by Bride, who claimed that the note was immediately discarded by the bridge without reading. Bride returned to the wireless room and began sending out messages from the passengers once more. At around 18:00, both Ismay and Andrews were in the first-class lounge and smoking rooms, where Ismay had allegedly been showing off the note regarding the iceberg warning. Ismay then retired to his quarters by 21:00 and went to bed. By 23:30, Bride was asleep and the primary operator, Jack Phillips, was operating the Marconi machine, made for radiotelegraphy. In order to receive messages from the distant Cape Race in Newfoundland, Phillips had the machine turned up to maximum volume. However, when the nearby SS Californian notified the Titanic of it stopping due to the ice fields, the high volume meant the message was received incredibly loudly by Phillips. He punched back a rude snarky message, telling the Marconi operator aboard the Californian to keep out of the signal. As most operators were in their mid-twenties, they were used to the friendly abuse they would send each other. The operator aboard the Californian, tired anyway, turned off the machine and went to bed.
Nine minutes later, with the cloudless night and a new moon, vision was limited when lookout Fredrick Fleet spotted an iceberg a mere 500 metres away from the Titanic‘s bow. Fleet cried “Iceberg, right ahead!” This message was quickly relayed to the bridge, who ordered that the Titanic change course towards the starboard side to avoid a head on collision. However, it had just managed to strike the ship below the waterline, breaching the front six compartments of the ship. One passenger is first-class described the noise as sounding “as though someone had drawn a giant finger along the side of the ship.” Around seven minutes after the collision, the crew were ordered to shut down the engines, which was standard procedure after a collision but they also feared that the cold water would combine with the high pressure steam and cause an explosion.
A diagram of the Titanic and its bulkheads. The green lines indicate the damaged areas
The stopping of the usual hum of the engines stirred many from their sleep, including Bride, Andrews and Ismay. Andrews left his quarters and went to investigate the damage sustained to the ship. He determined that at least five of the compartments had been breached by the iceberg, which was more than the ship could sustain and made him the first person to grasp the true severity of the situation. He directly reported this information to Captain Smith, who relayed this information to Bride and Phillips, telling them to send out calls for assistance upon his command. Ismay, who spoke to officers on deck, was informed that the ship had been struck but was not aware of the extent of the damage.
Meanwhile, the nearby Californian, that was closest ship to the Titanic, had its Marconi machine investigated by an officer. Whilst he knew some of morse code, he did not realise the machine was turned off so, when he didn’t hear anything from the other end, concluded that it was not worth checking again for the rest of the night. The Californian‘s Marconi machine was never checked again. When he joined the captain on deck, they observed the Titanic slow and eventually stop before the lights dimmed. When the captain raised concern, the officer explained that the lights were often dimmed on ocean liners in order to get the passengers to sleep and allow the service crew to get an early night in.
A map of the positions of ships in the vicinity of the Titanic
Meanwhile, Andrews informs Smith that the ship may sink within the next hour and a half. Smith then orders Bride and Phillips to begin sending out the distress signal, CQD. Shortly after this, Ismay spoke to Smith, who also warned him of the severity of the situation, whilst officers began to uncover the lifeboats and abandon ship. The crew began waking up passengers and ordering them to put on life jackets and come up to the deck. Many passengers, however, saw this as somewhat silly and took it as a joke to just get in the lifeboats for half an hour or so. The band came on board deck and began playing tunes to keep up spirits. Despite this, both Andrews and Ismay assisted with the evacuation process, prioritising women and children first as a part of official policy. Whilst many other ships were too far away or on the other side of the dangerous ice wall, the RMS Carpathia was 58 nautical miles south of the Titanic‘s position and received a message from Cape Race regarding the ship. The captain, Arthur Rostron, ordered the Carpathia go full steam ahead towards the Titanic‘s position. It would take them three hours to reach the Titanic
Back on board, Bride and Phillips, having switched to the newly introduced SOS signal, were informed by Smith of the true severity of the situation. Meanwhile, distress signals went up in the form of fireworks and lights flashed in morse code. However, the Californian‘s crew determined that they must have been having som kind of party and that the light was just the bobbing of the ships masthead. On deck, the situation escalated. The crew, most of them unfamiliar with emergency lifeboat procedure, did not know how much weight the boats could withstand, as they were designed to immediately ferry passengers to another nearby ship. As a result, many boats were lowered only half full. This was also partially due to some officers that interpreted “women and children first” as women and children only, and would rather launch a half full lifeboat with only women and children aboard than let any men get on. As chaos erupted on the deck, Andrews realised that, due to the company’s decision to reduce the number of lifeboats from 48 to only 16, was nowhere near enough to accommodate even a fraction of the people on board the ship.
An illustration depicting the evacuation on deck
Down below in the ship’s lower quarters, third-class passengers were promised by officers that they would be allowed onto the deck in groups of 50. However, after only three groups went up, the officers allegedly became distracted and left much of the rest of third-class down in the hold. As the radiotelegraphy system was overwhelmed with messages, the signals jammed for several minutes before Bride and Phillips returned to punching SOS messages. However, as water reached the generators, the power on the ship began cutting out and the range of the Marconi machine decreased. Eventually, their transmitter on Cape Race went out of range, meaning that they could no longer send messages on behalf of the Titanic. Whilst trying to communicate with the Carpathia, Phillips received the overpowering message from the German ship Frankfurt, which had a very powerful transmitter. The Frankfurt had been consistently asking the Titanic what was wrong. Whilst Bride and Phillips had initially joked about the stupidity of the operator, it is suggested that this was moment when Phillips lost his rag with the Frankfurt.
You are a fool, [shut up] – [shut up] – [shut up] and keep out
Phillips’ message to the Frankfurt
Phillips left the office and stood on the deck. Whilst he had only felt the ship before, he now saw it. Part of the bow was becoming submerged in the icy waters of the Atlantic. He saw Smith atop the bridge yelling out to the officers to bring the lifeboats back and take on more passengers. Near one of these boats that was about to disembark, Ismay, along side another first-class passenger, allegedly asked if there were any women and children nearby. When they got no response, the pair hopped into the lifeboat and set out to safety. Whilst the passenger who got on with Ismay, William Carter, stated that they had both checked around for any women and children, Carter’s wife described his behaviour aboard the ship as “cruel and barbarous treatment and indignities to the person,” apparently leaving her and their children to fend for themselves aboard the ship. Carter and his wife divorced only two year later.
Drawing from a book criticising Ismay by comparing his survival to a list of notable individuals who perished with the Titanic
This action from Ismay was perceived as a widely controversial one. He was ostracised from London high society life and eventually resigned his position at White Star Line. In a 1943 Nazi propaganda film about the Titanic, he was portrayed as a corrupt British business man, who ordered the Titanic to try and set a transatlantic speed record that led to the collision with the iceberg, a myth that still persists to this day. In actuality, he had briefly consulted the idea of breaking a speed record with Smith but it didn’t go much further. Lord Mersey, who led the 1912 British inquiry on the Titanic, concluded that Ismay had helped many other passengers before finding a place for himself on the last lifeboat to leave the starboard side.
At around 01:50, Smith gave up trying to call back the lifeboats and proceeded to relieve Bride and Phillips of their posts. Whilst Bride got ready, Phillips continued to punch out messages. Noticing him struggling to adjust the machine and send out messages, Bride joined his side again and the pair continued to send out messages. It was also around this time that Andrews was spotted last. The most often cited place for this sighting was in the first-class smoking lounge, with water lapping at his feet whilst in deep thought. He was never seen again.
A portrait of Andrews
After sending one last message to the Carpathia regarding its power capabilities, the ship’s lights turned a sickly red and the Marconi machine died. The ship was now alone, slowly sinking into the icy waters of the Atlantic, with the nearest help two hours away. She would sink under the waves in the next 20 minutes. The Californian had noticed that the Titanic was disappearing below the horizon and an officer attempted to notify the sleeping captain, who merely grunted and rolled over. By the time the officer returned to deck, the Titanic was gone.
Meanwhile, Phillips ordered Bride to retrieve the back-up transmitter before a crew member from the boiler room began throttling Phillips in an attempt to take his life jacket. The pair then proceeded to fight the man, before knocking him to the ground. According to Bride’s account, Phillips then grabbed the wireless key and beat the stoker over the head until the shin deep water inked with blood and the man went limp. Not knowing whether the man was dead or merely unconscious, the pair rushed out to deck. The ship, now with its stern elevated out of the water, had mere minutes left. Bride attempted to assist crewmen in lowering Lifeboat Collapsible B, and spotted Phillips running to the back of the deck. Suddenly, the oars holding the boat slipped, trapping Bride underneath it. Eventually the water lapped up, taking Bride and the boat off the deck and into the icy waters. Meanwhile, port holes created suction that pulled desperate swimmers back into the ship. The collapsing funnel caused a splash that toppled most people from the boat before they scrambled back on.
A depiction of Collapsible B from A Night to Remember
Two minutes before total submersion, the power went out. The area was plunged into total darkness, with what remained of the ship blotting out the stars in the sky. Eventually, the ship split in half, before the rest of the ship was eventually dragged down into the icy depths. In all, it took 2 hours and 40 minutes for the Titanic to sink. Reportedly, Ismay could not watch as she sank beneath the waves.
I had never seen so many shooting stars. I recalled a legend that every time there’s a shooting star, somebody dies
Jean Hippach, 1st Class Survivor
A gif depicting the sinking of the Titanic
Screams of passengers attempting to get onto lifeboats slowly went quiet as they eventually succumbed to hypothermia. On the still upside down Collapsible B, Bride clung to the side, one foot still submerged in water. He informed Charles Lightoller, a second officer, of the incoming Carpathia, who then ordered that the men attempt to balance the boat. However, as the night progressed, the boat continued to sink and the survivors were up to their knees in water. Some, not being able to handle the pain, collapsed and drifted away. Aboard the boat, Lightoller led a speaking of the Lord’s Prayer, before, eventually, the Carpathia arrived at 04:00. Some set off fireworks to signal the ship, some lit pieces of paper whilst one woman reportedly set her hat on fire. Collapsible B merely screamed for help, with Lightoller using his whistle to attract the rescue boats.
Upon being brought aboard, Bride collapsed. Ismay was in deep shock and was uncharacteristically withdrawn. He apparently ate very little and was allegedly sedated by a doctor at one point. Whilst some saw it as avoidance, others saw it as trauma. However, he assisted in compiling lists of survivors. When Bride awoke, he was given one of these lists in order to assist sending out the lists for newspapers. He was distraught to find that Phillips’ name was not on it. Eventually, public inquiries in both the US and Britain were held regarding the disaster. The Senate Inquiry, led by Senator William Alden Smith, determined that the disaster was not unavoidable and that the speed that the Titanic was going at the time should have been slowed due to the warnings that the bridge had received, implicitly blaming Ismay for this decision. It also concluded that the lifeboat provisions were beyond inadequate and that the crew were unskilled to deal with such an evacuation. It also put partial blame on the Californian, for not taking any action even when the Titanic disappeared. Meanwhile, the British Inquiry determined that the speed was standard practice at the time and assigned little personal blame. However, it still determined that evacuation procedure was not up to standards and that the lifeboats were inadequate to save even half of the passengers on board. As a result, maritime regulations were enforced, requiring lifeboats for all individuals on board, 24-hour messenger operation and an Internal Ice Patrol. Both Bride and Ismay testified at the inquiries. In all, over 1,500 died in the sinking of the Titanic. It is, by far, the most well known commercial nautical disaster of all time.
