Did Winston Churchill Sink the Titanic?
Most people who have read about the life of Winston Churchill will agree that, as mentioned in earlier posts, he was not only a leading figure in WW2 history, but also a prominent statesman in the Edwardian era. One of the marking events of the late Edwardian times (I regard the Edwardian era, as many people do, as the rule of King Edward VII and the early years of King George VI's rule), however, is often separated and singled out from the politics of that time.
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| Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1912 |
The sinking of the RMS Titanic is one of the most famous and controversial events of the Edwardian age, and Winston Churchill, one of the most famous and controversial people of that glittering era, was the First Lord of the Admiralty during the year 1912 - the year that the Titanic sank. His position put him in charge of the general administration of the Naval Service of the United Kingdom. It would seem that the man whose job was to review all of the Royal British Navy's boats, as well as all other naval services such as the White Star Line, would have been responsible for the Titanic disaster.
After a quick briefing of this information, the reader, like me, could quickly and easily conclude that Churchill should have reviewed the plans for the Titanic and change the plans to add more safety precautions. There are, however, numerous certitudes that totally debunk this myth. Consider these facts:
- Churchill was President of the Board of Trade from 12 April 1908 to 18 February 1910. The Titanic, and her sister Olympic, were conceived in mid-1907. Designers drew plans in late 1907 and early 1908. Churchill was not then at the Board of Trade.
- The Titanic actually had 20% more lifeboats than it was required to. The greedy builders of the Titanic actually built places on the boat where more lifeboats could be lowered, suspecting that new regulations would be made soon, but they never actually stocked them with lifeboats because it would have cost them much more money and time. It is a lot to expect Winston Churchill, who was a politician and not a shipbuilder, to ask the White Star Line to build more lifeboats than was considered necessary at that time, which brings us to number three...
- If the Titanic had been hit at virtually any other angle, the Titanic's elaborate water-tight containers would have saved the ship. Churchill (and the shipbuilders too) was incapable of knowing that the Titanic would be hit in the area that it was.
The Ship of Dreams by Gareth Russell
Who Sank the Titanic? by Robert J. Strange
encyclopediatitanica.org
winstonchurchill.org "Titanic: the Strange Verdict"
Did Churchill know that Titanic was going to sink . Yes he did . as did evrybody else in the liberal government including Asquith (PM) and Rufus Isaacs (senior attorney) and not least David Lloyd George , all of them buying shares in Marconi just one week prior to sailing and selling them one week after before the shares bonanza settled back to pre sinking levels . Marconei was virtualy a few days or hours away from bankruptcy and nobody had shown any interest over the previous decade in his invention of "Instant communications by wireless means" However with Titanic sinking, everybody in the world wanted information that only Marconi could provide and the shares soared . Hence the "Marconi Scandal" Churchill and Lloyd George along with Isaacs attended a dinner party on or around the 7th April at Godfrey Isaacs house and it was then that Godfrey pursuaded all of the VIP guests to purchase shares even tho it was insider dealing before the shares came on the open market and it was the fact that Churchill went on to become the greatest Briton ever that the truth has been covered up that he and his colleagues knew but didnt try and stop the sinking and the loss of life putting profit before safety which is why 34 passenfer testimonies have been shut away from public domain till 2037 because of the acute embaressment to governments past present and future .
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