April 16, 2012
A
girl at the unveiling of the Titanic Memorial Garden in Belfast’s City
Hall on April 15, 2012 places a rose on a plaque bearing the names of
those who died. — Reuters pic
ON BOARD MS BALMORAL, April 16 —
At the shrill sound of a ship’s whistle in the North Atlantic,
relatives of some of the more than 1,500 people who died when the
Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg remembered their ancestors in a
poignant ceremony a century later.
On a still, starry night yesterday, with little glare from the moon,
the memorial cruise ship MS Balmoral floated above the wreckage of the
famous “unsinkable” luxury liner precisely 100 years to the day it
foundered.
“At 2.20am all was quiet, as it would have been 100 years ago when it
went deathly quiet, when the screaming stopped,” British Titanic
historian Philip Littlejohn told Reuters yesterday. Littlejohn’s
grandfather, Alexander Littlejohn, was a 1st class steward in charge of
lifeboat 13 when the ship began to go down.
About 700 people were rescued that night, including his grandfather, but there were too few lifeboats to save the rest.
David Haisman, 74, a retired seaman from the English port town of
Southampton, mourned the loss of his grandfather, who had been on his
way to Seattle to start a new life in the United States with his wife
and daughter.
“I’ve been brought up with the story but now I could feel it,” he said.
“My mother used to tell me how she got into lifeboat 14 and her feet
became soaked with the 3 to 4 inches of water that remained in the
bottom despite bailing.”
The last time she saw her father was when he cupped his hands and shouted “I’ll see you in New York”.
The story of the world’s most famous maritime disaster has gripped the world’s imagination, inspiring Hollywood films.
A memorial card on a wreath at the unveiling of the Belfast Titanic Memorial Garden. — Reuters pic
While
some of those on board the memorial cruise were relatives of the
victims, others had paid thousands of pounds in order to retrace the
vessel’s fateful journey from Southampton to New York.
The ship, the biggest in the world at the time, foundered in frigid Atlantic waters off Newfoundland on April 15, 1912.
On Saturday, Balmoral’s ship’s whistle pierced the air at 11.40pm, the exact time the Titanic hit the iceberg, followed by a two-minute silence.
“I had this feeling that this is the place where all the suffering went on,” said retired seaman Haisman of the sombre moment.
Most of Balmoral’s 1,300 passengers then squeezed onto the deck for a service and hymns, and to watch three wreaths being thrown into the calm waters at 2.20am yesterday morning, the moment she sank.
Members of the Belgian quintet ensemble Grupetto played in honour of the band members who played on even as the Titanic went under the waves.
The sky was clear and the nearest iceberg was about 100 nautical miles north.
“It’s just so moving, it feels like you were part of something so special,” said Susie Millar, a journalist from Northern Ireland whose great grandfather Thomas Millar had worked at Harland and Wolff, the shipyard where the Titanic had been built, before becoming a crew member.
He was one of the people who lost their lives when it sank.
“As the wreaths went in, I thought of people in the lifeboats as the Titanic sank, who didn’t know whether they would be rescued or not,” she said.
“It all happened in real time and I thought that people wouldn’t have had time to say all their goodbyes, it all happened so fast.”
The anniversary was marked in other parts of the world too, including
Belfast, the ship’s birthplace, where a plaque was unveiled listing the
names of those who were lost, including 28 from the city.
Professor Robert Ballard, the American oceanographer who found the
wreck in 1985, said he’d been moved to tears as he joined relatives of
the dead for the Belfast ceremony.
Meanwhile, on a beautiful lakeside in Ireland’s west coast county of
Mayo, people in the tiny village of Lahardane gathered to hear a bell
toll for the 11 locals who died on board, and three joyful rings for the
three who survived. — Reuters
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