I
S IT ACTUALLY the Titanic at
the bottom of the ocean?
No one is denying that a
ship really sank in the icy
waters of the North Atlantic
on April 15, 1912. Or that
approximately 1,500 passen-
gers aboard perished. However,
there are some who suggest that
the White Star Line, the ship’s
parent company, pulled a fast
one on the public in an insurance
scam that ended up going horri-
bly wrong.
These theorists claim that
instead of the Titanic, a sister
ship in White Star’s f leet was the
one that now sits at the bottom
of the ocean. The strangest part:
The idea isn’t as far-fetched as you
might think.■
THE HEYDAY OF BIG SHIPS
The British White Star Line had
stiff competition in England and
across the globe. Locally, it had
a fierce rivalry with the Cunard
Steamship Company, Ltd., which
in 1906–07 shipped the maidenships—the Olympic, the Titanic,
and the Britannic—that would
outclass Cunard’s f leet, which at
the time was bigger and faster.
The Olympic came first, and its
first four voyages were unqualified
successes. But during the fifth,
the vessel ran into trouble. On
September 20, 1911, while pass-
ing a military vessel, the Hawke,
the Olympic made an unexpectedvoyages of the world’s then-largest
passenger ships: the Lusitania
and the Mauretania. To compete,
White Star needed some help.
That’s where financier J.P.
Morgan came in. In 1902, his
holding company, International
Mercantile Marine Co., pur-
chased White Star. Bankrolled
by Morgan, White Star Chairman
Bruce Ismay commissioned threeThe hole torn
in the hull of
RMS Olympic
after the
collision with
HMS Hawke in
the Solent strait,
September
20, 1911.48 December 2019The Wild
Idea
That the
Titanic
Never
Really
Sank
// BY DAVID GROSSM A N //13
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