Titanic Delayed

During final preparations for the start of the RMS Titanic’s maiden trans-Atlantic voyage, the ship’s engineers notice a previously undetected minor problem in her main engines. Her captain, Edward J. Smith, promptly orders the ship’s departure postponed 48 hours in order to allow sufficient time to complete the appropriate repairs. Repairs completed,Titanic finally departs Liverpool; though publicly White Star Line owner J. Bruce Ismay expresses nothing but unflagging optimism about the voyage’s success, in private he confides to an associate that he is concerned passenger dissatisfaction over the delay may hurt future bookings. Captain Smith orders Titanic’s helmsman to turn the ship hard to port after lookout Frederick Fleet reports that a large iceberg has been sighted 1000 yards off her bow. While this course change will push the ship’s already well-delayed New York arrival back even further, it saves hundreds of lives by preventing what could have been a disastrous collision. Titanic finally reaches New York City;upon its arrival,Frederick Fleet receives a personal commendation from Captain Smith for his vigilance in alerting the crew to the iceberg. In response to the outbreak of war in Europe, the White Star Line offers Titanic's services to the Royal Navy as a troop carrier. Her crew receive temporary commissions as naval personnel from the Admiralty. Titanic arrives in Dover,England carrying rescued survivors of the ill-fated steamship Lusitania,which was sunk by German submarines two days earlier. The claim of Titanic’s designers that she is unsinkable is severely tested when two torpedoes from a German U-boat hit her starboard side. Both detonate and inflict serious damage on her hull;miraculously,however,she manages to return to Britain under her own power. As a result,the entire crew is decorated for valor by King George V. A year after the U-boat attack,Titanic returns to sea duty with her bulkheads strengthened and the number of available lifeboats on board doubled. Russian Communist leader Vladimir Lenin,in a speech before the CPSU Central Committee,labels the Titanic "a hideous festering boil on the face of bourgeois capitalism".Future British prime minister Winston Churchill dismisses Lenin's comments the next day as "the ignorant rantings of a barbaric idiot". At a grand ceremony in London,the Royal Navy formally returns ownership of RMS Titanic to the White Star Line. When en route to her home port after unloading Red Cross parcels at Cherbourg, Titanic's sister ship Britannic hits a mine left over from the First World War;the resulting explosion tears a massive gash in her starboard side and sinks her with all hands on board. Titanic's officers and crew attend a memorial service at Westminster Abbey for their lost comrades on the Britannic. Four months after she left England on a round-the-world cruise to mark her tenth anniversary,Titanic arrives at the voyage's final port of call in Tokyo, Japan. 50,000 people line the shores of Tokyo Bay to greet her;William Murdoch, who succeeded Edward J. Smith as captain following Smith's retirement,spends three days in Tokyo as an honored guest of the Japanese imperial family. Thirteen members of the National Socialist German Worker's Party march at the Hamburg docks to protest Titanic's visit to the port city.They attempt to board her with anti-British placards but are confronted by members of her crew on the gangplank;in the ensuing melee,the British sailors sound drub their German antagonists.When party leader Adolf Hitler learns of what happened,he demands that Titanic's entire crew be arrested. The first feature film about the Titanic, a silent movie titled Passage To New York, is released in the US. The film is strongly criticized on both sides of the Atlantic for focusing on the 1915 U-boat attack at the expense of Frederick Fleet’s diligent service during the 1912 maiden voyage; Fleet himself writes an angry letter to the film’s British distributors. The Titanic starts its 25th anniversary round-the-world cruise. It is a somewhat bittersweet moment, as this will be William Murdoch's last voyage as captain; Murdoch will officially retire from the White Star Line when the ship reaches its final port of call in Brisbane, Australia. Titanic's crew gives a rousing farewell party for Captain William Murdoch as the ship docks in Brisbane Harbor. The festivities close with this eloquent parting toast by Murdoch to his crew: "God bless all of you, the most stalwart and proficient crew any sea captain has ever had, or ever will have." Murdoch's first officer is then sworn in as the luxury liner's new captain for the return trip to England. With Europe once again in the grip of war, the White Star Line contacts King George VI and arranges for Titanic to be leased to the Royal Navy as a troop carrier. Taking part in the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, Titanic comes under attack from a flight of Stuka dive bombers. This time she isn’t so fortunate; two of the bombers score direct hits on her boiler room, sparking an explosion that causes her to literally split in half. Less than two hours later, she sinks with all hands on board. The German pilots who sank the Titanic are personally awarded the Iron Cross by Adolf Hitler."I only regret,"he tells one of them,"that I did not have the pleasure of seeing her death first-hand." The Luftwaffe pilot who led the raid that sank the Titanic is killed in action during an air strike against Soviet troop positions near Stalingrad. A Night To Remember, the most successful movie to date about the Titanic, is released in the US;Frederick Fleet,who served as a technical consultant on the film,will receive an honorary Oscar the following year for his contributions to the accuracy of its screenplay in portraying the 1912 maiden trans-Atlantic crossing. The National Geographic Society offers a $100,000 reward to anyone who can provide clues to the whereabouts of the Titanic's wreckage. A joint British-Japanese-US-French expedition locates the wreck of the Titanic at the bottom of the North Sea,approximately 40 miles from the shores of Calais,France. In honor of the 75th anniversary of Titanic’s first trans-Atlantic crossing, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher introduces a resolution in the House of Commons proposing the establishment of a museum dedicated to preserving the ship’s history. The resolution is unanimously approved. Half a century after the Titanic sank,Princess Diana christens the passenger/cargo ship HMS William Murdoch at the same Liverpool docks from which Titanic set out on her maiden voyage in 1912. Frederick Fleet, who became a United States citizen shortly after A Night To Remember was released, dies in a Los Angeles hospital at the age of 106. In keeping with his final request, his ashes are scattered over the Liverpool docks and his Academy Award is placed inside a time capsule to be opened in 2012, the centennial of Titanic’s first Atlantic crossing. Tony Blair and the Lord Mayor of Liverpool lay the cornerstone for the foundation of the Titanic Museum and Historical Archive. Guests at this event include Prince Charles, former prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and Hollywood director James Cameron, who won a Best Picture Oscar earlier in the year for his historical drama With All Hands, an epic account of Titanic’s 1940 sinking. Capping a yearlong celebration in honor of the 90th anniversary of Titanic's first Atlantic crossing, Tony Blair, French president Jacques Chirac, Vice-President of the United States Dick Cheney, Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern, and Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi take part in ceremonies marking the grand opening of the Titanic Museum and Historical Archive. Also attending the festivities are more than 200 descendants of Titanic's original crew.