#ismay

Day 1: The subcommittee met at 10:30 AM at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in NYC.

Senator William Alden Smith began the day with the reading of the Senate resolution for the inquiry. Then they began calling witnesses.

For day one of the inquiry, the witnesses were as follows: 

J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of I.M.M and Managing Director of the White Star Line;

 Arthur Henry Rostron, Captain, RMS Carpathia; 

Guglielmo Marconi, President of Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co.;

Charles Lightoller, Second Officer, RMS TItanic (highest ranking crew member to survive);

Harold T. Cottam, Marconi wireless operator aboard RMS Carpathia;

Alfred Crawford, Bedroom Steward, RMS Titanic

They met that day, with a number of recesses, until 10:30 PM, hearing testimony from the witnesses above. 

Notable Quotes:

“In the first place, I would like to express my sincere grief at this deplorable catastrophe. I understand that you gentlemen have been appointed as a Committee of the Senate to inquire into the circumstances. So far as we are concerned, we welcome it. We court the fullest inquiry. We have nothing to conceal; nothing to hide.” - Ismay 

“When we built the Titanic we had that especially in mind. If this ship had hit the iceberg stem on, in all human probability she would have been here today.“ - Ismay 

“ ...  although I must say, from the very start, all these people behaved magnificently. As each boat came alongside everyone was calm, and they kept perfectly still in their boats. They were quiet and orderly, and each person came up the ladder, or was pulled up, in turn as they were told off. There was no confusion whatever among the passengers. They behaved magnificently - every one of them.” - Rostron

“ I may state this: That the position given me by the Titanic was absolutely correct and she was absolutely on her track, bound for New York. “ - Rostron

“ The ships are built nowadays to be practically unsinkable, and each ship is supposed to be a lifeboat in itself. The boats are merely supposed to be put on as a standby. The ships are supposed to be built, and the naval architects say they are, unsinkable under certain conditions.” - Rostron

Senator SMITH.“What time did you leave the ship” LIGHTOLLER. “I didn't leave it.” Senator SMITH. “Did the ship leave you?” LIGHTOLLER. “Yes, sir.”

SEE this previous post about why the inquiry came about.

Dorian hadn’t meant for her to see. He thought he had planned everything so immaculately, so perfectly. The Gardener was meant to be found hours later, hanging upside down from the rafters with his neck slit, his last Will and Testament positioned very clearly on his desk and not in the secret safe behind the portrait of a buxom lady that hung over his bed. That night, there had been a cancellation. That cancellation, which Dorian had not foreseen happening, had caused Ismay to open the door on a gurgling man hanging over a bucket of his own blood and the Crow himself leaning against a far wall and waiting for him to die.

Her screams had driven Dorian out the open window and into the darkness, his heart pumping in his throat. As he listened from the rooftop of a nearby building, Dexter had been the first one on the scene to pull Ismay out of the room. Fuck. He’d just given his brother an alibi. Fantastic. Growling to himself about being rusty, Dorian fled back home.

He waited through the wake, the Flowers and patrons of the Garden marching past a closed casket to a room of refreshment and somber music. He waited through the funeral; a rainy and dismal day. Dorian had stood by Ismay, holding an umbrella for her while his suit soaked through to his bones. He waited through the legal period wherein Ismay was appointed proprietor of the club and everything that came with it. He waited a week more, because he’d been scared and nervous on the inside.

After that, Dorian had decided that he couldn’t keep the secret. He needed to apologize. He needed to tell her because he knew that she feared for her life. Jokers had very wrongly speculated that the Crow might target her next and Dorian couldn’t watch her think that she would be the next victim of a murder that wouldn’t happen. He’d done it for her.

Wearing his full Crow regalia, Dorian sat in a chair in the middle of Ismay’s new office. His hood was up and his head was bowed as he held out his glove-covered palms to show that he had no weapons at the ready. The Crow’s outfit was meant to be darkness woven into fabric and leather, sturdy yet silent. Black metal bracers were strapped to his arms and black leather wrapped in layers around his waist, knife sheathes hooked securely to it. The matte black feathers of his shoulder epaulette even seemed to absorb any light around them. The only thing that gleamed was the smooth metal mask he wore over his face.

Ismay, Montana, United States 

by Derek Burdeny from the USA 

It’s been 105 years… Here’s just a small piece of the tragic history of the ill-fated Ship of Dreams….

As an Irish businessman, Thomas Andrews was the managing director of Harland and Wolff, a shipbuilding company in Belfast. He was also the architect in charge of the plans for the Titanic. Andrews was on board and passed away when the ship sank.

Andrews is quoted to have said, “Let the Truth be known, no ship is unsinkable. The bigger the ship, the easier it is to sink her. I learned long ago that if you design how a ship'll sink, you can keep her afloat. I proposed all the watertight compartments and the double hull to slow these ships from sinking. In that way, you get everyone off. There's time for help to arrive, and the ship's less likely to break apart and kill someone while she's going down.”

Andrews was noted for his heroic actions during the two hours and forty minutes it took for the Titanic to completely sink below the ocean’s surface, going under at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912. Passengers said he moved constantly around the ship urging everyone to put on their life jackets and get into lifeboats immediately, knowing there wouldn’t be enough room in them to save everyone on board.

Then there’s Joseph Bruce Ismay, the chairman and managing director of White Star Line. 

Allegedly, Ismay told Andrews, “Control your Irish passions, Thomas. Your uncle here tells me you proposed 64 lifeboats and he had to pull your arm to get you down to 32. Now, I will remind you just as I reminded him these are my ships. And, according to our contract, I have final say on the design. I’ll not have so many little boats, as you call them, cluttering up my decks and putting fear into my passengers.”

In the end, the Titanic only carried 20 lifeboats with a capacity for almost 1,200. There were more than 2,200 on board. Only 706 survived.

Of those survivors, some later reported hearing Ismay say the ship would be speeding up despite ice warnings. Others said they heard him pressuring Captain Edward J. Smith to go faster. He allegedly wanted to make it across the Atlantic in record time to make headlines for the new liner.