Everyone knows the Titanic’s tragic tale: the largest, most majestic ship of its time, which sank on its maiden voyage in 1912. 1500 people lost their lives when the ‘indestructible’ Titanic apparently collided with an iceberg in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean during its journey from Britain’s Southampton to New York in the United States.
And while there have been many theories contesting this narrative of the Titanic’s demise, an Irish journalist, Senan Molony, has found shocking evidence that suggests another possibility: it was a massive fire onboard the Titanic which irreversibly weakened the ship, ultimately leading to its sinking.
Molony, who has reportedly been researching the Titanic’s sinking for three decades now, found photographs taken by the chief engineer of the ship before it set sail. These photos, according to him, show huge black markings, almost 30 feet in size near Titanic’s hull area – also the exact place where the iceberg is supposed to have collided with the ship.
A 47-minute documentary called Titanic: The New Evidence was released in January this year, and features Molony and his findings. In one of the scenes, Molony reads out a news report where one of the firemen who had helped to try and douse the fire, said that one of the coal chambers caught fire days before the ship was supposed to set sail.
Screenshots/Titanic: The New Evidence
The coal chambers of the Titanic were huge – up to three storeys tall. On the fourth day of fighting the fire, they made no headway with it, says Molony, as he reads out the fireman’s words. “From the day we sailed, the Titanic was on fire,” the fireman had been quoted as saying in the news clipping.
The officers on board the ship had told the persons still attempting to douse the flames to keep mum about it.
The fire kept on raging, what with large quantities of coal stored there feeding it. As a result, that part of the ship was weakened considerably. So, when the Titanic hit the ice, the hull gave way easily, rupturing it to let in water and ultimately, sinking the ship.
“We have metallurgy experts telling us that when you get that level of temperature against steel it makes it brittle, and reduces its strength by up to 75%,” Molony said. “It’s a perfect storm of extraordinary factors coming together: fire, ice and criminal negligence,” he added.