Dmitry: Below are from a draft for FINEST HOUR 155 (Summer 2012). This is an unpublished draft but I have sent you the full text by email. Available to any reader--contact me offline.
Churchill Sank the Titanic! LONDON, MARCH 30TH— Robert Strange, a British investigative journalist, in his book *Who Sank The Titanic? Final Verdict, holds Churchill responsible for the century-old disaster, The Sun reports. (This makes a nice duo with the charge made a generation ago that Churchill also sank the Lusitania.) Strange writes: “From the start, he [Churchill] seems to have washed his hands of the Marine Division. Supervision of Titanic's construction was passed to Francis Carruthers, a poorly-trained and underpaid Board of Trade engineer who failed to spot flaws in the ship's construction….By the time the Titanic was finally launched, Churchill had achieved his aim of promotion to Home Secretary and thereby escaped public examination about his role in the Titanic debacle. [But] the ship was first proposed, designed and had its keel laid down on his watch." FH's Opinion: Churchill was President of the Board of Trade from 12 April 1908 to 18 February 1910. RMS Titanic, and her sister ship Olympic, were conceived in mid-1907 and the plans drawn in late 1907/early 1908. It is therefore incorrect to say that Churchill was in charge of the BoT when the ships were proposed or designed. Churchill WAS at the Board of Trade when the plans were approved (July 1908) and the hulls laid down (December 1908/March 1909). And he was pursuing his future wife in the summer of 1908. But Titanic complied with all current Board of Trade regulations. Her lifeboat capacity (1178) actually exceeded the requirement (990). And if Francis Carruthers, the engineer assigned, “failed to spot flaws” in the ship’s construction, how was it possible for Churchill to spot them? What were the flaws? Earlier researchers have suggested weaknesses in Titanic’s steel plates and rivets which contributed to her rapid sinking. This begs the question of how her sister the Olympic managed an illustrious 24-year career, including troop transport during World War I, and several collisions, earning the nickname “Old Reliable,” with faulty rivets and weak plates. (She was refitted with a double hull after the Titanic disaster.) In any case, to suggest Churchill was responsible for design defects reminds one of the author who criticized his urgent despatch of tanks to North Africa in 1941 before they’d been fully tested. FINEST HOUR 45 commented: “The Premier must also be a mechanic!” The specific charge that Churchill was warned and ignored the question of lifeboats must await our review of Mr. Strange’s book and the sources he offers for this conclusion. For the nonce, all we can make of his argument is that, as President of the Board of Trade in 1908, the buck stopped with Churchill—just as it did with George W. Bush on 11 September 2001, and Franklin Roosevelt on 7 December 1941. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en.
