the first myth about Titanic was that she was "unsinkable." This was not a claim made by either Harland & Wolff, the shipbuilders, or White Star Line, the owners. It was first made by the press. The "Irish News and Belfast Morning News" in its June 1, 1911 coverage of the launch of Titanic's hull, described the system of watertight compartments and electrically controlled watertight doors and concluded that these made the ship practically "unsinkable." That same month, "Shipbuilder" magazine devoted an entire issue to Titanic, and offered the same assessment. She was, in fact, designed to stay afloat with four compartments flooded. Although the myth of her being "unsinkable", was not made by either the builders or her owners, it also never denied, it was the best possible publicity available, and increased the fame and glory surronding the Titanic. To have actually made her unsinkable, as the orignal designs called for, would have been to build additional bulkhead doors the ran horizontaly across the D-Deck and would have sealed the lower desk completely. However such measures would have made the crew's movements through the ship much more cumbersome.
Of course, most of the mythology arose from the sinking. It is sometimes difficult to sort the truth from the rumors, since the accounts by survivors are notoriously contradictory, and some seemingly impossible events appear to be factual. For example, Joughin, the ship's baker, is said to have climbed out onto the poop-deck rail and held on as the ship's stern rose out of the water and then sank. He followed the ship down to the water-level, and was later pulled into a boat with his hair still dry. Anothe rumor was that the Captian E.J. Smith was seen helping a child into a lifeboat after the sinking and then swimming off into the distance. this however contridicts the testamony from the surviving crew members who said the Captain was last seen entering the bridge shortly before it was submerged below the icy waters.
But if the truths were sometimes strange, the fictions certainly rival them. Walter Lord reported that after "A NIGHT TO REMEMBER" was published in 1955, he received several letters from Ireland explaining the "real" reason that Titanic sank. Purportedly, the hull number assigned to Titanic as it was being built in Belfast, 390904, had a secret meaning. If you hand-write this number making the '4' rather angular and exaggerated, add a space, and then hold it up to a mirror, it seems to spell "No Pope." Clearly, the letters opined, the Ulster Protestants who built Titanic had assigned her this coded message on purpose, and divine retribution had ensued.
One legendary relic from the disaster was a violin which, according to marine historian John Maxtone-Graham, circulated for years through auction houses, touted as the instrument used to entertain and calm the passengers on the boat deck as Titanic sank. Since none of the musicians were saved, its provenance seems doubtful. One persistent "myth" eventually proved to be the truth. Survivors disagreed on the fate of the ship itself. Some asserted that the ship had broken in two, while others insisted it hadn't. The "authoritative" writers sided with the latter group for decades. Col. Gracie, in his 1912 book, flatly discounted 17-year-old Jack Thayer's account that it broke in half, suggesting instead that Thayer merely witnessed the forward funnel falling. John Maxtone-Graham, writing in 1972, was similarly dismissive of Thayer's account. It was only after the wreck was discovered in 1985, in two sections lying 1/3 of a mile apart on the ocean floor, that the accepted "fact" of Titanic's end was altered to conform with what Jack Thayer saw.
The final fate of the lifeboats remains a minor mystery. Most of the boats were corralled by Carpathia and brought to New York, where they floated at White Star's dock for a few days. From there on, their whereabouts are unknown. Very likely, White Star Line painted out the markings and re-deployed them to other ships. There was, after all, a new demand for lifeboats on passenger liners. The one boat not brought back by Carpathia was Collapsible "A", which had been swamped and was deemed unsalvageable and cut adrift by Officer Lowe when he transferred survivors out of it into a more stable craft. It was found a month later by the liner Oceanic, two hundred miles from the collision site but still afloat with three bodies and an assortment of jewelry and personal belongings in the bottom of it. Thanks To Titanic@titanic.net For This Info.
*The Following Text Is From A Book Titled Sea Mysteries There Is A Section In This Book On Titanic, And They Talk About The 1898 Publishing Of Morgan Robertson's Futility: The Wreck Of The Titan, And After That They Talk About...* "One night In 1935, The Lookout Of A Ship Called Titanian Realized That He Was Sailing Towards The Very Spot Where Titanic Had Sunk On The Date He Was Born. He Called The Alarm And Titanian Stopped. An Iceberg Towered Ahead!. Coincidence, Or Mysteriously Linked?