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QUESTION:I have just recently watched the movie Titanic again and was wondering if
the men working in the boiler rooms and the engine rooms were given the
chance to escape before the watertight doors were closed. I know the movie
is not all based on the facts so it is hard to tell what is true and what is
not. Were they given any warning that the doors were being closed, or is
this something that is not known?
ANSWER: There was a warning bell that sounded moments before the doors closed,
but few of the men were able to get through the doors before they
closed. The alarm was not an order to abandon the various rooms, just
a warning that the door was going to close. In any event, they would
not have know which way to go or what the reason was for closing the
doors. Closing the doors did not trap the men, however, since a
series of ladders and catwalks allowed escape up the boiler casings
from each stoke-hold. AFIK, the ladder that Jack & Rose used to enter
the boiler room from the fan room prior to their little tryst did not
exist.
Most of what is known about the events in boiler room #6 (that's the
boiler room featured in the movie) comes from the testimony of Leading
Fireman Frederick Barrett
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/bio/c/e/barrett_f.shtml.
Moments before the collision, Barrett was standing near the aft
water-tight door of BR#6, talking with the senior engineer on duty,
James Hesketh
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/bio/c/e/hesketh_jh.shtml. Almost
simultaneously the watertight door alarm began to sound and the boiler
room telegraph went to "STOP". Barrett and Hesketh ordered "Shut all
the dampers!" Before the men could close them all there was a crash
and a torrent of water rushed into BR#6. Barrett and Hesketh jumped
through the watertight door as it was closing. AFIK, no one else
escaped through that door. The business of men diving through the
doors when they were nearly closed is pure fiction. The other men in
the boiler room apparently escaped up the ladders. Barrett says he
later returned via the escape ladders and found the boiler room
abandoned, with eight feet of water above the floor plates.
You can read Barrett's testimony here:
http://www3.mwis.net/~breaktym/AmInq/Am18Barrett1.html
http://www3.mwis.net/~breaktym/BritInq/BritInq03Barrett1.htm
http://www3.mwis.net/~breaktym/BritInq/BritInq04Barrett1.htm
One of the surviving stoker's from BR#6, George Beauchamp
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/bio/c/e/beauchamp_gw.shtml, also
testified at the British Inquiry, but his testimony does not make
sense and cannot (IMHO) be reconciled with Barrett's:
http://www3.mwis.net/~breaktym/BritInq/BritInq03Beauchamp1.htm
The engine/boiler rooms scenes from Cameron's "Titanic" are some of
the least accurate, from the standpoint of what the ship was really
like, of all the scenes. The physical layout and many of the details
of the engineering spaces were quite different that those shown.
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