by Walter Lord
Then on to the search area, a 150-square mile block of sea based on the Titanic’s last given position. Some 80% of this area had been combed earlier in the summer by the French government’s research vessel, Le Suroit. She had not found anything, but her presence pointed up the fact that the expedition was a joint Franco-American venture, manned by scientists from both countries. The main American contribution was a unique video camera system built into a deep-towed vehicle called Argo; while the French contributed a revolutionary side-scanning sonar named SAR, which could examine the ocean floor in swaths three fifths of a mile wide—far beyond the limits of anything previously invented.
In keeping with the partnership concept, Bob Ballard had been on Le Suroit during July, working with her team of scientists. They had spent six weeks “mowing the lawn” (as the oceanographers put it) until Le Suroit finally ran out of time and had to go home. Now Jean Jarry, director of the French effort, was serving on the Knorr with two of his group.
Arriving on the scene August 22, the Knorr took over where Le Suroit left off. Behind her, and nearly 13,000 feet down, she towed Argo. Roughly the size of an automobile, it earned the newly devised video system. No less than five television cameras (pointing ahead, downward, and sideways) were packed into the unit, along with sonar, sensors, computerized timing equipment, and banks of powerful strobe lights. Overall, the contraption was virtually a robot, managed by scientists over two miles above, sitting in the relative comfort of the Knorr’s control room.
But even Argo didn’t seem able to conjure up the Titanic. Day after day slipped by, and the men monitoring the screens in the control room saw only the same empty seabed. Occasionally a rat-tailed fish might swim briefly into view, but for the most part it was just mile after mile of mud and sand dunes.
The night of August 31-September 1 began like all the others. The Knorr crept slowly along the path of the search pattern, deep-towing Argo as usual. In the control room a seven-man watch under Bob Ballard dutifully monitored the video screens, but there was nothing interesting to look at—just more miles of mud. At midnight Ballard’s group was relieved by the 12:00 to 4:00 watch under Jean-Louis Michel, leader of the French scientists. Ballard went below for a shower and some rest.
Shortly before 1:00, small chunks of metal debris suddenly began showing up on the screens. They were unidentifiable, but definitely not part of the natural seascape.
“You’d better go and get Bob,” Michel ordered, but the group in the control room seemed riveted to the spot, fascinated by the fast-growing trail of debris. Finally, someone persuaded the cook to go, and he brought back Ballard in time to see a large metal cylinder appear on the video tube at 1:05.
It was clearly a boiler. Better than that, it was unmistakably a boiler from the Titanic. Nothing else could have that particular arrangement of three stoking doors at one end, or that particular configuration of rivets. Ballard’s team had studied pictures of those boilers for months—knew them by heart—and now they had found one.
It was only the beginning. The scientists estimated that the debris trail ran for nearly 600 yards, with a huge, shadowy, solid object at the end. But they would not find out what it was tonight. Twenty minutes had passed since the filming of the debris began, and it was now so thick that Ballard feared Argo might become entangled in some piece of rigging and be damaged or lost. Playing it safe, he ordered the unit to be hauled up until the bottom could be more thoroughly checked by sonar.
At 1:40 someone observed that it was close to the time of night when the Titanic made her final plunge. The remark gave Ballard an idea. He had always been deeply aware of the immense tragedy that lay behind this expedition; now he invited the group to join him on the fantail for a brief memorial service.
Next morning the sonar check indicated that it was safe for Argo to go back to work, and it soon became clear that the huge shadowy object at the end of the debris trail was the forepart of the Titanic herself. From what was visible, she looked in astonishingly good shape. When last seen that April night in 1912, the ship was plunging headfirst almost straight down, but now she sat upright, with just a slight list to port. The forecastle was not crumpled, and even the anchor chains were neatly aligned, as though ready for one of Captain Smith’s Sunday inspections.
The foremast leaned against the bridge, but the crow’s nest was intact, looking exactly the way it did when Lookout Fleet phoned his famous warning, “Iceberg right ahead.” Aft of the bridge, the early camera work did not reveal very much. Two gaping holes showed where the forward funnel and the glass dome over the grand staircase had been. Beyond this point the light was too dim.
Most amazing of all was the Titanic’s pristine appearance. There was little of the marine growth that usually sprouts all over a sunken vessel. At 13,000 feet it was too dark and too cold for much to grow. Only a thin film of silt covered the ship—so thin that it was easy to count every rivet and trace the lines of every plank in her decks.
The clarity was so great that dozens of objects could be identified amid the debris alongside the ship: lumps of coal…luggage…beds…bottles of wine miraculously unbroken…a silver platter…a chamberpot. The sharpness of detail gave the disaster an immediacy that sobered even the excitement of discovery.
For the next five days the Knorr cruised back and forth over the Titanic’s grave, deep-towing Argo behind her. Argo videotaped the wreck, and later another deep-towed robot named Angus made a series of passes using cameras loaded with 35-mm colorfilm. Coverage was somewhat limited: close-ups endangered the equipment, and truly long-range shots were beyond available light. Still, they covered most of the forward end of the ship, and far enough aft to learn that the stern was missing. Pictures taken by Angus on the fifth day caught debris from the missing section hundreds of feet aft of the rest of the wreck. The first and last runnels were gone too, and Argo had a narrow escape when it brushed against some pieces of wreckage while making a turn.
Perhaps Ballard felt at this point that he had stretched his luck enough. The rest could wait until next year, when he planned to return. In any case, September 5 was the last day of filming. The Knorr turned for Woods Hole and a noisy welcome of Klaxons and air horns.
July 9, 1986, Bob Ballard headed out again. This time the French were gone—no money—and the Woods Hole crowd had the Titanic to themselves. The Knorr was also gone, replaced by Atlantis II, which could house and service a remarkable three-man submersible named Alvin. Built for the U.S. Navy in 1964, Alvin was originally designed to operate at a maximum depth of 8,000 feet but had been strengthened for 13,000 feet. This brought it within reach of the Titanic. Ballard no longer had to depend on robots and video; he could go down and see for himself.
Even more remarkable, Alvin carried its own robot, Jason Jr. About the size of a power lawn mower, “J. J.” was controlled by an operator inside Alvin. Linked to the submersible by a 200-foot tether, Jason Jr. could prowl the bottom, squirming into places too small or too dangerous for Alvin itself.
This curious armada reached the Titanic’s position on the evening of July 12, where it was joined by USS Ortolan, a Navy submarine rescue vessel. In case of accident, Ortolan’s services might prove vital; meanwhile she could play a useful role in fending off unwelcome visitors. Ballard was as determined as ever to keep the exact location of the Titanic a secret.
About 8:30 A.M., July 13, he squeezed into Alvin along with Ralph Hollis and Dudley Foster, his two most experienced submersible pilots. Casting off, they began the long descent to the bottom. To save power, they let gravity do the work, and the free-fall took two and a half hours; later, the trip back up would consume a similar amount of time. These daily “commutes” gradually became routine—tapes of classical music going down; soft rock coming up—but not this first morning. The sonar wasn’t working, and the batteries began to leak. When the threesome finally groped their way to the Titanic, it was time to return to the surface. Ballard did catch a brief glimpse of a towering wall o
f steel, making him the first human being actually to see the lost liner in 74 years.
For the next eleven days Ballard and his team continued their dives, selecting targets on the basis of thousands of photographs taken the previous summer. July 14, they made a five-hour inspection of the forepart of the ship…and immediately discovered that the wreck was in far worse shape than they had thought. The medium-range pictures taken by Argo and Angus in 1985 suggested a bow in pristine condition. Now, close-up, they saw that the steel hull was covered by rivulets of rust and that wood-boring mollusks had eaten almost every scrap of woodwork on the ship. What appeared to be deck planking in the pictures taken by the two robots was, on close inspection, just the caulking, which the mollusks had found unappetizing.
July 15, Ballard sent Jason Jr. down the grand staircase, hoping that the interior of the vessel, at least, had escaped the mollusks. No—they had been here too. Not a trace of the magnificent paneling or of the ornate wall clock symbolizing Honor and Glory crowning Time.
But nature wasn’t always hostile. The same strong current that spread the mollusks throughout the hull actually burnished the nonferrous metal fittings of the ship. The brass porthole rims, copper pots from the kitchen, the bronze pedestal for the ship’s wheel—all gleamed as brightly as the day they were installed.
A new target was picked every day, as Alvin continued its probe: July 16, the bow (alas, no trace of the ship’s name)….July 17, the “tear area,” where the forepart of the Titanic broke off near the base of the third funnel….July 18, the debris held aft of the split—a mass of wreckage roughly the size of a city block.
On July 20, the stern was at last discovered—a separate, 250-foot section of the vessel lying about 2,000 feet south of the bow. It was twisted 180°, so that it now faced in the opposite direction from the rest of the vessel.
Next day, Ballard made a close inspection of this new find. In contrast to the bow, the stern was hideously smashed. It had slammed down on the ocean floor so hard that all the decks were pancaked together. The debris looked like a surrealistic garage sale: deck machinery, the head of a china doll, a spittoon, electric heaters, bottles of champagne, hardware from the wooden benches that once graced the poop deck, a patent leather evening shoe.
July 22, back to the bow to look for the famous 300-foot gash said to have been caused by the iceberg. The search was fruitless, confirming the suspicions of several shore-bound observers. What the iceberg really did to the Titanic probably can never be known. Too much of the bow and the bottom are now buried in the mud. But it appears that seams opened in the steel plating by the initial blow did as much damage as any other holes caused by the berg itself.
The grand finale came on July 24, and for Ballard—ever the perfectionist—it was the best dive of all. Alvin was again on familiar territory, mostly around the bridge, and Jason Jr. performed flawlessly. “J. J.” hadn’t behaved all that well during the middle dives, and it was especially gratifying to see the little robot rise to the occasion. For his part, Ballard was willing to take risks on this last dive that he wouldn’t have taken earlier. He even sent “J. J.” through one of the windows on the forward Promenade Deck for a look inside the ship. Nothing of interest turned up, but technically the feat was a masterpiece.
Curiously, Ballard did not appear especially elated. Normally jaunty—even gung-ho—he seemed rather subdued. Perhaps he was simply tired from having participated in 8 out of 11 successful dives; a three-man submersible is no place for a rangy six-footer. More likely, his two companions in Alvin were right when they decided he was feeling the letdown that naturally came from knowing that his great adventure was over.
That evening the crew retrieved the transponders, stowed away their gear, and headed for home. Early on the morning of July 28 they arrived at Woods Hole, greeted by another salute of horns and Klaxons. They had done it again.
Some mysteries remain. Where are the funnels? All are missing. The first things to go and of comparatively light metal, they probably shied off on their own and have settled separately near the wreck. Where are the boilers? Only 5 or 6 have been found in the debris. I think the other 23 or 24 also broke loose during the final plunge and now lie in the mud, possibly under the forepart of the ship. Where are the bodies? Happily, no trace of them has been found. Best explanation: the chemical content of salt water at this great depth has, over the years, consumed them completely. Despite the question marks, the whole effort remains one of the era’s great scientific achievements.
Why did this effort succeed when all the others failed? First of all, there was the equipment. It was not that the other expeditions cut corners; technology was simply moving so fast that Ballard enjoyed an extra edge. Argo’s side-scanning sonar, for instance, could cover as much ground in 20 days as previously took 12 years.
Money was another factor. Even a wealthy Texan couldn’t match the combined resources of the French government, the U.S. Navy, the National Science Foundation, and the National Geographic Society. The Office of Naval Research sank $2.8 million into Argo alone. It took $20,000 a day just to support Atlantis II. Altogether, it’s estimated that each expedition cost $6 million, with a possible total of $15 million if certain projected equipment were added.
Another advantage was Ballard’s team of assistants. Most were “old pros.” On the first trip Emory Kristof, a staff photographer with the National Geographic, had worked with Ballard for years. On the second, men like Ralph Hollis and Dudley Foster had long years of experience with Alvin.
Finally there was Ballard himself. He not only had a Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics plus a fistful of scientific awards; he was also a diver with much practical experience in deep-sea submersibles. And he had been hooked on the Titanic for years. As early as 1978, according to an article appearing that year in The Washington Post, he was president of Seaonics International Ltd., “a firm formed with the express purpose of finding the Titanic.” His almost passionate interest makes odd reading of the accounts in The New York Times and elsewhere, stating that the Titanic was a “surprise yield” of sea trials conducted to test new underwater research equipment.
Add to these assets charm, brashness, showmanship, and the intuition that seems to guide successful inventors and explorers. As one colleague put it: “Bob has an extraordinary ability to find interesting things on the bottom.”
But his most striking quality was a sensitivity that verged on piety. It was there the night the Titanic was found and he held that brief service on the Knorr’s fantail. It was there in his frequent references to the lost “souls” below. And it was there at the press conference in Washington after the Knorr’s return. Even the hardest cases were moved by the closing lines of his formal statement:
The Titanic itself lies in 13,000 feet of water on a gently sloping alpine-like countryside overlooking a small canyon below.
Its bow faces north and the ship sits upright on the bottom. Its mighty stacks pointing upward.
There is no light at this great depth and little life can be found.
It is quiet and peaceful and a fitting place for the remains of this greatest of sea tragedies to rest.
May it forever remain that way and may God bless these found souls.
True, the reference to “mighty stacks” was a bit of hyperbole. They were all gone. But Ballard’s reverence for the ship and what she stood for was very real indeed. His feelings emerged in a little incident that took place during the second expedition. Angus, used for still photography when Alvin rested, surfaced from one dive trailing a length of entangled steel cable. Clearly a part of the Titanic herself! Sliced into small pieces and sold to collectors, it would be worth a fortune. Onlookers crowded the rails, but Ballard stopped any gold rush. The Titanic must remain an unsullied memorial forever. He threw the cable back into the ocean.
A noble thought, but “forever” is a long, long while. Pompeii was once the scene of an enormous human tragedy, but now it is a fascinating dig. King
Tutankhamen’s tomb was a sacred grave, but today it’s a tourist attraction. The same sort of fate must ultimately overtake the Titanic, and meanwhile who is to police the site? A resolution passed by the House of Representatives urges that the wreck be designated a maritime memorial, protected by international treaty, but the sea belongs to no one, and there are few funds for guarding a patch of ocean.
The danger lies not in man’s greed but in his curiosity. By now nearly everyone knows that no great treasure is tucked away somewhere in the Titanic. There is no evidence of a fortune in diamonds or gold. Her cargo manifest lists ordinary goods worth less than $500,000; the passengers’ jewelry was impressive but not spectacular. Mrs. Widener’s fabulous pearls were saved. Nor is there any practical chance of raising the Titanic for commercial purposes.
But the lure of the ship remains, if only because “it is there.” Again, she is like Mount Everest. As new technology makes the Titanic ever more accessible, all that is left to protect her is a human sense of propriety. A congressional resolution designating the wreck as a “maritime memorial” is not enough.
Maybe it doesn’t really matter. Those who fall under the spell of that famous night will always have their own favorite vignette as a special memorial—perhaps the band, or the Strauses, or the eight Goodwins clinging together. And there will always be the memory of that last glimpse of the Titanic as she stood in 1912—stern high; her black silhouette pointing like an accusing finger at the stars; then gliding slowly out of sight, leaving her handful of lifeboats alone in the empty sea.