Norman, Andrew Titanic

Freak Accident of Farce?

Since the tragic sinking of the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic on the night of Sunday, 14 to 15 April 1912, there has been speculation about the cause of the accident. Could it have been the fault of its captain, Edward J. Smith? To date, no one has been able to explain the mindset of the Titanic's captain, Edward Smith, and thus understand why, on a pitch-dark night in April 1912, he steered his ship at full speed into an ice field, even though he knew there were icebergs there. Was the captain mentally ill? No, not in the sense of one of the traditional serious psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar disorder, etc., because these would have manifested themselves earlier in his life. Captain Smith was 62 years old at the time of the disaster. Did he suffer from dementia? There is no evidence to suggest that this was the case. In fact, Captain Smith's state of mind is a classic example of what the ancient Greeks described more than 2000 years ago, as the reader will soon discover! This book contains previously unpublished photographs, for example of Laura May Cribb from the author's hometown of Poole in Dorset, who survived the sinking, and of her father John Hatfield Cribb, who lost his life.