Archival material for early Chinese settlers in Waterloo region is hard to come by, but records appear to show that the City of Cambridge was once home to a family with an incredible tie to the Titanic. The Bing family was first recorded in 1894, when Sam Lee is listed as having arrived in Galt, Ont. His nephew, Lee Bing, was manager of Galt’s White Rose Cafe in the 1930s and is one of the people profiled in the documentary film The Six — which tells the stories of the six Chinese men who survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. “You have a whole family that comes here, his uncle Sam, his other uncle — Coon Lee, and then Lee himself. He’s listed as 19-years-old in 1921,” said Dan Schmalz, an analyst with Cambridge Archives.
March 6, 1912: Titanic (right) had to be moved out of the drydock so her sister Olympic (left), which had lost a propeller, could have it replaced. Robert John Welch (1859-1936), official photographer for Harland & Wolff Public domain
“While Titanic was the largest man-made object afloat in 1912, it could easily fit inside today’s mega cruise ships.” Titanic measured 269m in length while the world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas, measures a whopping 362m. London’s Shard is 310m so is easily dwarfed by Wonder of the Seas although Titanic was smaller. Titanic had three classes onboard, first, second and third. Sheryl told Express.co.uk what passengers in each class could expect.
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Titanic Grave markers at Fairview Cemetery Halifax N.S William B. Grice (Wikimedia)
In the dark days after the tragedy, the Nova Scotia capital became chief mourner, coroner and undertaker. “It gathered, identified and buried the bodies, and it did so with great diligence and respect,” British newspaper The Daily Telegraph said in 2012 during the 100-year memorial events. “The poignant tales of love and loss uncovered in the process ensure that the sinking is remembered, not just as a historic event, but as a human tragedy on a colossal scale.”
A documentary telling the story of six Chinese Titanic survivors will play at the Beloit International Film Festival, featuring the story of a local restaurant owner’s family. “The Six,” which follows six Chinese natives rescued from the freezing North Atlantic after the sinking of the Titanic, will have one of its first US showings in Beloit. According to BIFF executive director Greg Gerard, finding the film has been a fun process among the local community. “It turns out that there’s a person who was on the Titanic that’s buried in a cemetery in Beloit. I mean, these things we we never knew about before are coming to light. So it’s kind of it’s been very fun,” Gerard said
In the immediate aftermath, a swirl of rumour, fake news, and conspiracy theories sprang up; was the ship’s state of the art design riddled with mistakes, were engineers rushed to complete it by its wealthy owner, did the needs of insurers come before saving souls, and was it an iceberg that caused the disaster? Northern Irish playwright Ron Hutchinson, whose grandfather helped build the doomed ship, spotlights these conspiracies in Ghosts of The Titanic, which blends fact with fiction as a bereaved woman tries to discover the truth about her fiancee’s death.
At the Titanic Museum of Pigeon Forge the decorations and crew celebrate March with the Irish Fairy Cottages. On the ill-fated voyage of the Titanic there were 187 Irish on-board the ship and the Titanic Museum of Pigeon Forge pays homage to these individuals with their March decor. When you visit the museum, keep an eye out because there are some new additions that are truly remarkable. There are five Irish Fairy Cottages throughout the tour and each has it’s own personality and theme, not to mention that each has been hand-crafted and therefore one-of-a-kind.
When a new cemetery is established on dry land, the grounds are thoughtfully curated. But when a ship is lost without warning, there’s no time for such plans. As the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website observes, accidental shipwrecks “show the past as it really was” by “preserving a single moment in time.” Sunken vessels captivate us. They inspire grief, wonder, romance—and horror. Here are stories of famous ships that went under, leaving a changed world in their wakes.
An initiative to send two Indigenous artists to the Titanic site is aiming to help commemorate the site and raise interest among Indigenous people in maritime careers. It’s very important that the expedition captures the last days of the Titanic as it slowly dissipates,” said Shayne McDonald, director of Miawpukek Horizon Maritime Services, a joint business venture between Miawpukek First Nation and Horizon Maritime Services that offers marine services like tugboats and subsea cable repair and maintenance. It’s a unique story in history, and as we keep it alive, we keep alive the stories of the individuals that died on the voyage.”
The final letter sent by an unsung hero of the Titanic disaster who sacrificed his own life for others has been unearthed almost 110 years later. John Harper placed his six-year-old daughter Nina and niece into lifeboat 11 but gave up the chance to go with her so another woman or child could be saved. He did so knowing the decision would likely make his daughter an orphan as her mother had previously died. As the liner began to sink Mr. Harper, a Baptist minister, ran along the flooded decks, preaching the gospel to anyone who would listen. He also gave away his own lifejacket to another men, telling him ‘you need this more than I do’, before going down with the ship.
An extremely rare plaque salvaged from a Titanic lifeboat has been unearthed almost 110 years on and could sell for £50,000. The cast bronze signage came from one of the 18 lifeboats deployed on the night of the disaster in 1912 in which more than 1,500 people died. They were recovered by the rescue ship RMS Carpathia and 13 of them were taken to New York with the other five set adrift. The surviving wooden lifeboat were later broken up and stripped for scrap metal. Most of these parts vanished into obscurity, with only a few items turning up at museums and in private collections. The plaques are therefore one of the “rarest types of Titanic memorabilia”.
When survivors of the Titanic arrived in New York on a rescue ship, six Chinese survivors were sent away. A new documentary called The Six digs into these stories. Reset talks with the lead researcher of the documentary and a family member of the survivor who learned the winding story of his father’s journey to Chicago.
Officials at Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition announced the Orlando attraction is expanding operations and will now be open daily. The attraction is located along International Drive and allows guests to step back in time to 1912 to see more than 300 artifacts and historical items, a full-scale room replica and the “Little Big Piece,” a 3-ton section of the original ship’s hull.
Fong said his dad had him when he was 65-years-old, and his father never spoke about his journey aboard the ill-fated ship. But other family members through the years made mentions of a harrowing survival from a shipwreck. Through dates, data and corroborating DNA, the new documentary “The Six,” created with executive producer James Cameron, tells the true story of six Chinese men rescued from the unsinkable vessel. Fong said his dad and the other five didn’t understand the third class member instructions to stay in their barracks and took another way to the top of the ship where they escaped.
Those 11 years haven’t all been about the Titanic: OceanGate has been regularly sending its submersibles into the depths of waters ranging from Seattle’s Elliott Bay and the Salish Sea to New York’s Hudson Canyon and the Andrea Doria’s resting place off the Massachusetts coast. But diving down to the fabled ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic in 1912 has been OceanGate’s focus for the past several years. That’s why the company built the Titan submersible, using titanium and carbon fiber, and then rebuilt it when the first vessel wasn’t deemed strong enough to stand up to the pressure of a 12,500-foot-deep (4,000-meter-deep) dive.
March 6, 1912: Titanic (right) had to be moved out of the drydock so her sister Olympic (left), which had lost a propeller, could have it replaced. Robert John Welch (1859-1936), official photographer for Harland & Wolff Public domain
Mathilde, three of her siblings and their mother, Marie, were never seen again, but 105 years later a note apparently signed by Mathilde was found on a Canadian beach. “The bottle could be the first Titanic artifact found on the American coast,” said historian Maxime Gohier. Now scientists are probing the mysterious document, in a bid to prove whether it’s the real thing, or an elaborate hoax.
“In recruiting our expedition medical team, we prioritized identifying medical professionals accustomed to working in austere and unpredictable situations like those faced in expeditionary environments. This veteran team of emergency physicians brings a wealth of experience and expertise to our Mission Specialists and crewmembers,” says Stockton Rush, President, OceanGate Expeditions. “We will continue to follow strict COVID-19 protocols that we used throughout two Fall 2020 expeditions with zero resulting COVID-19 cases. In addition, the expedition vessel, Horizon Arctic, has a medical center for onboard care,” says Rush.
Here was an opportunity to bring attention to a story that had not yet been told. Here was a chance to show others the far-reaching effects of the Chinese Exclusion Act, an act that from 1882-1943, prohibited Chinese from coming to the United States. For that is the reason you have likely never heard about these men. Every Titanic survivor—705 in all—was allowed entry into the United States without question and given aid and medical relief. After all, all papers and money had been lost in the catastrophe. But not the Chinese. They were sent away within 24 hours of arriving in New York, simply on the basis of race.
Straus Memorial Park, New York City, 1915. This memorial and park was dedicated on 15 April 1915. Photo:Public Domain (U.S. Library of Congress, Bain Collection,call number LC-B2- 3446-4)
In the days following the North Atlantic Ocean sinking of the so-called “unsinkable” Titanic, word was received in Hamilton that a young local doctor was among its more than 1,500 victims. Dr. Alfred Pain, 24, was a second-class passenger returning after a year at King’s College Hospital in London. He originally tried to sign on as ship’s doctor on a freighter in exchange for a free trip home. When that didn’t work out, he bought a ticket on a tramp steamer. But then he switched his ticket for passage on the maiden voyage of the luxury ship Titanic.
What followed was a daring escape from the depths of the ship using access ladders and passages used by crew members as some of the regular passages for third-class passengers were tightly locked, sealing the fate of those trapped below. Elin was admitted to a lifeboat, dressed only in her nightgown and life vest and by the grace of God survived the sinking. To me the most heart-wrenching part of her story is the fact that Pekka never did return to their cabin, and after the ship went down, from her lifeboat she called out to him in the darkness letting him know she was near.
“That’s a weird name for a bridge, you know, definitely is,” said Terry Dent of Snellville, Georgia. The Butt Bridge got a makeover a couple of years ago and with its lions holding shields and eagles landing on pillars, it’s impressive to see, but admittedly Butt Bridge is funny name. “Of course everyone remembers ‘save our Butt’. I think it’s something unique about Augusta keeps us funky,” said David Peltier. The funky bridge is named for Augustan Archibald Butt, aide to presidents who died on the Titanic.
An annual wreath drop serves as a way to remember and honor those who died on the Titanic. The Ice Patrol was formed after the passenger liner hit an iceberg and sank in the early morning of April 15, 1912. The wreaths from the ceremony will be dropped near where the ship sank during an iceberg reconnaissance flight in the next few weeks, Cmdr. Marcus Hirschberg said.
Eight Chinese men were on board and six survived, landing in New York three days later aboard the Carpathia, the first ship to arrive at the scene of the disaster. Under the United States’ Chinese Exclusion Act, the men were transferred 24 hours later to a British steamship and sent to Cuba. What happened after that has been unclear – until now.
Panagiotis Lymberopoulos, Vassilios Katavelos, Apostolos Chronopoulos and Demetrios Chronopoulos all came from the same village, Agios Sostis in the Messinia region of the Peloponnese. The last two men were brothers. Like many of the passengers, the four friends were young – the oldest one was only 33 years old – and they wanted to go to America in search of a better life. Tragically, their dreams, like those of so many others who perished on that starry night, never came true.They all died in the most famous shipwreck in maritime history, and the bodies of the two brothers never been found.
Many local history buffs and Titanic fans know that Anderson’s Maplewood Cemetery is the final resting place of Charles Hallace Romaine. He was a first-class passenger aboard the Titanic on its maiden voyage in April 1912. Romaine survived the disastrous sinking when he was allowed to take a seat in Lifeboat No. 9 after the women and children had been given a place.
A historic adventure at the Titanic Museum
