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Ship Sinking facts

While investigating facts about Ship Sinking, I found out little known, but curios details like:

The second officer of the Titanic, who survived by swimming from the sinking ship to a capsized raft, later in life sailed his civilian craft to Dunkirk and helped evacuate over 130 men.

A man survived the sinking of a ship in 1871, leaving him traumatized afterwards. Some forty years later he was finally able to overcome his fears and sail again... only to die on the Titanic.

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 50 of the best facts about Ship Sinking I managed to collect.

  1. Not all torpedoes are designed to pierce hulls then explode, some detonate below the target ship without making contact. This creates a gas bubble that causes the ship to be thrust out of the water then dropped back into the resulting void, often breaking the vessel in half and sinking it.

  2. The Titanic had an older sister ship called "Olympic", which became the only civilian ship to sink an enemy warship during WWI, when it turned around and rammed a German submarine attempting to attack it. The sub was gashed open by The Olympic's propellor.

  3. A coal stoker named Arthur John Priest survived the sinking of five ships, including the Titanic, earning the nickname "The Unsinkable Stoker"

  4. RMS Titanic" fired 8 emergency flares before sinking. A ship in the area, the "SS Californian", saw the flares and that the ship appeared uneven in the water. The crew told the captain, who did not believe the rockets were fired in distress. All of Titanic's passengers could have been rescued.

  5. The Chief Baker of the Titanic survived paddling for three hours in the frigid Atlantic waters after the sinking of the ship. This was due to a combination of two factors; he'd drunk a decent amount of alcohol, and he was a very good swimmer. He was the last man to leave the ship.

  6. The largest British ship lost at sea, the MV Derbyshire at 92,000 tons, went down in a typhoon off Japan without ever issuing a mayday call. Investigators found the wreck and concluded the entire sinking could have happened in as little as two minutes. This video simulation is real time.

  7. While the Titanic only had enough life boats to hold 1/3 of passengers, she was actually carrying more lifeboats than were legally required. That's because lifeboats were intended to ferry survivors from a sinking ship to a rescuing ship—not keep afloat the whole population.

  8. The steamship Eastland, which, in 1915, capsized while still tied to the dock in Chicago. New safety laws which rushed through Congress after the Titanic sinking mandated so much safety gear installed that the ship was top heavy and rolled over, killing 844 people.

  9. The largest British ship lost at sea, the MV Derbyshire at 92,000 tons, went down in a typhoon off Japan without ever issuing a mayday call. Investigators found the wreck and concluded the entire sinking could have happened in as little as two minutes. This video simulation is real time.

ship sinking facts
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Ship Sinking data charts

For your convenience take a look at Ship Sinking figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.

ship sinking fact data chart about 2342 Ships, 8.6+ million standard tons of shipping. Japanese
2342 Ships, 8.6+ million standard tons of shipping. Japanese Merchant Fleet Sinkings Dec 1941-Aug 1945.

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When the Titanic was found in 1985, the famous Grand Staircase (appearing in many films of the sinking) was missing. During the filming of the 1997 movie, the replica was torn out by the water when the set was flooded; the real staircase was likely ripped out of the ship in the same way.

A man who survived the sinking of a ship in 1871 was finally able to overcome his fears and decided to sail again in 1911: he died in the sinking of the Titanic. - source

Judy, the hero dog of WWII. She saved her fellow soldiers on multiple occasions. Was captured by the Japanese and spent years in the pow camps. She survived multiple ships sinking and was eventually freed and given the Sicken Medal in England. - source

The USS Johnston was saluted by a Japanese destroyer captain as it was sinking, after spending nearly 3 hours squaring off against 23 Japanese ships, including 4 Battleships, 8 Cruisers and 11 destroyers.

Blackbeard died 296 years ago to this day. He received five bullet wounds and twenty sword cuts. His head was cut off and his body thrown overboard. As legend has it his headless body swam around the ship 3 times before sinking. - source

14 years prior to Titanic tragedy, there was novel featuring the 'biggest ship ever built', an ocean liner called Titan, the "unsinkable", which sinks after hitting an iceberg

The only Japanese passenger on the RMS Titanic‍ '​s disastrous maiden voyage survived the ship's sinking, but found himself condemned and ostracised by the Japanese public, press and government for his decision to save himself rather than go down with the ship.

A ship floated around the Artic unmanned for decades after being abandoned. It got stuck in the ice and they thought it would sink by itself.

The violin played on the Titanic by Wallace Hartley was found and is now considered to be one of the most well preserved artifacts of the ships sinking.

14 years prior to Titanic sinking, the book Futility told the story of an unsinkable ship "Titan" which also struck an iceberg on it's starboard side in the North Atlantic on an April night. The fictitious ship closely matched the Titanic's length, weight, speed, capacity, and lack of lifeboats.

Interesting facts about ship sinking

An ocean line stewardess who survived the sinking of three ships: Titanic, Britannic, and the Olympic, made sure to grab her toothbrush while going down with the Britannic because it was the first thing she missed having after going down on the Titanic.

About Unsinkable Sam, a cat that managed to survive the sinking of three ships during World War 2.

The longest serving officer in the United States Navy, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, who served for 63 years under 13 presidents, Said that he would "would sink them all" when asked about what he would do to his nuclear powered ships.

A cat nicknamed "Unsinkable Sam" who survived 3 separate ship sinkings in both the Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy during WWII

The theme song from the movie Titanic, Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” was playing in the dining room of the Costa Concordia cruise ship just as she hit an underwater reef, which would eventually lead to her sinking.

The "loose lips sink ships" propaganda campaign in WWII was not really designed to keep shipping information from German agents but rather to keep American morale up by not communicating how many US ships were being sunk by Germany

Ramon Artagaveytia survived the sinking of the ship "America" in 1871. After 40 years of recovering from the trauma, and never being on a ship since, he decided to board a ship heading for America on 10th April 1912, the Titanic. He did not survive.

In spring of 1942 German U-boats terrorized east coast of US sinking fuel tankers and cargo ships with impunity and often within sight of shore and in less than 7 months destroyed 22 percent of the tanker fleet and sank 233 ships killing 5,000 ...more than 2X number who perished at Pearl Harbor.

There was such bad communication between the officers on the Titanic that the ship's quartermaster, George Rowe, did not know the ship was sinking until he asked why he had seen lifeboats being lowered into the water

In 1933 six thousand people were deported to an island in the Soviet Union and left with only flour to eat and no shelter. Guards would hunt people like animals, deliberately sink ships full of people and cannibalism became common.

Influential newspaper editor William Thomas Stead wrote a story in 1892 about a ship sinking in the Atlantic at great loss of life due to not enough lifeboats. Stead died in the Titanic sinking in 1912.

Violet Jessop, “Miss Unsinkable,” the woman who survived the sinking of the sister ships the Titanic and the Britannic, and was also aboard the third of the trio of Olympic class vessels, the Olympic, when it had a major accident.

The sea route that Titanic sunk on should have been populated by many other ships, which could have saved victims of the sinking, however, ships transferred their coal to Titanic in port so she could make the date of her voyage, resulting in the area being virtually isolated when Titanic sunk.

The Laha Massacre where Japanese forces picked 300 Australian and Dutch POWs at random in February 1942 and executed them in revenge for the sinking of a Japanese ship. Surviving crew members of the sunken ship took part in the killings.

Teddy Sheean, An Australian sailor during WW2, who during the sinking of the HMAS Armidale and after being shot by a Japanese Fighter plane, strapped himself to an anti-aircraft gun and covered the evacuation of the ships crew untill he and the ship submerged.

The French secret service planted mines on a Greenpeace ship, sinking it and killing one person.

During the sinking of the Titanic the people who shoveled coal to power the ship (Firemen), continued to shovel coal to keep the lights on, and water pumps running, to allow more time for people to evacuate. Only 48 survived out of the 173.

This is our collection of basic interesting facts about Ship Sinking. The fact lists are intended for research in school, for college students or just to feed your brain with new realities. Possible use cases are in quizzes, differences, riddles, homework facts legend, cover facts, and many more. Whatever your case, learn the truth of the matter why is Ship Sinking so important!

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