Back to the Around WWI calendar
This was a year of ups and downs. The Royal Flying Corps, the forerunner of the RAF, went up in the skies while the Titanic,
the world's largest ship, went down.
On 13th April 1912 King George V signed a
royal warrant establishing the Royal Flying Corps. At this time it was part of the British Army. Initially they had 133 officers and 12 manned balloons (really)
and 36 aeroplanes. On 1 July 1914, a month before WWI began, the Royal Navy created the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). The RFC's motto was per ardua ad astra which
means through difficulties to the stars. On 1st April 1918, no it's not a joke, the RFC and the RNAS merged to become the Royal Air Force and this is still the RAF
motto. The picture shows an aeroplane being delivered to the Royal Flying Corp in 1914. Landing was still tricky. If you turn your screen
upside down you can see what the plane should look like.
As you will see soon, the RFC played a part in WWI.
Let's now look at the Titanic, or correctly, the RMS
Titanic. RMS stood for Royal Mail Ship and could be used by any ship that had a contract to carry letters and parcels for the Royal Mail. The Titanic was, at the
time of its launch in May 1911, the largest ship afloat. Following the launch, over the next year, the engines, funnels etc were fitted and she began her maiden
(first) voyage from Southampton to New York at noon on April 12th 1912. It was also the height of luxury with first class passengers having access to an on-board
gymnasium, a swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants and luxurious cabins.
After leaving Southampton, the Titanic went across the English Channel and picked up some more passengers at Cherbourg in France although the ship was
too big to get into the harbour there. The new passengers were ferried out on small tenders and the same happened when the ship stopped at Queenstown, now known as
Cork, in Ireland. As she set out across the Atlantic Ocean she had an estimated 2,244 passengers and crew.
On 14th April, at 11.40pm, the Titanic hit an enormous iceberg when about 600kms south of Newfoundland. Those of you who have seen our little video
about how the world formed will know that only about 10% of an iceberg is above water so they are pretty hefty things to hit. As a safety feature the Titanic had
sixteen watertight compartments but the collision meant the ship sides buckled and five of these compartments began to flood. The designers had said it could
survive if four were flooded.
The ship began to sink. There were lifeboats but only enough for about 1,200 people and these were launched in such a rush that some were only half
full. At 2.20am in the early morning of April 15th the Titanic sank with over 1,000 people still on board. About two hours later the RMS Carpathia, which had picked
up distress morse code messages being sent out by the radio operator on the Titanic, picked up 710 survivors from the lifeboats. In total it is estimated that more than 1,500
people, including that radio operator, died in the disaster. In 2009 Millvina Dean, who was on the Titanic in 1912 when she was two months old died at the age of 97.
She was the last living survivor of the ill-fated voyage.
The wreck of the Titanic was discovered in 1985 but was left where it is at a depth of about 3,700 metres. Lots of bits of the ship have been brought
to the surface and can now be seen in museums around the world. This is a picture of the bow of the ship taken in 2004.
Forward to 1914AD
