Two data from the Titanic that could change the story of the greatest tragedy of the seas

105 years have passed and still awake intrigue. How could it be possible that man's greatest challenge to the oceans has succumbed on his maiden voyage, leaving a trail of 1,500 souls under the icy water of the Atlantic? How were those hours of horror in which moments of heroism and miseries were experienced at the same time?

20 years have passed from the film that director James Cameron has released and that immortalized the love between Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and revived a whole generation what happened on the night of the 14th and 15th of April 1912

But what really happened during the evacuation of the Titanic? The film of the North American filmmaker shows partly the negligence of the people in charge of the ship and also the human condition that can scare in moments of desperation after the impact against the iceberg and that the water began to sink to the transatlantic one. What was the role of the officers in charge of the evacuation of the passengers? How did they fight to prevent the few who could get on an emergency raft from being approached by the hundreds who tried to save themselves in the same way? Could the collision with the lethal block of ice have been avoided?

1 - The phantom lights and the whaler that could avoid the tragedy

The story goes that during the most dramatic hours after the impact on the iceberg, a Finnish ship dedicated to the illegal hunting of seals and whales was approaching to help in the rescues. But the captain of the Samson, after observing the flares of the Titanic, believed that the United States Coast Guard was behind them to seize their cargo, according to the author Nacho Montero in his book The Ten of the Titanic.

The whaling ship was going from Canada to North American waters without permission and trafficking seal skins. Days later they arrived at the coast of Iceland and learned about the magnitude of the tragedy they had left behind without help. The crew, knowing that they could have saved the passengers, made a pact of silence that lasted half a century. Henrik Naess, captain of the Samson, confessed the truth when he was dying.

2 - The brutality of the officers

When on the deck of the Titanic everything was desperation, drama and struggle to survive, there were those who really knew that if this situation persisted, half the passengers and almost the entire crew would perish in the icy waters of the Atlantic. The equation was easy: on board there were less than half the lifeboats necessary for such a monster of the seas. And intimately, the officers in charge of the emergency operation knew that they should act coldly, but also with inhuman brutality.

It was as well as several witnesses saw how with axes they cut the hands to those who wanted to climb the lifeboats already in the water and with passengers to survive. Concerned that the untimely approach of those who were swimming desperate could sink the boats, the sailors who led the rafts had to amputate with a blow the extremities of those who tried to climb.

Although the sailors denied during the investigations carried out by the American and English authorities that they had refused to assist passengers, the reality was different. "In a matter of minutes, boat 12, which was a quarter of a mile away from the sinking area, was beset by crazed castaways trying to climb the boat. A person came swimming up to our boat and they cut off his hand with an ax, while others were shot dead, "the Spanish sisters Florentina and Asunción Duran reported in the same book, ABC newspaper reported.