Titanic: The Biggest Insurance Scam Of 1912

On 20 September 1911, the Olympic was involved in a collision with the Royal Navy Warship HMS Hawke in the Brambles Channel in Southampton Water. The two ships were close enough to each other that Olympic's motion drew the Hawke into her aft starboard side, causing extensive damage to the liner - both above and below its waterline (HMS Hawke was fitted with a re-inforced 'ram' below the waterline, purposely designed to cause maximum damage to enemy ships). An Admiralty inquiry assigned blame to the Olympic, despite numerous eye-witness accounts to the contrary.

Gardiner's theory plays out in this historical context. Olympic was found to be at blame in the collision (which, according to Gardiner, had damaged the central turbine's mountings and bent the keel, giving the ship a slight permanent list to port). Because of this finding, White Star's insurers Lloyds of London allegedly refused to pay out on the claim. White Star's flagship would also be out of action during the extensive repairs, and the Titanic's completion date, which was already behind schedule due to Olympic's return to the yard after her loss of a propeller blade, would have to be delayed. All this would amount to a serious financial loss for the company. Gardiner proposes that, to make sure at least one vessel would be earning money, the badly damaged Olympic was patched-up and then converted to become the Titanic. The real Titanic when complete would then quietly enter service as the Olympic.

>>16051581
So you're saying that they switched ships, without anyone knowing (somehow all the port reports failed to notice that the Olympic had magically teleported overnight,) got hundreds of people killed...all to deal some worn linoleum tile?

Eh, I guess i've heard dumber ideas...

The Titanic indeed had a slight list to port leaving Southampton. Inadequate trimming of cargo and bunkers would likely result in such and the crew seems to have demonstrated a lack of proficiency on several occasions. A list to port was noted by several Titanic survivors including Lawrence Beesley who wrote in his book about the sinking: "I then called the attention of our table to the way the Titanic listed to port (I had noticed this before), and we watched the skyline through the portholes as we sat at the purser's table in the saloon." (The dining saloon windows were double rows of portholes covered on the inside with screens of leaded decorative glass with no clear view of the outdoors.) This was echoed by survivor Norman Chambers, who testified that after the collision: "However, there was then a slight list to starboard, with probably a few degrees in pitch; and as the ship had a list to port nearly all afternoon, I decided to remain up."

Gardiner states that few parts of either ship bore the name, other than the easily removed lifeboats, bell, compass binnacle, and name plates. Everything else was standard White Star issue and was interchangeable between the two ships, and other vessels in the White Star fleet. While all other White Star Line Ships had their name engraved into the hull, the Titanic alone had its name riveted over top. In recent pictures of the wreck depicting a spot where two riveted plates that had spelled Titanic fell off, the letters MP appear to be stamped into the hull.

The plan, Gardiner suggests, was to dispose of the Olympic, which had allegedly been damaged beyond economic repair in a way that would allow White Star to collect the full insured value of a brand new ship. He supposes that the seacocks were to be opened at sea to slowly flood the ship. If numerous ships were stationed nearby to take off the passengers, the shortage of lifeboats would not matter as the ship would sink slowly and the boats could make several trips to the rescuers.

Gardiner uses as evidence the length of Titanic's sea trials. Olympic's trials in 1910 took two days, including several high speed runs, but Titanic's trials reportedly only lasted for one day, with (Gardiner alleges) no working over half-speed. Gardiner says this was because the patched-up hull could not take any long periods of high speed. Perhaps this was due to the fact that Titanic as a nearly identical twin sister of the Olympic was expected to handle exactly the same, or perhaps the Board of Trade inspectors were in on the scheme.

Gardiner maintains that on 14 April, First Officer Murdoch (who was not officially on duty yet) was on the bridge because he was one of the few high-ranking officers other than Captain Smith who knew of the plan and was keeping a watch out for the rescue ships. One of Gardiner's most controversial statements is that the Titanic did not strike an iceberg, but an IMM rescue ship that was drifting on station with its lights out. Gardiner based this hypothesis on the idea that the supposed iceberg was seen at such a short distance by the lookouts on the Titanic because it was actually a darkened ship, and he also does not believe an iceberg could inflict such sustained and serious damage to a steel double-hulled vessel such as the Titanic.

Gardiner further hypothesises that the ship that was hit by the Titanic was the one seen by the Californian firing distress rockets, and that this explains the perceived inaction of the Californian (which traditionally is seen as failing to come to the rescue of the Titanic after sighting its distress rockets). Gardiner's hypothesis is that the Californian was not expecting rockets, but a rendezvous. The ice on the deck of the Titanic is explained by Gardiner as ice from the rigging of both the Titanic and the mystery ship she hit. As for the true Titanic, Gardiner alleges that she spent 25 years in service as the Olympic and was scrapped in 1935.

Simple reference to Board of Trade regulations of 1912 will confirm that rockets fired as they were from the Titanic, in intervals greater than one minute apart, did not signify distress. This being so, the Californian was completely correct in her inaction. The regulations were quite clear in specifying intervals of one minute or less, using rockets with a loud report, of any color, to signify distress. It would seem that a scheme to deliberately sink their ship would prompt White Star to make sure their captain and crew knew how to properly fire distress rockets. Neither demonstrated such knowledge during the sinking.

Several of Titanic's passengers including John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, Isador Strauss, and George Dunton Widener were among the richest men in America. Some conspiracy theorists claim that these wealthy individuals were opposed to the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank and that financier J.P. Morgan saw the opportunity eliminate them by convincing them to sail with him on the maiden voyage of the new Titanic which was really the badly damaged Olympic that he planned sink in an insurance scam. As victims of a maritime disaster nobody would suspect that they had really been murdered to prevent them from opposing the Federal Reserve Act. In addition to Morgan, several of his close friends and associates are known to have cancelled their plans to sail on Titanic at the last minute, as did the wife of J. Bruce Ismay. Morgan also had several bronze statues he had planned to transport to America removed from the ship a few hours before she sailed leading to speculation that he knew her fate.

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>>16051618

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>>16051581
>the ship that sank was in fact Titanic's sister ship Olympic, disguised as Titanic

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All three ships for comparison.

interesting, never heard about this

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Wow

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>>16051647
>Portholes are different

But the crane is obscuring the view. Google is friendly and points to a picture of the Titanic with all portholes in view (picture attached). Other images show the Olympic with two additional portholes.

Underwater sonar images shows the two extra portholes.
http://img.v3.news.zdn.vn/Uploaded/bpmoqwq1/2015_04_12/t2.jpg

It could be that the floorplan changed. Googling "extra portholes titanic" brings me to
http://www.titanic-titanic.com/titanic_conspiracy_theory.shtml
But there it is suggested that the Titanic has 16 portholes and Olympic only 14.

The opposite, confusing even more.

>>16051581
Lol how tinfoil can we get

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>>16051786
Dunno. Underwater images are different.

>>16051786
Looking at it again there are two decks, both with different spacings. The top deck would indicate Titanic. I would say this one is debunked.

>>16051786
>>16051815
>>16051843

Stranger and stranger. If we compare these images, I think we can at least agree that whichever ship appears in "titanic_belfast_t750x550.jpg" is not the same ship which now rests at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

>>16051821
OP is just lazy. He just copy and pasted from the wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic_alternative_theories

>>16051821
You seriously underestimate what people do for money.

>>16051851

Looking at things again. Taking the top two decks of >>16051843, it would seem that it matches that of the Titanic or Britannic in >>16051652. The Olympic has a totally (maybe even structurally) different top deck.

>>16051815
>>16051843
dude, they don't match

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>>16051652
Sorry for being slightly off-topic, but about this third ship... Does anyone know what type of casualties were treated aboard HMHS Britannic? What type of medical facilities were equipped when it was requisitioned by the British Admiralty?

Never heard of this. Thanks OP.

>>16052077
Brittanic never saw any casualties, she was sunk before she could.

The Olympic class liners didn't HAVE nameplates. The names were recessed into the hull plating and painted.

>>16051581
finally, I'd been spitting this theory here on /x/ and /pol/ for years now. it should be an obvious, provable conspiracy theory.

>>16051633
>33
Fucking CONFIRMED

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>>16052253
DUBS MAKE IT TRUE

>>16052253
that Morgan stood to gain by the small fire burning in the one coal room just ending the trip with nobody dying is one thing, but a bunch of his freedom loving enemies dying at the same time? win-win. years later, Vanderbilt bit it on the Lusitania.

>>16052266
DOUBLE DUBS MAKE IT DOUBLE TRUE

>>16051581
This is the lamest goddamned conspiracy theory I've ever read! 0/100000000000000000000000 possible points.

>>16052368
the more plausible, the less attractive to tinfoils.

Many articles and books will use pictures of the Olympic when speaking of the Titanic as a substitution because more photographs of the Olympic exist and they were so similar it's hard for someone not in the know to spot the difference.

>>16051581
Icebergs can't melt steel beams

>>16052375
Don't be that guy. That's lame. Don't be lame.

This would make a great novel or movie. Have one really crooked character, one really straight character (maybe the captain), and an in between character slowly twisting the arm of the honest man, pushing him into increasingly worse plans. He tries to fight back, and at least put up safeguards, but gets forced into a situation he knows will be bad, and everything just goes to shit despite all his efforts.

>>16051581
>>16051588
>>16051593
>>16051599
>>16051612
>>16051618
tl;dr

>>16052375
AGREED

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>>16052058
I noticed that too so I did a better image search. Seems that many pictures have the wrong image names. Guess because for many it doesn't really care. Pictures with the name in the picture seem a better reference like the one attached.

From what I've seen so far I would say that >>16051652 would depict the best. I'm dismissing the porthole identification as that can easily change. The image of the titanic on the wiki even has 15.

The underwater picture clearly shows the top deck fingerprint which is Titanic, and its structural. It might be possible to change the number of portholes and give it a paint job prior before departure, but to structurally change a deck would seem going too far.

I was always open for the theory that the Olympic might be the one to hit the iceberg, but I never did my own research. Now I have I find that >>16051786 is falsely presenting facts. I see >>16051843 telling the truth. Personally I consider it debunked than the Olympic is the one that sank 103 years and 11 days ago.

>>16052573
nigga this whole board's a fuckin joke

>>16051843
>>16051786

It is the lower deck that is in question not the upper. As you can see by the portholes under the lower deck, that the underwater photos match up with the evidence given.

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>>16053767
>Making a new comparison based on three decks

I would say the underwater picture is the RMS Titanic

>>16051593
>>(The dining saloon windows were double rows of portholes covered on the inside with screens of leaded decorative glass with no clear view of the outdoors.)
Which begs the question: How did the witness see such a thing, then?

>>"In recent pictures of the wreck depicting a spot where two riveted plates that had spelled Titanic fell off, the letters MP appear to be stamped into the hull."
[Citation needed]
>>16051599
>>No iceburg hit the titanic
>>Several witnesses later remarked that passengers saw/played with bits of ice(from the so-called "phantom iceburg") after the collision.
Am I to believe that staff in on the plot threw ice cubes onto the decks to keep up appearances? -_-
>>16051612
>>Officer: (On seeing colored rockets lighting up the sky) "Captain, I believe those are distress rockets being fired by that there ship."
>>Captain: (Checks watch) "You are mistaken, good sir.....those rockets are firing much too slowly to be distress based rocketry. As such, they must surely be party rockets."
>>Cabin Boy: (While walking by and randomly flinging poo) "Red rocket, red rocket!"

>>16051921
You mean just like our ol' pal Lucky Larry?

>>16052101
The hospital ship got sunk....oh the irony:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9cWKAAvg1c

>>16052716
There's actually a pretty decent Titanic-themed adventure game out there(Titanic: Adventure out of time). It was made in the 90's, and (iirc)it includes some various conspiracy bits and bobs(which have been thrown in/livened up a bit). If you have the time(and the patience required to get some emulated games to run) it might be up your alley.

>>16052538
kek