RMS Titanic even head-on collisions had not been disastrous. In 1907 , a German liner, had rammed an iceberg but still had been able to complete her voyage, and Captain Smith himself had declared in 1907 that he "could not imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that." At 11:40 p.m. (ship's time) on 14 April, lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg immediately ahead of "Titanic" and alerted the bridge. First Officer William Murdoch ordered the ship to be steered around the obstacle and the engines to be stopped, but it was too late;
RMS Titanic in popular culture Archibald Gracie's "The Truth about the Titanic". Beesley started writing his book shortly after being rescued by the RMS "Carpathia" and supplemented it with interviews with fellow-survivors. It was published by Houghton Mifflin within only three weeks of the disaster. Gracie carried out extensive research and interviews, as well as attending the US Senate inquiry into the sinking. He died in December 1912, just before his book was published. "Titanic"s former Second Officer, Charles Lightoller, published an account of the sinking in his 1935 book "Titanic and Other Ships", which Eugene L. Rasor characterises as an apologia. Stewardess Violet Jessop