March 2, 2010
Titanic vs. Lusitania: Who Survived and Why?
A lifeboat from the Titanic, photographed by a passenger from the Carpathia (source: National Archives)
Name of ship: RMS Titanic
- Passengers and crew: 2,207
- Sunk: April 14, 1912, collided with an iceberg
- Time to sink: 2 hours, 40 minutes
- Deaths: 1,517
- Survival rate: 31.3%
Name of ship: RMS Lusitania
- Passengers and crew: 1,949
- Sunk: May 7, 1915, torpedoed by a German U-boat
- Time to sink: 18 minutes
- Deaths: 1,198
- Survival rate: 38.5%
The tragic voyages of the RMS Titanic and RMS Lusitania have provided a group of economists with an an opportunity to compare how people behave under extreme conditions. (Their article appears in PNAS.) Despite the different reasons for sinking, the tales of the two ships carry some remarkable similarities: Both ships carried a similar composition of passengers and were unable to accommodate everyone aboard on the lifeboats. (In the case of the Titanic there simply were not enough boats for everyone. On the Lusitania, the ship listed to starboard after being struck by the torpedo and the crew was unable to launch all of the lifeboats.) Both captains ordered that women and children be given first priority on the boats. And both ships had a similar survival rate.
The composition of the survivors was very different, though. On the Titanic, women aged 16 to 35 (child-bearing age) were more likely to survive than other age groups, as were children and people with children. On the Lusitania, both women and men aged 16 to 35 were the most likely to have lived through the incident. There were class differences, too. First-class passengers fared the best on the Titanic but the worst—even worse than third-class passengers—on the Lusitania.
What happened? The researchers say it all comes down to time.
The passengers of the Lusitania had less than 20 minutes before their ship sank, and in such a life-and-death situation, social scientists say, “self-interested reactions predominate.” It didn’t matter what the captain ordered. The ship was going down and people reacted selfishly, and in such a situation, it would be expected that people in their prime (16 to 35) would be the most likely to win a seat on a lifeboat. In addition, because there were difficulties in launching those boats, people in that age group would have had an additional advantage because they were more likely to have had the strength and agility to stay on board a rocking boat or to climb back in after falling into the water.
The Titanic, though, sank slowly enough for social norms to hold sway. The passengers generally held to the rule of “women and children first” even though they could have easily overpowered the crew. And first- and second-class passengers may have benefited from the extra time in which they may have had earlier or better information from the crew or had other advantages.
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Did the authors of the study talk at all about the effect of the munitions on board the Lusitania? Isn’t that partially why it sunk so fast? I had read that the survivors witnessed a huge second blast while on the lifeboats — the result of all the weapons on board exploding.
Brian, no, the authors did not address why the boat sank so fast. They did note, however, that the cargo included about 5,000 cases of cartridges though, “contrary to German claims, the steamer carried no masked guns, trained gunners, or special ammunition, nor was she transporting troops.”
The authors appear to have left out some critical analysis and considerations. They assume a somewhat orderly process of filling lifeboats where whomever gets to the front of the line gets onto the lifeboats and that their theory of greater men on the Lusitania lifeboats was due to a breakdown of social norms. However, the seem to ignore the fact that due to the fast sinking of the Lusitania, many of the survivors may have entered the water first prior to entering a life boat. This would have certainly favored physically fit men over women and childred, regardless of their desire to save the women and children first. This would have been far less of a factor in the sinking of the Titanic because due to the longer time, many of the lifeboats moved far away from the stricken ship while it was sinking and subsequently picked up very few survivors from the water.
Wasn’t the water in which the Lusitania sank much warmer than that in which the Titanic sank? Women tend to be far more tolerant of cold water than men…
The article has a couple of shortcomings.
First, the evacuation of the Titanic was not nearly as orderly as the Courts of Inquiry and subsequent legend would have it. It would appear that, especially towards the end, there were several attempts to rush the remaining life boats, some of which were repelled with gunfire.
Second, the Titanic’s lifeboats were barely half filled. Apparently, Captain Smith, not trusting the davits to handle the weight of a fully laden boat, wanted them lowered only partially filled, but then to return to the ship to embark more passengers through a large access port on a lower deck. However, either his instructions were misunderstood or disregarded, because the boats did not stand by the ship, but cleared the area as quickly as possible.
Third, many passengers were unaware that the ship was sinking until the last moment. Many felt much safer aboard Titanic than in a boat, as a result of which the ship’s officers had difficulty convincing women to get into the boats–and further contributing to the loss of life.
Fourth, it would appear that Third Class was not allowed up on the boat deck until only a few boats remained (which may account for the rushing of the boats). They were, therefore, never given much of a chance to choose how to behave.
Fifth, the water in which the Titanic sank was just 31 deg. F., meaning anyone in the water would succumb to hypothermia in less than fifteen minutes. In contrast, the waters of the Irish Sea in which Lusitania sank were relatively warm. In addition, Lusitania sank within sight of shore, and rescue ships from nearby ports got to the sight of the sinking in under an hour.
Sixth, Lusitania sank with an extreme list, that rendered the life boats on her port side unusable. Due to the speed with which the ship sank, many of those on the starboard side either fouled the ship or swamped in launching. Most of the passengers who got off the ship went directly into the water. As Mike notes above, no amount of good will would save a person who was not a strong swimmer. Even those with life jackets (the majority, it would seem) still risked being sucked down by the ship unless they could swim clear. Then they would have to find a way to enter a boat or piece of wreckage on which to grab to avoid exhaustion and hypothermia (which would have killed the weaker survivors despite the relatively warm seas.
In all, then, the hypothesis about time may be true, but it does not apply in the Titanic and Lusitania incidents.
It’s been a while since I read about the Lusitania, but one thing I recall is that the life belts on many of the bodies were not worn correctly, so their either didn’t help the wearer or actually hindered their floating/swimming. So this could be a factor in the men surviving more. (Staying afloat in a long skirt with no life belt would have been a challenge.)
I think that there had not been a lifebelt drill after getting underway. One of the maritime changes after this disaster, which you can still see in the mandatory lifeboat drill on today’s cruise ships.
I appreciate the comments – more food for thouught. I am glad Smithsonian.com posted this. It is good that the researchers were thinking about these issues, even if perhaps there were aspects left out.
Thank you for helping me Stuart Koehl,Mike, and Sebastian. I needed to do some homework on the Titanic. I didn’t know that there were so many reasons that you could drown by tha sinking of a ship (real happy thought there).
All of this info was very interesting. Thanks.
My grandfather was a survivor on the Lusitania (Ohan Thomas Stephen). His last name was really Stephens. Want people to know that he saved a couple of kids by swimming to them and allowed them to hold on to the piece of chair he found.. Later the kids thanked him. There was another man that helped also. Just was wondering if these kids family may know who they are.
Unfortunately, my grandfather was killed by a hit and run driver when he was in His early fourties. I never got the opportunity to me him.