TITANIC - Was Titanic Sinking an Insurance Scam?

This portrait by Simon Fisher shows Olympic (left) and Titanic on March 6, 1912 at Harland & Wolff. The Olympic had lost a propeller and had to return to the yard for repairs.


Robin Gardner's book, 'Titanic, the Ship that Never Sank?'
Robin Gardner's book, 'The Great Titanic Conspiracy'

Was Titanic Sinking an Insurance Scam?

April 15, 2012





The  Olympic, damaged in a collision and destined for the scrapyard, may have been disguised as its sister ship, the Titanic. This raises questions about the true nature of the "accident" which took place 100 years ago today.

by John Hamer
(Reprised from July 2011)
 

In 1908, financier J.P. Morgan planned a brand new class of luxury liners that would enable the wealthy to cross the Atlantic in previously undreamed-of opulence.  The construction of the giant vessels, the 'Olympic', the 'Titanic' and the 'Britannic,' began in 1909 at the Harland and Wolff  shipyard in Belfast, Ireland.

Unfortunately for Morgan, this money-making venture went a little awry.  The Olympic, the first of the three sister-ships to be completed was involved in a serious collision with the British Royal Navy cruiser, HMS Hawke in September 1911 in Southampton a few weeks after its maiden voyage. It had to be  'patched-up' before returning to Belfast to undergo proper repair work.

In hindsight, it does seem strange that the Olympic, the first of the 'sisters' to enter service, was never given the publicity her younger sister, the Titanic, enjoyed the following year  Why would that be?

In the meantime, a Royal Navy inquiry into the accident found the Olympic at fault for the collision and this meant that the owner, White Star Line's insurance was null and void.  The White Star Line was out of pocket to the tune of at least £800,000 (around $90m today) for repairs and lost revenues.

However, for Morgan and the White Star Line, there was even worse news.
 It is believed that the keel of the ship was actually twisted and therefore  beyond repair, which would have effectively meant the scrapyard. The White Star Line would have been bankrupted, given its precarious financial situation..

According to Robin Gardner's book, 'Titanic, the Ship that Never Sank?'
the seeds were sown for an audacious insurance scam - the surreptitious switching of the identities of the two ships, Olympic andTitanic.

Gardner presents credible testimonies, indisputable facts and evidence, both written and photographic, that suggest that the two ships were indeed switched with a view to staging an iceberg collision or other unknown fatal event.

According to Gardner, "Almost two months after the Hawke/Olympic collision, the reconverted Titanic, now superficially identical to her sister except for the C deck portholes, quietly left Belfast for Southampton to begin a very successful 25-year career as the Olympic.

Back in the builders' yard, work progressed steadily on transforming the battered hulk of the Olympic into the Titanic.  The decision to dispose of the damaged vessel would already have been taken. ...  Instead of replacing the damaged section of keel, longitudinal bulkheads were installed to brace it".

How significant then in the light of this statement, that when the wreck of the Titanic was first investigated by Robert Ballard and his crew after its discovery in 1987, the first explorations of the wreckage reportedly showed (completely undocumented in the ships original blueprints) iron support structures in place which appeared to be supporting and bracing the keel.  

This was never satisfactorily explained but would certainly be significant as it was reported by the puzzled Ballard himself who of course at that time knew nothing (and probably still does not even now) about the alleged switching of the two ships' identities.
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Robin Gardiner 

In the industry which has sprung up around the story of the Titanic author Robin Gardiner has never been afraid to attract controversy, or answer his critics.

Since his first book "Riddle of the Titanic" became a best seller in the 1990s he has worked tirelessly on researching firm evidence of his theory that the Titanic had in fact been switched with her almost identical sister ship Olympic in a conspiracy involving government at the highest level, and financiers whose names are still at the top of the international business world today.

His second book "The Ship That Never Sank" attracted similar controversy, and many critics, but none of whom have been able to convincingly argue against a man who will never answer a question with anything other than a fact.

Rather than join the war of words which has gone on via the Internet and media sources he has carried on his research and written this startling third book- the perfect answer to them all. It contains startling new evidence and is already attracting amazing pre-orders from across the world.

In Robin's own words: "To understand why they sank the Titanic we have first to know that they didn't"

http://www.greattitanicconspiracy.co.uk/robin-gardiner
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Questions Surround Official Titanic Story

July 28, 2011



This is part two of "Was Sinking of Titanic an Insurance Scam?" 


"The surviving crew were detained overnight and forced to sign a pledge under the  'Official Secrets Act', promising to keep secret forever, the actual events of the night of 14th / 15th April, 1912"


by John Hamer
(henrymakow.com) 

The Captain of Titanic, Edward Smith (left) had been traversing the North Atlantic waters for more than a quarter of a century.  He was regarded as the 'world's most experienced master' in the North Atlantic but Smith knew all along that his ship would be made to sink on its 'first' voyage.

He also had complete knowledge of where the icebergs were.  Under his boss J.P. Morgan's secret orders, he propelled Titanic full speed at 22 knots on a moonless night and through a ice field 80 square miles in size.

Captain Smith's actions were totally out of character.  Significantly and conveniently, Smith in the age-old tradition, as Captain, went down with the ship.  Could Smith have even been 'allowed' to survive, knowing as he did, the real truth about the incident?

As is well known, there were not enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew. Some boats left the ship as little as only one quarter full.  The Captain strangely ordered white flares knowing full well that the international standard for distress flares was red.  Other ships passing within sight of these flares were intentionally confused and thought the Titanic was having a fireworks party.

In his book, "Titanic, the Ship that Didn't Sink," Robin Gardner states, "As I delved deeper into the story, more and more inconsistencies became apparent.  Inconsistencies that individually meant little but collectively pointed to a grimmer reality than that usually depicted in the heroic legend".

He continues, "Officers who were later acclaimed as heroes were exposed as anything but.  One in particular removed a little boy from a lifeboat at gunpoint, before escaping in that same boat himself".

"Descriptions of the collision and damage supposedly sustained by Titanic do not agree.  The 'slight scrape' with the ice that was hardly noticed by most aboard contradicts solid evidence of structural damage at least 5½ feet (1.6 meters) within the outer hull of the vessel".

"Then came evidence to show that the ice the ship encountered was seen first not 500 yards (480 meters) ahead but more like 11 miles (17km).  I began to wonder if perhaps the sinking of the Titanic might not have been an accident after all".

Indeed, did Titanic actually strike an iceberg at all?  We only have the testimony of four people believe it or not with which to confirm or deny this fact.  First Officer Murdoch would have been the fifth witness but he did not live to tell his story.

The Titanic was not the only ship at that precise location that night.  For example, there is a photograph of a drifting lifeboat sporting the colors of a different ship than the Titanic.

Then there is the gouge in the side of the ship itself - 1.6 meters deep through the outer steel plates and into the inner skin!  Compacted ice is known to be very strong, but it is not capable of doing such damage to steel.

INQUIRIES

Both the American and British official inquiries were considered 'whitewashes', with much evidence ignored and eye-witness testimonies being twisted or indeed fabricated to fit the 'official' story.

Of the 102 witnesses called to the British Inquiry, only two were passengers. None of the witnesses (crew or passengers) were allowed to offer first-hand evidence of any kind and were strictly restricted to the simple answering of questions without elaboration.  By any standards at all, this sounds very much like a 'whitewash' to me.

A 'yellow-funneled steamer' observed in the proximity of Titanic by the officers and crew of the Californian at around the time of the incident. This ship has never been identified.
"...I saw another steamer approaching, and asked [the wireless operator] what vessels he had within reach; he replied: 'The Titanic', whereupon I replied, 'That is not the Titanic; she is too small and hasn't enough lights.'
Shortly afterwards this steamer stopped and was bearing S.S.E. about five or six miles from our position.  ...the chief officer was sweeping the southern horizon with his glasses, and finally reported he saw a four-mast steamer with a yellow funnel to the southward of us, and asked if we should try to get down to have a look at her."  Captain Lord of the Californian in an interview with an American newspaper reporter in 1914.  

The crew of this ship (whatever she was) must have been aware that they were close to the Titanic, so why did no-one volunteer any information?

Could this mysterious yellow-funneled vessel have been responsible for the devastating damage to Titanic?  The 'iceberg collision' is just a cover story concocted to protect the guilty.


NOTE:  The 'Californian' was there, in the middle of the Atlantic - with no freight, no cargo, no passengers, no purpose - except for 3,000 jumpers and blankets. Their intention was to fake an accident, for all passengers and crew members to be saved!
Furthermore, upon arriving back in England, from New York aboard the steamer Lapland, two weeks after the disaster, 173 of the surviving crew me denied their right to speak with their trade union representatives.

They were also detained and forced to sign a pledge under the  'Official Secrets Act', promising to keep secret forever, the actual events of the night of 14th / 15th April.

Otherwise, they would be prosecuted and 'never work again', not just for White Star but for any other employer.  In those now far-off days, the inability to procure gainful employment could be almost a death sentence to the crews and their families.

CONCLUSION

Did Captain Smith deliberately steer Titanic into a huge ice-field without reducing speed to create a cover-story for the Titanic to be rammed by the yellow-funneled mystery ship?

Along with the officer on duty on the Bridge at that time, First Officer William Murdoch and Quartermaster Hitchens plus Quartermaster George Rowe on the after-bridge, lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee were the only other ones known to have personally witnessed the appalling events.

Of these five witnesses, four survived, significantly all of them 'lower-class' people. Forcing four working-class people to keep quiet over a century ago, would have been a relatively simple task.

First Officer Murdoch is said to have 'committed suicide' in the aftermath of the collision whilst the ship was being abandoned. He has also been accused of shooting passengers before turning a gun on himself, something that his family and descendants have disputed. Could there be a more sinister explanation for his demise along with that of Captain Smith?

Down the years, suicide has always been a very convenient cover-story for many a silencing murder. How easy would it have been under the circumstances for a paid assassin to dispose of Messrs Smith, Murdoch, as well as the financiers Guggenheim, Strauss and Astor?

Thus, these wealthy men, who may have opposed the formation of the Federal Reserve System (granted, due to their own conflicting financial interests and not out of any great concern for the plight of the masses), were disposed of, along with the 'collateral damage' of 1517 other innocents.

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John Hamer, 59,  has a horse-racing business in Yorkshire. This is an excerpt from his book, 'The Falsification of History - Our Distorted Reality' which will be published in mid 2012.  John can be contacted at john@pegasusracingclub.com
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Robin Gardiner's sensational new book, The Great Titanic Conspiracy, is now available. It will completely rewrite one of the most historic events of the 20th 

century, the tragic sinking of the Titanic....or was it really the Titanic?

The book, will be a testimony to his many years of work on the subject and expose some shocking revelations.

He stands history on its head in this his third major book on the subject, and puts forward amazing evidence to show that the ship which really sank on that fateful night almost 100 years ago was not the original Titanic.

Impossible? The purists will argue that it is. Only you, the reader, can decide.

The book is published by Ian Allan and if you want to order a hardback copy at RRP of £19.99 e-mail us now atgreattitanicconspiracy@gmail.com 

 Since the bestselling "Titanic: The Ship That Never Sank" was published in 1998, author Robin Gardiner has unearthed a wealth of new evidence for his theory that the sinking of Titanic was a vast conspiracy, and that the ship that went down on April 15th 1912 was in fact Olympic, Titanic's sister ship, and the sinking was planned as one of the world's greatest insurance frauds. 

To the present day the most common maritime insurance fraud involves changing identities of ships. But tragically the planned staging of the sinking of Titanic, whereby other ships from the company would be on hand to rescue all the passengers and crew, went disastrously wrong and 1500 souls perished on the supposedly unsinkable ship's maiden voyage. 

This book concentrates on the conspiracy, with evidence of why the White Star company intended to defraud the insurance company by swapping the identity of Titanic and the recently damaged Olympic in a collision with HMS Hawke, with new conclusive photographic and documentary evidence of the swap. 

The story starts with financier J P Morgan's takeover of White Star and the Royal Navy's investment in the company's new liners as potential troop carriers. 

Following the Agadir crisis in 1911 Morgan began to ship gold and other treasures back to the safe haven of the US. 

The pressure on White Star to make up the cost of the damage to Olympic, which the insurance company would not cover, through swapping the identities of Olympic and Titanic, was also the opportunity for Morgan with the collusion of the British government, to quietly ship GBP8 million of gold to the US. 

But unbeknown to the government, the gold was spirited away. 

The subsequent staged collision with the iceberg went horribly wrong as those in charge of Titanic completely underestimated the scale of the panic and the ensuing disaster as the ship quickly sank and the rescue boats failed to arrive became a disaster that would reverberate around the world. This gripping account recounts the author's theory on the whole build up to the disaster and its aftermath in which all parties were involved in collusion, conspiracy and cover-up on an unprecedented scale. Is it true or is it fiction? 

------------------------------------------------the reader can decide.

 COMMENT:
I believe that the undeniable piece of evidence is that the wreckage shows the hull bulkheads – there is no question about that. And the bulkheads were installed on the Olympic after the crash with HMS Hawke to reinforce the hull structure. Titanic, obviously, never had the bulkheads installed. That’s it right there.

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TITANIC: 'The Ship That Never Sank'?

According to this Popular book that i read last month.I found, the Titanic never sank.It's sister ship "Olympic" had a hole in it somewhere and so the owners disguised it as the Titanic and sunk it for the huge insurance payments?!

The biggest insurance scam of the earth as well as a massacre that left thousands of families lives distraught.All for a bigger insurance pay out... .IT is the the most infamous disaster story in shipping history.
The "unsinkable" Southamp-ton liner Titanic went down in the freezing waters of the Atlantic Ocean with the loss of more than 1,500 lives on April 15, 1912.
Or did she?.

In the years following the sinking of the superliner RMS Titanic many alternative theories about how the Titanic sank have been put forward. The accepted reason for the sinking, which resulted in the death of more than 1,500 people, was that the ship struck an iceberg at 11:40 PM on April 14, 1912 and sank two hours and forty minutes later. The iceberg buckled the hull allowing water to enter the ship’s first five watertight compartments, one more than the Titanic was designed to stay afloat with.
As with many famous events of the 20th Century, unconventional theories have been brought up as the cause of the disaster. Stories of curses on the ship and theories that an iceberg was not the reason the Titanic sank have been brought up many times since the ship sank.

Controversy

One of the most controversial and complex theories regarding the sinking of the Titanic was put forward by Robert Gardiner in his book 'TITANIC: The Ship That Never Sank?' (published 1999).
In it, Gardiner draws on several events and coincidences that occurred in the months, days and hours leading up to the sinking of the Titanic to form his theory. Put simply, his theory is that the ship that hit the iceberg on 14 April 1912 was in fact the Titanic's sister-ship the Olympic, disguised as the Titanic. All this was part of an insurance scam of huge proportions by the White Star Line.
The Olympic was the older sister to the Titanic, built alongside the more famous vessel but launched much earlier, in October 1910. She was to all purposes identical to the Titanic, save for small detailing such as the promenade deck windows. These were not glazed in the Olympic. In the Titanic the front half of the promenade deck was fitted with smaller glazed windows to protect passengers from spray.
On September 20, 1911, the Olympic was involved in a collision with the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Hawke near Southampton. The cruiser smashed its ram into the side of the Olympic, seriously damaging both ships. The inquiry (an internal Royal Navy one) found its ship free of all blame. This set in motion Gardiner's theory.

Gardiner's theory

He proposes that:
With a verdict against them, the White Star Line was left without an insurance claim to cover the cost of fixing the serious damage caused to the Olympic in the collision (so serious that the central turbine's mountings were damaged). The ship would have to be returned to Belfast, dry-docked and repaired. The Titanic was at the time being fitted out in the same dock. This would mean the White Star's flagship liner was out of action, and the Titanic's completion date would be delayed. All this amounted to a serious financial loss for the company (Estimated at £10 million in today's money). The worst fears were realised when it was found that some keel damage had occurred during the collision.

Gardiner proposes that, to get at least one vessel out and earning money, it was decided to turn the 95% complete Titanic into the Olympic. Very few parts of either ship bore the name. Most that did (lifeboats, bell, compass binnacle and, of course, name badges) were all easily moved over to the Titanic.

The conversion was done in two months and the Titanic (now the Olympic) returned to Southampton and spent the next 25 years in the line's service.
Work would have continued on the hull of the original Olympic. The decision to dispose of the vessel would have been taken early on. The repair bill was huge and the ship's immense build costs were barely paid off. Repairs were done as quickly as possible, with added bracing being used to strengthen the damaged keel plating. The windows and detailing was converted to 'Titanic' using the panelling taken from the original when it was converted into its elder sister.
At this time, the ship now working under the name 'Olympic' returned to the yard yet again, this time under the pretence of having a damaged propeller blade replaced. Gardiner says that this was in fact so that the conversion could be completed with more structural components.
Gardiner uses as evidence the Titanic's sea trials. When the Olympic was trialled in 1910, these took two days, including several high speed runs. When the Titanic went out for trials, they were over in one day, with no working over half-speed. Gardiner says this was because the patched-up hull could not take any long periods of high speed.

The plan to dispose of the ship and collect the insurance money was hatched as follows. The Titanic (ex-Olympic) would steam out into the Atlantic, where the sea cocks would be opened and the ship slowly flooded. Numerous ships would be stationed nearby to take off the passengers. The shortage of lifeboats would not matter as the ship would sink so slowly that the boats could make several trips between the sinking Titanic and the rescuers.
This could be achieved easily as the White Star Line was part of the vast International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMM) group, owned by J.P. Morgan. This group included the Leyland Line, owners of the SS 'Californian' that features so prominently in the events of 14th/15 April. The Captain of the Californian had proved in service in the Boer War that he could manage such an operation, disembarking large numbers of troops from troop ships to shore in small boats.
On the 14 April Officer Murdoch was not officially on duty, yet he was on the bridge. Gardiner says this was because he was one of the few high-ranking officers that knew of the plan, and was keeping a watch out for the rescue ships.

Gardiner then makes one his most controversial statements — that the Titanic did not strike an iceberg, but one of the IMM rescue ships that was drifting on station with its lights out. Gardiner based this theory on the facts that the supposed iceberg was seen at such a short distance by the lookouts on the Titanic (a darkened ship is much harder to see), and that he does not believe an iceberg could inflict such sustained and serious damage to a steel double-hulled vessel such as the Titanic.

This also explains the actions of the Californian (which traditionally is seen as failing to come to the rescue of the Titanic after sighting its distress rockets). The ship that was hit by the Titanic was the one seen by the Californian, firing distress rockets because it had been seriously damaged. The Californian did not act because it was on duty to rescue the passengers of the Titanic, which was not expected to send up rockets. At the Inquiry, the captain of the Californian, Stanley Lord, was forced by the owners of White Star and IMM to give false information to cover up their scam, which is why he said he was in the area of the sinking, when in fact he was further west, waiting for the Titanic to rendezvous with him.

The ice on the deck of the Titanic is explained by Gardiner. He is not convinced that any part of the Titanic could have collided with an iceberg, had it existed, to form such shattered ice. He says the vibration of the collision and the engines going astern shook ice from the rigging of both the Titanic and the mystery ship it hit which fell onto the deck. The Titanic also dragged one of the other ship's lifeboats with it, which explains the mysterious accounts of one passenger, who says she saw a half-submerged boat floating in the water just after the collision.
The Titanic took a great deal of distance to slow down and stop, and the mystery ship limped away to put distance between itself and the disaster (if found, it would indicate something other than a simple iceberg collision).

As it happened, the already fragile structure of the ship gave way and the Titanic sank. According to the theory, the cover-up was that the ship had hit an iceberg. The vast majority of the crew were not aware of the scam, and both Captain Smith and First Officer Murdoch died in the sinking, as did 1,503 passengers and crew. The owners of IMM/White Star effected a cover-up, with Captain Lord of the Californian as the scapegoat. That concluded Gardiner's theory.