Titanic: Minute by Minute: One Ship's Final Hours, Thousands of Live in the Balance

by Jonathan Mayo

2.20am on 15th April 1912, the Titanic is plunging 12,000 feet to the ocean floor.Machinery, coal, crystal goblets, pianos and jewellery all tumbled through the dark water. Hundreds of passengers and crew remained trapped below decks – hundreds more would perish on the surface.This is the definitive chronology of the Titanic’s final hours, offering readers a real-time experience of one of the greatest dramas of twentieth century history.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Historical

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Jonathan Mayo joined the BBC in 1987, first working in radio and then television, where he won awards for his documentaries. In 2011 he became a freelance producer, director, and writer. He is the author of The JFK Assassination: Minute by Minute (Short Books, 2013). He lives in Surrey with his wife and son.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most amazing book I think that I have read to date about the Titanic. The Minute-by-Minute format really builds up the tension as you read along making you feel like the events are happening right in front of you. I swear it made my heart beat faster.

Such a well put together book. A very informative Introduction, followed by a listing of most of the people mentioned within the book and a description of who they were. A nice Glossary and a couple of drawings of the Titanic with pertinent information. Next are two chapters outlining the events of April 14 & April 15, 1912. After this is a chapter describing who was on each lifeboat and collapsible as well as what happened in and around them. Lastly a very interesting chapter entitled "After April 1912…”.

Without a doubt I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Titanic disaster.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

No matter how many books about the sinking of the Titanic I read, it never becomes less harrowing. This precise chronological account, incorporating stories and quotes from many of the survivors as well as those less fortunate, was no exception.

[Juliette Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 ⭐️

Such an interesting story. I’ve been interested in the tragedy for a very long time and this book gave so many insights in what happened. Very impressive to read.

[Caitlin Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay wheeeeew this book is so good actually! Totally and completely revived my unhealthy and morbid childhood obsession with the RMS Titanic, and the minute-by-minute structure really works in making this un-put-downable with its break-neck pace—I genuinely couldn’t stop thinking about it once I started. This books really allows for human details and stories(though has more space and bias towards the first-class passenger stories, mostly because that was who survived), which is always what I like in Titanic stuff. Obviously my obsession started with the Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet of it all, but there’s something so endlessly interesting to me about how the Titanic’s tragedy was brought about both by hubris and some truly terrible coincidences, and how the sinking broke down the rigid Edwardian class structure and was later the reason for a lot of life-saving (albeit common sense) measures.
Most compelling to me of course are the human and tragic and heroic stories—like—the band playing on despite not being told to in the first place! Or artist Millet and his best friend/probable lover and aide/bestie of President Taft Major Butt pouring themselves and other gentlemen drinks and sitting in the lounge together! And a lady’s rich son who loved collecting books died with a 1594 copy of the Canterbury tales in his pocket, leading to his mom donated and named the Harvard library after him on the condition that every Harvard grad has to learn to swim! And the lady who broke her elbow like 3 hours before they hit the iceberg because someone had left a cream pie sitting on a stairwell (me-coded), and the Marconi telegraphers sending out SOS/CQD messages until the water was at their ankles and frying the message boards, and how the Carpathia sped double time to reach the Titanic! Like do NOT get me started about the boys in the telegraph room or the band members!!
Anyways only reason this is a four and not a five start is that there are some basic grammatical errors here, as well as some contradicting facts, which I think is a result of the fact that this is a transcribed BBC radio broadcasting.

[Medhat The Fanatic Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fascinating book about the Titanic's sinking that grabbed me by the throat and never let go.

After reading 3 books about the Titanic's sinking & watching James Cameron's 1997 movie twice since the beginning of 2022, I think I will take a break from experiencing Titanic until late in the year, as witnessing the ill maiden voyage and the suffering on paper and film has become a bit too stressful for my nerves.

May the souls of those who suffered & died 110 years ago rest in peace.

[Shaun McAlister · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite historian. The topics have been covered before but getting it down to a personal level in such a detailed but digestible form is a true skill.

[Mark Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve been fascinated by the Titanic. I wasn’t old enough to remember when the wreckage was discovered in 1985, but soon after that my fascination began. One of my favorite VHS tapes to watch was the National Geographic special Secrets of the Titanic, which documented Dr. Robert Ballard’s discovery of the wreckage.

I recently picked up a copy of the 2016 book Titanic: Minute by Minute, by Jonathan Mayo at a bookstore, and flipping through it was so addictive that I knew I had to buy it and read it. The book is a fantastic read, and I would recommend it to anyone fascinated by the Titanic. The book began as a radio program for BBC Radio 2, and Mayo then expanded his radio script into a book. The book is written in the present tense, which gives it a tremendous narrative drive and forward momentum. Despite the fact that we obviously know the outcome of the tragedy, we read breathlessly, eager to see what the next moment will bring.

The book takes us through the events of Sunday, April 14, 1912. The day begins as just another one on the maiden voyage of a sparkling new ship, with calm seas and not a trouble in sight. The day is largely uneventful, until the very end, when at 11:40 PM, Titanic collides with an iceberg.

There are many what ifs with the Titanic disaster, and one of the obvious questions that was running through my mind as I read the book was, why on earth was Titanic barreling through ice fields in the dark at her top speed of 22.5 knots? I know, Bruce Ismay wanted the ship to get to New York on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday morning, and everyone thought there was no way the ship could sink, even if it did collide with an iceberg. But still, the fact that they increased speed after dark seems quite foolish. Another what if question is, what if the night hadn’t been so still? There were no waves on the calm Atlantic that evening, making the icebergs all but impossible to see. And then what if the Titanic didn’t try to avoid the iceberg, but instead hit it dead-on? The ship still might have sunk, of course, but there’s the possibility that in a head-on collision maybe only two of the watertight bulkheads would have been breached, thus still allowing the ship to stay afloat.

One of the other what ifs that kept running through my mind as I read the book was, what if the lifeboats had all been loaded to capacity? Of course, there were many reasons why this didn’t occur, from a crew that didn’t trust that the lifeboats could be fully loaded, (and the crew wasn’t well trained on how the launch the lifeboats) to passengers who were wary of leaving the perceived safety of the huge ship, to the idea that lifeboats were for women and children only.

There are many harrowing anecdotes and narratives to be found in Titanic: Minute by Minute. As I read through the book and was introduced to a new character, it was hard to resist the temptation to skip to the last section and see if they survived the sinking or not. One of the most interesting people was Major Archibald Butt, an aide to President William Howard Taft. Butt was returning to the United States after a European vacation with his friend, the artist Frank Millet. Butt and Millet shared a home in Washington, D.C. I suspect they may have more than just friends and roommates. Both Butt and Millet went down with the ship, and there is a fountain dedicated to them in Washington, D.C., just south of the White House. Despite spending a semester in D.C. during college, I was not aware of this fountain until I read this book.

There are not many photographs in Titanic: Minute by Minute, but the one that held my attention the longest was of survivor Charlotte Collyer and her daughter Marjorie, who was 8 years old in 1912. Charlotte’s husband, and Marjorie’s father, had died in the sinking. The photo, taken in June of 1912, shows Charlotte and Marjorie sitting side by side. Marjorie looks directly at the camera, her gaze direct, but with sorrow in her eyes. Charlotte’s eyes do not meet the camera; she is staring into the distance. Even without the caption telling us, you can tell Charlotte has suffered some unspeakable loss. It’s a haunting photo. Even more so when you read that Charlotte will die in 1914, just two years later.

One of the quotes that I made note of was this one, from Alexander Carlisle, the managing director of Harland & Wolff, the shipyard that built the Titanic. He said, “We spent two hours discussing the carpet for the first-class cabins and 15 minutes discussing lifeboats.” (p.189) That one sentence says so much about the tragedy of the Titanic.

Titanic: Minute by Minute is an excellent, fast-paced recounting of one of the enduring tragedies of the 20th century. I would highly recommend it.

[Fionnuala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally! This was exactly what I was hoping for with A Night to Remember, which I roundly criticised for simply not being detailed enough, having too narrow a focus, etc. This book should be the one known as the definitive account, as it literally is a minute-by-minute account of the day before the disaster up to the arrival of the Carpathia. It also features all the major mentioned characters in a chapter at the end that tells you of their fate.

My only major criticism is I wish there had been more about the Carpathia. I know the focus is on the Titanic, but with the updates about their fates at the end I felt it was strange to have everyone in the lifeboats and then nothing. It would have been interesting to hear the survivors' perspectives regarding their rescue, what it was like on board, reuniting with people or worrying about those they couldn't find, arriving back on dry land, etc. I know it would have made the book significantly longer, but it's part of the story I'm equally interested in and the book's writing style is so good that I wouldn't have minded at all.

Aside from that, it's great. It has precisely the amount of detail that you'd want, and it's absolutely harrowing in the way that it keeps pace with the disaster. The constant note of how the ship was listing, or how many degrees down in the water she was... watching it go from a degree every half hour or so to a fifteen degree difference in two minutes... seeing how the accounts became choppy one-line sentences as the witnesses were obviously forced to act faster and could take in less... the sense of danger and urgency was incredible, and really reflected the chaos of the disaster itself. The scene-setting in the first chapter also helped bring home the shock and the disbelief that this great ship could sink so fast; the sense of confusion and betrayal was palpable, and it's so difficult to bring all those emotions to a disaster so big and so famous. I've been obsessed with the Titanic from a very early age, and growing up frequently going to Belfast and living not that far away always meant that it was on my radar. My high school best friend's grandfather actually helped build it (we did tease her for that, admittedly) and every time I went shopping with my friends I could see those big yellow cranes from the shipyard on the horizon. It was already so real to me, but this book gave it a dimension I'd never previously accessed.

Definitely worth the read no matter how much you know about the subject.

[R.J. Southworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a detailed and interesting book, with plenty of facts on the Titanic I hadn't heard before. However, some of the details contradict what I've read elsewhere, and there are a few errors as well, such as Third Officer Herbert Pitman being referred to as "Harold" at one point, and a passenger named Isaac Frauenthal being mentioned as still being onboard long after he was described leaving in a lifeboat.

[Jarryd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only wish it was longer and incorporated more of the trip. Unfortunately it starts on the day of the sinking. Given how rich the characters are illustrated, I would have loved more of this story.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esse livro conta em detalhes, minuto a minuto, o dia do acidente do Titanic. Descobri vários fatos que não sabia sobre o navio e seus passageiros.

Tudo sobre esse acidente é muito louco. Tantos “e se?” passaram na minha cabeça enquanto eu lia. Tem tanta gente culpada nessa história, e é uma tristeza que tantos tenham morrido por isso.

Muito bom!

[Laura Geater · Rating 5 out of 5]

A people driven account of the Titanic’s last day at sea. Mayo does well to introduce a range of people of different classes and nationalities, crew and passengers to make this horrific tragedy more human.

[sandra dibble · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Read

Very well written book keep going back to it would Read again as I find something new each time great find

[Zachary Barker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a minute by minute account of the day of the sinking of the Titanic, as well as recounting of the aftermath from the perspective of survivors.

The book starts with the story of the RMS Republic collision in 1909 off of the coast of Massachusetts. This collision’s loss of life was mitigated by timely wireless telegrams via new Marconi machines between that vessel and others in order to save the majority of passengers on the Republic. This led to a sense of hubris in the White Star Line about the safety of passengers during the Atlantic Crossings.

Before the main timeline structure of the book kicks in, the story of the building of the Titanic (and her sister ships the Olympic and the Titanic) is faithfully recounted. The scale of it, while modest by modest standards, was massive for it’s time. The vision, for at least the best paying passengers, was to ride in numbers but also in style. After leaving the Harland and Wolff drydock and being floated, the Titanic was docked for a wealth of fixtures, furnishings and furniture to descend on the ship. The result was that the First Class passengers were effectively riding in a floating luxury hotel.

Whereas most books on the Titanic are all about the questions of how and why the sinking took place as it did, for this book in many ways this is a secondary concern. This book is all about immersing the reader into the lives of the people, in the crew and in all classes, whose lives intersect with traveling on this ship at this fateful time. These people vary from being stewards, maids, tycoons, widows, mistresses, Captain’s, lookouts, Colonel’s, work seeking farm hands among many others. Their, worries and hopes for the future as well as their experiences of the ship and the journey are recounted.

Between these weaving stories are little factual sections put in by the author to tell the story of the Titanic, but also provide context for some of the seeming oversights of the crew of the Titanic as well as those of nearby vessels.

The iceberg impact at 2:39 am is recalled in forensic detail about it’s effect, which was to create a 250 feet long cut through the hull which is only at most 1 inch wide in places. But I appreciate the unexpected and innocuous way it makes it’s appearance in the field of vision by the lookouts. It by their account appeared as a black mass blocking out the stars, swiftly sliding across the water into the ship’s path. With no binoculars and minimal forward lighting, one can sympathise with the lookouts. You can feel the author’s concern for realism by the absence of Hollywood-like drama in what happens after this. Some are alarmed. But many are quite oblivious to the impending danger and stay in their cabins. When the lifeboats start to be filled, they are often done so in a haphazard way, such that hardly any are full. It is revealed in one of the book intermissions that crew training with the lifeboats are worryingly rare occurrences.

I admit that at times in this book I sometimes felt more interested in certain sections than others. Many of these passengers were quite ordinary, yet of course, the horrific experience they went through was extraordinary. However, when I got to the end of the book I felt I appreciated the uniqueness of this book. In the end, instead of recounting the various post sinking investigations in detail, the stories of the various survivors and their lives after the sinking are faithfully retold.

Too many of these testimonials had the tragic words “body if recovered, was never identified” in them. However, the life stories themselves were varied, interesting and very human. Many staff members went back to working on the sea. Some couldn’t face that life anymore. Some made money off of their survivor stories. But in an eery modern trend, some passengers and staff had their reputations unfairly smeared for their alleged actions that night, which was in large part media driven. The fact that this book allowed me to experience what happened through the eyes of the accused added extra emotional impact. The lookout Frederick Fleet was in particular very cruelly treated by the public, leading him to commit suicide after surviving the sinking. All of the mixed emotions of the survivors are laid bare before the reader; from glee from having survived, PTSD and in some sad cases also much shame.

I would say that if one is looking for a very well-considered people-centred snapshot of this disaster, then this is the book for you. For those looking for more nerdy and forensic detours about icebergs, icefields and shipping regulations of the early 20th century I highly recommend “101 Things you thought you knew about the Titanic – But Didn’t” by Tim Maltin and Eloise Aston.

[Jess Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was particularly excited about this book, but something was missing for me: while the chronology focused on certain characters, conversations between them and their escape (whether via lifeboats or otherwise), I was left wondering about the ship itself - for example, which parts of the ship were flooded and when. I also expected more visual descriptions of the sinking, both from inside and outside the ship, particularly in its final moments.

It was also an interesting decision made by the author to only include survivors’ original/first recollection of events, in cases where a survivor later contradicted themselves. I’m not sure I fully agree: after all, upon reflection a lot can come back to us - and for an event as traumatic as Titanic, it makes sense to me that many survivors may not have been able to fully revisit that night or were not ready to divulge full details in the first instance.

There are also more typos in this book than I usually come across while reading, and I found this quite distracting throughout - not just missing words, extra erroneous spaces and even cases where the world ‘daughter’ has become ‘dsughter’, for example, but inconsistencies between the illustration at the beginning of the book and the text itself. This includes p. 190, where lifeboat 14 is described as being on the starboard side of the ship, whereas lifeboat 14 is clearly on the port side of the ship in the illustration). An an editor myself, this was a shame.

Three stars, owing to some titbits of detail I was previously unaware of. I would welcome recommendations for interesting books on Titanic that I might enjoy more, if anybody has any suggestions?

[Kate Bainbridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has the power to pull you right on board the Titanic during the sinking. The way it is written is so vivid you could probably smell the sea whilst reading!!

The final section about where people are now & doing what is a hard read! So many “never identified”!

I was close to tears reading this! The feelings throughout the book were hard to comprehend. Sometimes you were learning new things, sometimes you were chuckling at passenger antics, at times you are feeling cold and the horror!

I brought it whilst on a cruise docking in Belfast at the Titanic Museum. Maybe not the best idea to read it whilst at sea, especially as we went through a couple of bad storms.

With this book, like at the museum, you are instantly brought to face the reality of what happened that night. It is easy to put distance in when you watch any Titanic movie or read a novel based on the events. However when reading this book it brings you face to face with the horror of that night!

Whilst I am so glad I read this book, it is maybe not one I will read ahain

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

The slow build up to the collision, then the slow build up a little bit more, until suddenly everything is happening all at once and the urgency of the time is so well written into the book that it felt like I had to read it at such a speedy pace to keep up with the action, despite it being...a book that can be read at any speed.
Some of the stories of these people are heart breaking, and most of them never stood a chance thanks to the accident of them being born into a 'lower class', or simply the people who designed the ship just not having any forethought about certain important things (like spending 15 minutes talking about the lifeboats but hours talking about the first class carpets, I mean come on now)

[Rene Hender · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book manages to be both entertaining and informational. While not everything in the book might be totally accurate, combining so many different sources of information on something that had happened 100 years ago is no simple feat, and I think the book is the best result one could expect from such an undertaking.

All in all, it‘s not as exciting as a fictional story, and (probably) not as factual as a non-fiction book. However, it would be nearly impossible to create a story that performed better in one aspect without sacrificing another.

8/10 (but I‘d struggle to give it less than 5 stars)

[Hayley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been interested in the Titanic ever since I was young. This book is so well written, and I was engrossed from the first word. One particular quote stood out to me throughout reading: "So that if the reader will come and stand with the crowd on deck, he must first rid himself entirely of the knowledge that the Titanic has sunk. He must get rid of any foreknowledge of disaster to understand why people acted as they did."

I recommened anyone with an interest in the Titanic, or history in general, reads this book.

[Marco Aurélio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esse livro veio de um documentário que o autor Jonathan Mayo fez para a BBC de Londres por conta do centenário do trágico naufrágio. O livro é dinâmico como um filme. É baseado nos depoimentos dos sobreviventes e nos telegramas enviados durante a viagem. O impressionante naufrágio e a consequente tragédia é uma somatória de pequenos incidentes pouco prováveis. Das 2224 vidas a bordo, estima-se que 1514 pereceram. Muitas dessas histórias estao nesse ótimo livro que, assim como o filme de James Cameron de 1997, foi muito fiel ao detalhes.

[Fernando Dias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente livro. Conta cada detalhe do que aconteceu em detalhes. Porém, não vai além do naufrágio e de um breve resumo do que aconteceu com a vida de todos os citados no livro. As mudanças que o desastre trouxe para a navegação e os desdobramentos dos inquéritos, tanto britânico quanto estadunidense não são mencionadas no livro. Porém, recomendo muito a leitura caso você seja um curioso ou entusiasta da história deste navio que até hoje não revelou todos os seus mistérios.

[MISS SARAH JACKSON · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly enjoyable read

I wanted to find a book that gave an honest and accurate description of the disaster that was The Titanic - and I found it in this book. I loved the catch up stories at the end about the passengers we read about during the first 2/3rds of the book. Well written and kind of left me with conflicting views on the many disastrous decisions made that evening.

[Annabelle Zerdi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obviously devastating and somber, but also gripping and the writing was entertaining and smooth. However, the account at the end which was about 55 pages long about what the survivors did with their lives was dull and dry. I would skip that bit. Almost 4 stars if the end wasn’t so hard to push through.

[Vivi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting. I've been on a Titanic kick lately and this was just the book for me. It goes into a lot of detail about lots of different people on the ship- so much detail that I actually had a hard time keeping track of all the names, but it can't really be helped and it's not that frustrating.

The only real negative that I can think of is that I wish the map of the Titanic was a little more detailed since the book mentions parts of the ship that you can't find on the map sometimes, so I got confused with where things were happening and had to look it up or just guess on occasion, so that's my only complaint. Overall it's a great book and I will definitely read it again sometime.

[S H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often feel I need chapters to tell me when to stop reading and digest the material but this book didn’t have any and it didn’t need any. It is a small glimpse into how fast things escalated from the ship hitting the ice berg to it going under. The chaos and despair leaps off every page.

[Ferreira Da · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part is extremely appealing showing people's speeches or attitudes as if they knew the shipwreck was going to happen. A clear example of this is survivor Esther Hart. The second part reporting the wreck is more interesting.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed this - despite the horror of the subject matter. The tension builds unbearably, and the sadness at the moments that make you think "what if" is awful.

I'm going to go and look up Mr Mayo's other Minute by Minute books, in the hopes they rattle along as quickly.

[Mark Dickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in a single sitting.

The everyday, mundane details that fill the first third of this book only make the tragic end hit so much harder.

This book is proof that good non-fiction can be as compelling as fiction.

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd have given this 5/5, but the author is too sure that William Murdoch is the infamous officer who shot dead two men before turning the gun on himself. Much debate still rages about who the infamous officer is and it irked me how strongly Mayo felt it was Murdoch.

[Peta Hay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.
A chronology of the sailing
And the final hours of this ship
It is the people’s stories that had me hooked on this book.
It’s not just about the Titanic but about the passengers and crew.