A Night to Remember by Walter Lord Book Review

A Night to Remember is a captivating book by Walter Lord. The huge, luxurious, unsinkable Titanic embarks on it's voyage. Contrary to all the passengers' belief that the ship is unsinkable, at eleven forty a.m. on April fourteenth the ship hit a mammoth, towering iceberg. Three hours later at two twenty p.m. the exquisite ship plummeted into the gloomy sea taking one thousand five hundred lives with it.

“God himself couldn't sink this ship”, said a crewman to a concerned lady holding her baby. Despite hearing about the iceberg scraping the ship, she was now no longer concerned. All the passengers peacefully continued what they were doing, not worried in the least. Many passengers were in the smoking room taking a last cigar before bed, while the younger ones played games of bridge and cards, and many had already begun turning in for the night. Little did they know that down in the boiler rooms water was gushing in from a huge gash on the side of the ship and that the engine had shut. Regardless, every person on that ship had complete faith that they were completely safe. Why? Why did not one person even fathom that the ship can sink? Was it the modern technology they had installed? Maybe, if they would have been a little more cautious and gave the safety of the ship more thought by preparing more lifeboats, life vests, and evacuating strategies than maybe more than seven hundred five people would have been saved and less than one thousand five hundred people would have died.

Out of the seven hundred sixty six male passengers on the titanic, six hundred forty eight of them died because they let the women and children board the lifeboats first. The Titanic infamously had too little lifeboats. With two thousand two hundred people on board, not counting crewmembers, there was only twenty lifeboats on the Titanic, barely enough for half the amount of people. There was a mad rush to get on the lifeboats and be saved so a rule was enforced that women and children go first. I respect the men for sacrificing themselves for their wives, parents, children, and family. They let them go into the boats, aware that they might not get through this catastrophe alive. I admire them for their principle that women and kids come first and that they would give up their lives to save them.

The ship was plunging down fast. Water rushed over the rails and ledges, as if in a hurry, flooding the decks. Chandeliers came down with a crash , beautifully set tables were washed away leaving scattered glass floating in the murky water. Parents screamed to find their kids, babies' cries echoed through the air over the loud roaring waves. Many passengers made the jump overboard plummeting into the dark, icy sea below. The Clarkes, struggling in the water, were killed by a falling funnel. Many died of hypothermia. Some got into lifeboats, and many didn't. Some managed to stay alive, but many didn't. By the time the Carpathia arrived to rescue the sickly passengers of the Titanic only seven hundred and five remained alive. The survivors of this great disaster went through a major traumatic incident. Many of them had just lost their families and wealth. This disaster shattered their world and cast a dark shadow over the rest of their lives.

The Titanic disappeared into the depths of the ocean more than one hundred and nine  years ago, but still the disastrous story of the Titanic lives on. People now know that nothing is foolproof. All the ships now have enough lifeboats for all passengers and the crew always practices the safest and most efficient way for emergency evacuation. Families, businessmen, stewards, and kids who survived tried to piece their lives back together again. And us, people today who are learning about this traumatic disaster of the Titanic realize that we cannot take a second of life for granted because like the people on the Titanic saw clearly, tragedy strikes when you least expect it.