Olympic and her collision with Nantucket Lightship

[Timothy Trower]

From the British Pathe film company is this short feature on the sinking of the Nantucket Lightship during a dense fog by the Olympic in 1934. Shown are the Olympic docking in New York, closeups of the damage to her stem and an interview with her captain who makes the claim that he didn't know what had happened, but that the crew of the Olympic did everything possible to rescue the crew of the lightship. An amazing look at this collision.

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=5303

[Robert Gibbons]

Another terrific find, Tim! Seems you have found a whole new source of newsreels in England. I had a 9.5mm Pathe movie projector with a few small reels of films, including the Graf Zeppelin, opening of Route 66 in Springfield, the famous "Bunion Derby" cross country footrace, but no liner films. I donated the films I had to the Museum of Ozarks History, except the Graf Zeppelin film which I gave to Bill Tantum for possible transfer to 16mm for commercial purposes. Also, Pathe came over with the Navatril children's mother and filmed a Pathe newsreel of their reunion in America. It was in that CD=i disk on the history of the Titanic narrated by Patrick Stewart. Robert H. Gibbons

[Timothy Trower]

The Pathe collection apparently made a great deal of film shorts available not so long ago -- I've certainly run searches through their collections before but came up very dry. Just two nights ago, a chap on the TRMA website posted the initial link to the film of the Oceanic III's keel, and through sometimes laborious searching I've been able to come up with some nice stuff.

The footage of the Ceramic was mis-identified very badly, but one look at her profile and I knew which ship she was. Searching for just "Olympic" as a term is a veritable waste of time, and many other common searches are still showing up nothing.

Still, I'm very grateful for the resource, and have a request in to purchase images of the Oceanic's keel.

[Tom McCluskie]

So much for the "brittle steel & weak rivets" theories.........

[Trevor Rommelley]

The find was first made here, Robert: http://titanic-model.com/dc/dcboard.php ... &forum=100

[Robert Gibbons]

Tim gave proper credit to the TitanIc Modeller website for the Oceanic III footage which Pathe News called "1000 Foot Britannic". I didn't see any reference in the link you sent for the Nantucket Lightship collision, which Tim found in the Pathe News archives. Incidentally, the Olympic rammed a German U-Boat, twisting her stem, but she didn't shatter like glass or pop all her "defective" rivits! Robert H. Gibbons

[Trevor Rommelley]

"Seems you have found a whole new source of newsreels in England"

- Just correcting your misapprehension, Robert.

[Robert Gibbons]

Tim has found a whole new source of newsreels, plain and simple! Just because the Titanic Modellers found one newreel (miscaptioned, by the way) of the keel laying of the Oceanic III, that doesn't diminish Tim's discovery. There is no telling what other newsreels Tim will uncover as he digs through the Pathe archives. Robert H. Gibbons

[Timothy Trower]

Trevor,

Apparently I was nosing around the British Pathe site yesterday at the same time this link was posted on the TRMA message board. I've found a number of links to new White Star steamer footage that I've posted, and this was merely one of them. As I mentioned on the link to footage of the Oceanic III, that was discovered by a member of the TRMA message board, and was acknowledged on my post on this board.

There really isn't an issue here.

[Karen Kamuda]

Thanks Tim, for the initial link. The site is a great find (again). I say again as Simon got me on to the Pathe´site a few years back but it was no where as good as the setup is now, it was hard to find stuff, lots of links didn't work or not labelled properly and you lose interest.

I had fun looking around too and saw the ones you linked to here also the Doric collision with Napier Star and Celtic aground off Roches Point. You have to be creative looking around, the titles aren't always as obvious as we think they should be.

On giving credit to people, its a good thing - I only wish some of those who have used information, photos, etc from THS sources, The Commutator and otherwise would have done the same

Karen

[Karen Kamuda]

I meant Laurentic and the Napier Star. Shows I can't do three things at once. Am proofreading Commutator No 188 final look before going to press and talking with visitors in my office.

[Robert Gibbons]

Here is a YouTube link to a British newsreel of the Olympic sailing to the breakers in 1935, including a sound bite of the Olympic's whistle and a segment of the hull being towed for final breakup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q5oQEbc ... L&index=59

Here is a YouTube link to a British newsreel of the Olympic coming into New York harbor after ramming the Nantucket lightship, with interviews with the Captain of the Olympic and survivors of the collision.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDjiHJRK ... m=PL&index

Robert H. Gibbons

[Simon Mills]

Karen,

As you say the Pathé website has improved a great deal compared to a few years ago. I first came across the footage of the Briannic II fitting out something like ten years ago, at which time the amount of digitized footage was extremely limited, but since then a great deal of work has been done by Pathé to transfer their footage and update their site.

It's only recently that the images have become more generally available to the public, but in fact all of the various newsreels have been archived and accessible for many years. The same goes for the British Film Institute and the Imperial War Museum -- the latter was an even more interesting experience as at one time I even had to view the films on an editing machine in a refrigerated room because it was still on the original Nitrate stock and hadn't even been transferred to safety film at the time, never mind digital format.

As for You Tube, it's useful, but some of the coyright infringements do seriously concern me so as a professional researcher it is actually one of the sources that I tend to avoid.

S.

[Robert Gibbons]

From what I have seen with YouTube, if there is a complaint about a video, they will pull the video off YouTube. Here is a link to their copyright policy. Robert H. Gibbons

http://www.youtube.com/t/dmca_policy

[Simon Mills]

Morning Robert,

Yes, YouTube does have a copyright policy, and it is probably no bad thing for any such sites to observe certain guidelines if only for their own protection, but if you check out their copyright tips page they effectively sum up the situation very well: "Copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner." I have little doubt that there is tons of Titanic (and other) material on YouTube used by people who do not have the necessary permissions.

I'm sure that YouTube would take down any material if they received a complaint, but a lot of the owners either don't know or perhaps even cannot be bothered to chase it up, but if they decided that the use of their copyrighted material was costing them money then they might not be quite so sanguine about it. The film and music industries are now targetting certain sites distributing copyrighted material for free, but although YouTube is hardly in the league of some of the of the bigger offenders (after all, there's no point in suing Joe Public who probably has limited resources for running a dubious low resolution piece on YouTube), let's just say that people are aware of the problem and are watching from a distance.

The bottom line is that if the material is on line anyway then you're often safer just posting a link to the copyright holder's website. If it isn't freely available on line then you use it at your own risk.

S.