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April 5, 2025 - Jim Fetzer
29:34
Titanic Conspiracy: The Full Truth | Part One
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It's September 1911.
The Royal Navy cruiser HMS Hawk is steaming in the Solent, the narrow channel between the Isle of Wight and the English coast.
It's a fine, clear day, and Hawk finds herself steaming alongside a much larger ship.
RMS Olympic, the monstrous new luxury liner of the White Star Line, has just executed a turn to the east, and now the two ships are on a parallel course as Olympic heads outbound.
But what happens next shocks everybody.
With the two ships alongside, Hawke's bow turns in towards Olympic's stern.
It slams home, cutting through Olympic's hull as if it was made of paper.
For the White Star Line, the incident is beyond frustrating.
The battle for dominance in the North Atlantic passenger trade was tightly contested.
Olympic and her forthcoming sister ships, with Titanic already nearing completion, were to be the next chapter in the company's decades-long success story.
But now, Olympic had to be patched and limp her way back to Belfast, where her builders, the Harland& Wolff shipyard, would need to fix her up.
The ship arrived back where she had only just recently left, and there, for one of the few times in their careers, Olympic and Titanic were alongside one another as repairs got underway.
But this is the point where theory and conjecture have become intertwined with real history, because recently, claims have been made of a nefarious plot.
The story goes like this.
Olympic is badly damaged in the collision with Hawk.
Too badly damaged.
She is no longer of any use to the White Star Line, and her seaworthiness is ruined.
But there, sitting unfinished, is the near-identical sister ship, Titanic.
Building these things was an enormous financial burden, and now, with Olympic out of action permanently, the company could never hope to collect on their investment.
What if White Star Line and Harland and Wolfe colluded to stage one of the most audacious insurance frauds in history?
What if Olympic and Titanic switched places, the permanently damaged Olympic setting to sea on a second maiden voyage under a new name, but tragically sinking at a predetermined point along the way?
The insurance payday would come, and the White Star Line would survive.
All that needed to happen was to switch the two ships around, And pull off the sinking.
This theory has haunted internet message boards since the 1990s, and it's inspired documentaries, books, and, in the new age of social media, TikToks and reels.
If you've read about this theory or heard it before and believed it, then I'm here to tell you today that it's okay.
It sounds convincing.
Plausible, even.
The players seem crooked and untrustworthy at first glance.
The two ships do look identical.
Maybe swapping them wouldn't be too hard.
This was the era of unchecked capitalism.
Monopolies, big banks, heavy industry.
Titans with names like Rothschild, Morgan, Carnegie, Rockefeller.
But at its core, is the theory even possible?
Where does the theory have its origins?
Where did it come from?
If we peel back the layers, the history, the engineering and the people, could it have even been pulled off?
Today, we'll revisit the Olympic Titanic switch theory.
We'll examine the reports, read the testimonies, review photos and films, and speak to an expert in the field of naval architecture to learn the truth.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm your friend Mike Brady from Ocean Liner Designs, and in this two-part series, we'll examine the truth behind the Olympic Titanic switch theory, the greatest fraud in modern historiography.
geography.
To understand the Olympic switch theory, we first need to understand where it came from.
So, strangely, our story doesn't begin at the Harland and Wolfe shipyard or the Southampton docks in 1911, but rather an eastern suburb of the landlocked English town of Oxford in 1947.
Headington, today famous for its rooftop shark sculpture, was once the one-time residence of J.R.R.
Tolkien. And in 1947 was the birthplace of the star of our tale, Robin Gardner.
As a young boy, Gardner developed a fascination with Titanic, something that would stay with him all his life.
In 1995, at age 48, Gardner co-authored his first book on the subject, Riddle of the Titanic, which also happened to feature some of the finest nostalgic 90s cover art ever.
Gardner was a plasterer and self-described amateur engineer Who enjoyed restoring old motorbikes, and his theory was unique, but it made waves and inspired him to write a series of books, developing his theory more and more.
But simply, it was a bombshell.
We will analyse Gardner's theories and claims in more detail, but first we need to catch up on the established record, the incident that kicked Gardner's theory off and birthed the Switch concept in the first place.
The Olympic and Hawk Collision.
We need to wind the clock way back, away from Headington and its roof shark, all the way back to 1911.
By September that year, the White Star Line was enjoying the success of their brand new liner, the RMS Olympic, which had just set sail on her maiden voyage in June.
Olympic, on launch, was the largest and most luxurious British ship yet built, and this put White Star in an enviable position on the transatlantic passenger trade.
You see, these ships weren't just large and beautiful for no reason.
The White Star and rival shipping company Cunard Line were in fierce competition to design and build the greatest ships ever to put to sea, constantly outclassing one another with ships more extravagant than the last.
These wonder ships would steam back and forth from Southampton to New York, stopping usually at Cherbourg and Queenstown to pick up European and Irish migrants.
In September of 1911, Just three months after her maiden voyage, Olympic had just set off on her fifth journey of this kind from Southampton to New York, carrying 1,279 passengers and 885 crew.
Operating under the command of long-time White Star Line master, Captain E.J. Smith, this voyage was to be a routine one.
But routine or not, the ship still required careful handling, so a pilot was also temporarily brought on board to direct the ship through the narrow channel of the Solent to the open sea.
This channel was a tricky one to travel through, as the water was shallow, making it very easy to run aground and the turns were tight.
These were not the only concerns.
It was also important to keep an eye on the movement of shipping traffic in the area.
One small mistake could be disastrous and costly.
So it was, as Olympic steamed down from Southampton Water towards Spithead, another vessel was spotted about four miles in the distance, coming up the channel toward Olympic on her starboard side.
The Royal Navy cruiser HMS Hawk, commanded by Captain W Blunt.
Hawk was making her way up the Solent on the way to her annual power trials, and the two vessels now needed to navigate around both a sharp turn and one another before they could proceed through to Spithead.
Now as the ships began to manoeuvre around one another, something began to go terribly wrong.
Olympic continued to steam ahead at some 14 knots, with the Hawk not far behind, making just about 15, threatening to overtake the liner.
But then Olympic pulled far ahead.
Bowyer and Smith, on Olympic's bridge, both noticed that Hawke's bow, now falling behind, suddenly swung towards Olympic's stern.
At first they believed that Hawke was making an attempt to cross over Olympic's wake as she passed, but it quickly became clear that the cruiser was far, far too close.
The comparatively small warship was being sucked in towards the liner, apparently by the size of her powerful propellers.
Bowyer remarked to Smith, if she's going to strike us, sir, let me know in times that I can put the helm hard over to port.
Smith, watching on from his liner's bridge wing cab, simply replied, yes, sir, she's going to strike us in the stern.
The two ships collided, with Hawke driving her cement-reinforced bow directly into Olympic's hull about eight feet deep, crushing the shell plating, damaging the starboard propeller shaft, and smashing the cruiser's bow.
After just three months at sea, the Olympic class had its first taste of real misfortune.
Olympic was down by the stern, with two compartments flooded, but she managed to limp back to Southampton.
Now, it was clear, even from above the waterline, that the ship had sustained major damage.
But it wouldn't be fully evident just how extensive the damage was until the ship was able to be dry-docked and examined more closely.
Once at Harland& Wolfe in Belfast, Olympic was berthed next to her sister, Titanic, which was still undergoing construction at the time, and would not make her maiden voyage for several more months.
The managers of the shipyard began diverting workers from Titanic's construction to Olympics repairs in order to speed up the process.
The White Star Line could scarcely afford to be without their superliner for long.
Each day going by was proving more costly, between Olympics absence on the transatlantic run and delays on Titanic's completion.
The repairs themselves carried a hefty price tag, putting further strain on the company financially.
Meanwhile... The British Naval Court of Inquiry had found that Olympic had actually been at fault for the collision, and dispelled trouble for White Star's hopes of an insurance payout to cover the damages.
Financially, it was a disaster on all fronts, and Olympic needed to get back onto the North Atlantic, earning again as soon as possible.
So here is where Gardner's theory takes up the story.
Today it's known as the Olympic, or Titanic, switch theory.
Now on the surface, proponents of the theory state that Olympic was in a frightful state of disrepair after the collision with Hawk, and would have been useless to the White Star Line, that the damage was fatal for the ship, and its seaworthiness had been badly compromised.
Titanic, on the other hand, was a fresh, new ship, headed quickly toward completion at the time.
In simple terms, the theory goes the White Star Line cooked up a quick insurance scam to benefit financially from actually sinking one of their own ships.
Since Olympic and Titanic were superficially nearly identical, it was supposedly easy to make the damaged Olympic look like the Titanic, set her off on a fake maiden voyage and then sink her on purpose to claim the insurance money.
The brand new Titanic would then take Olympic's name and go on to have a long and successful career with no one any the wiser about the switch that had just occurred.
And just like that.
The shipping company's woes would be washed away, essentially disposed of in the icy waters of the North Atlantic.
At face value, the theory is easy to believe, especially when it's scant on details.
When placed side by side, it can be difficult to tell Titanic and Olympic apart.
Back in the 1990s, Gardner's book made waves among the historical community and mainstream media alike.
The story was captivating and sordid.
Throughout the book, Gardner points to first-hand accounts, photographic evidence, and statements from White Star officials to support his theory.
To begin with, Gardner's switch theory centers around the idea that Olympic's collision with Hawk resulted in damage far worse than what was officially reported.
In fact, for the company to even consider the need for an insurance scam in the first place, Olympic would need to either be A. made completely useless by the damage, or B. made not financially viable.
That is to say, it would be Far, far cheaper to collect an insurance payout from a fraud than to actually repair her by some considerable margin.
So first, we need to determine just actually how badly damaged was Olympic from the collision.
Gardner said, however, there is some reason to doubt the accuracy of the published assessments of damage sustained by Olympic in the Hawk incident.
It now appears that following the collision, hull plating required replacement over more than a third of the vessel's overall length.
Gardner states that plating required replacement for at least a third of Olympic's length, which, given Olympic's overall length at around 883 feet or 269 meters, this would mean that the damage caused by Hawk required the replacement of around 294 feet or 89 meters of shell plating.
Now, this is a far cry from the 38 feet as reported by the inspectors of the ship.
Currently, there are no reports.
Testimonies or photographs showing damage to this degree immediately after the collision.
In 1997, Harlan and Wolfe themselves actually offered plans of the ship, showing the specific areas of plating that needed to be replaced.
While there were some areas along the hull near the bow that required repair, none of this damage was thanks to Hawke, who was more likely caused by general wear and tear, specifically from scraping along piers.
The simple truth is that HMS Hawke's bow was shaped and reinforced as a ram, like a giant kind of ocean-going chisel.
The impact of the collision was forced at the point of the ram, and since Hawke's own beam, or maximum width, was just a mere 18 metres or 59 feet, it makes one wonder how, or why, 90 metres or 294 feet of plating would need replacement.
If the White Star Line and Harland& Wolfe were trying to cover up an impending fraud, then they did a very poor job of it, because they even hired the yard's photographer, William Welsh, to snap these incredibly detailed pictures.
Not just of the damaged ship and the dry dock, but of the steel samples actually taken from the impact site.
To the shipbuilders, it provided valuable knowledge on the properties of steel in collisions at sea.
Documenting it in exquisite detail was of huge benefit to the shipyard, but it would be a fatal and ridiculous mistake for any keen fraudster.
The images are, as far as the shell plating goes, pretty conclusive as to the nature of the damage.
The ram bow of Hawke sliced straight through the plating, but the seams forward of the torn and jagged sections are clearly still held together with their rivets intact.
The damage here couldn't possibly extend beyond 38 feet or 12 metres.
But the whole plating was quite thin.
For ships like Olympic and Titanic, the shell, or outer skin, was only about an inch thick amid ships or 25mm.
In the photos of Olympic damage you can see just how thin it really is.
Twisted and bent like card.
So obviously, Hawk's bow plunged quite deeply into Olympic's hull, and it wasn't just the shell plating that would be damaged.
Gardner goes on.
Hawk's ram had done more than merely punch a hole in the outer plating of Olympic.
The liner's starboard main propeller was damaged, 18 feet of the outer steel propeller shaft covering the bossing was crushed and torn, the starboard propeller shaft was bent, and the crankshaft of the starboard engine was badly damaged.
The impact must have given the starboard engine quite a jolt.
Which might well have caused further structural damage that was not apparent on initial inspection.
The damage inflicted on the liner by the Hawk extended far deeper into the hull than the eight feet usually accepted.
But we can clearly tell from the actual shape of the holes left behind by Hawk that the cruiser can't have gone much more than eight feet deep into the side of Olympic at all.
Hawk's ram jutted out from the ship's bow somewhat and we can see that the ship left two corresponding holes in the side of Olympic.
The upper hole from the very tip of the ship's bow, known as the prow, and the lower hole from the ram itself.
If more of the ship's bow had been driven into Olympic, instead of two smaller holes, there would have been just one larger one.
But no, there are two, so we can map against Hawke's plans the point at which the two projecting areas of the bow end entered Olympic.
It's not much more than eight feet behind the prow.
Hawk's bow could not have sunk further into Olympic than this.
The photographic evidence that does exist from the ship's interior, post-collision, agrees with Whitestar's official findings.
The propeller shaft and bossing is damaged, but there's no clear hole reaching deep into the ship, up to the keel.
To put it simply, the official inquiry came to the following conclusion regarding Olympic's damage.
Two major watertight compartments were flooded, the hull plating was gashed from the Orlop deck to E-Deck, And the starboard propeller shafting was damaged.
It was as simple as that, and the photographic record agrees.
So now we have a better understanding of the events surrounding the collision.
But Gardner points out there may have been more to the story here too.
He said, This steam would normally have driven the central turbine engine, which shows that this engine, its mounting or shafting, had been damaged in the collision.
As this engine sat on the centreline of the vessel, immediately above the keel, which the propeller shaft ran through, we can reasonably assume that the keel itself was damaged.
Now, a damaged keel would seemingly call into question the structural integrity of the entire ship.
Of course, the official report doesn't agree.
Consulting naval architect Harry Roscoe, who had assisted with inspecting the damage to the ship, verified in his testimony that the damage occurred some 38 feet outboard from the keel, and considerably above it.
He stated that the damage ceased between G-Deck and the Orlop deck, placing the keel safely out of harm's reach.
Now, we already know this thanks to our mapping of the Hawke's Bows path into Olympic from earlier.
But now we have to ask, even if Olympic's keel was damaged by Hawke's bow, would that really render the ship useless to her parent company?
Would a damaged keel really make a ship a complete financial write-off?
Gardner says, at this time, I suspect the realisation that the hull of Olympic was damaged beyond economic repair dawned on senior management and engineers of Harland& Wolfe.
The ship could be patched up well enough to get her back to sea for a reasonable sum.
But she would never again pass the Board of Trade inspections, which were required before a new Certificate of Seaworthiness would be issued.
It's a tempting conclusion to draw.
In fact, it sounds very much like a car in a crash.
Cars are often involved in what looks to be minor fender benders, but which have actually compromised the frame of the car's body, leaving them a write-off.
But the simple truth is that ships are much different and much, much bigger.
Through history, dozens and dozens of ships have been severely damaged, only to be fully repaired and put back into service.
Ships far worse off than Olympic, and with much more significant damage.
In fact, Harland& Wolfe was a specialist at effecting this kind of repair work.
Back in 1899, the Inman Line steamship Paris ran aground off the Cornish coast.
The damage was comprehensive.
Towed back to Harland& Wolfe, she was put into a dry dock, and her entire underbelly amid ships was cut away.
The ship's own keel, her backbone, was cut out and rebuilt, riveted back into position, and the ship went back into service for 24 more years.
Gardner states that the Olympic was in such a state of disrepair she had no hope of ever passing the Board of Trade inspections and receiving a renewed Certificate of Seaworthiness.
But conventional history tells us it's just not the case, and in fact, you don't need to take my word for it.
Dr. Steven Payne is a highly regarded naval architect and engineer, the designer of nearly two dozen passenger ships, including the only ocean liner still in service in the world, Queen Mary II.
If anybody is well positioned to comment on the nature of damage and repairs to ships of this scale, it's him.
We sat down for a chat, and I asked him about it.
Steven, thanks so much for joining us in the video.
It's great to have you on board.
As a designer of ships, a naval architect and an engineer, what can you tell us about the kind of damage Olympic might have sustained and whether or not it would have been fatal were her kids...
Certainly it wasn't a catastrophic damage.
The ship remained afloat, obviously, so the watertight integrity was not compromised beyond...
the sort of two compartment standard to what she was built to so there was no chance of the ship actually sinking but when you look at other ships like for instance the Svevik in 1907 she ran aground and was stranded off Cornwall and they recovered the stern section built a new bow and was that was able to attach that You think as well about HMS Belfast,
for instance, which we both know.
We've been on the ship recently.
She went over a magnetic mine and it exploded underneath and she broke her back.
The hull was twisted and everything else.
And they were able to put her back into dock and rebuild her and She served with distinction throughout the rest of the war and is still in existence today.
So the consideration that Olympic was so severely damaged is complete fallacy because it was very quickly remedied.
Okay, she had to go back to Belfast, but that's understandable.
They would have had to have...
Rebuilt the shell plating in the area and the internals.
But certainly a collision like that wouldn't have meant that the keel or the whole girder had been severely compromised.
Nothing that serious at all in reality.
Even were the collision to be that serious.
You spoke about Swavik there and Belfast and there's so many come to mind.
I mean, I'm reminded of...
There was a cruise ship, I think, that was lengthened by a significant amount.
She was effectively cut in half.
There have been many.
The original Royal Viking line ships, all three of them were cut in half and a new section put in the middle.
One of the Fred Olsen ships, I think it's the Balmoral, she was stretched.
So it's quite amazing what you can do.
If you've got a dock big enough to accommodate the ship and you're able to manoeuvre the ship around inside that dock.
I can survive a fair bit of engineering punishment.
Yeah, well, that's right.
And when you look at head-on collisions like the Stockholm with the Andrea Doria and that, OK, the forward part of the Stockholm was badly crushed, but they were able to remove...
that part of the ship and fabricate a new bow section.
No difficulty at all.
The crux of it is this.
Gardeners' claims argue that Olympic was so badly damaged that it would be cheaper to stage insurance fraud than to try to repair her.
But examples from history tell us that ships are capable of withstanding a huge amount of punishment, that damage, even to a ship's keel, can be repaired and the ship can go on to serve for decades.
Whether or not Olympic's keel was damaged, and evidence would tell us that it certainly wasn't, is almost beyond the point, because even if it was, White Star Line and Harland& Wolfe were both easily positioned to take on that kind of repair work and deal with it.
But for the insurance payout to work at all, there needed to be a huge financial benefit to the company, so now we need to talk about the proposed crime at the centre of all of it, the insurance scam.
Gardner's theory suggests that with one of their main sources of income out of commission, and with the other one very much still under construction, questions arose amidst White Star Line's management as to how they could recoup the losses from Olympic's repairs and her time spent out of service.
By convincing the public that the crippled Olympic was in fact the brand new Titanic, and the company could stand to strengthen their bleak financial situation using the insurance payouts they would receive once the ship had sunk.
In fact, if the switch theory is to be believed, the company actually stood to turn a profit from the scheme if they played their cards right.
Gardner said, Titanic's insurance was increased five days before the maiden voyage, which resulted in J.P. Morgan receiving $12.5 million in insurance payouts from Lloyd's Maritime Insurance.
Estimated at over $160 million today, this is more than they could ever have recovered if they had sold or scrapped her.
J.P. Morgan, the controversial American tycoon and owner of the White Star Line's parent company, the International Mercantile Marine, he was said to be the mastermind behind the insurance scheme.
The theory claims that Morgan increased the amount that Titanic was insured for by almost double the original amount just days before her maiden voyage.
Now, this adjustment meant that Titanic's sinking would result in a windfall for the White Star Line.
This would mean that White Star and IMM's plan to defraud their insurance company would have gone off without a hitch.
Not only did they successfully rid themselves of the damaged Olympic, but her replacement was now fully financed and then some.
But let's take a look at the hard evidence, starting with the amount that Titanic was actually insured for.
If she was in fact insured for $12.5 million, there would be records to show this, but the evidence proves the opposite to be true.
Titanic was underinsured By $2.5 million.
The ship had cost the company $7.5 million, and her original insurance certificates show the payout for the total loss coming to a total of just $5 million.
This is further substantiated by testimonies from both Ismay and Philip Franklin, the vice president of the IMM in America, who both verified the ship was not fully insured, and the remainder of the risk was carried by White Star Line themselves.
This arrangement was quite typical of White Star Line ships and the industry as a whole.
In fact, among the company rules, there was one which stated, commanders are reminded that the steamers are, to a great extent, uninsured, and that not only their livelihood, as well as the company's, depends upon immunity from accident.
No precaution which ensures safe navigation is to be considered excessive.
Beyond this, a letter issued to all white Starline captains upon appointment to their respective vessel actually advises caution when navigating their vessel due to a potential, quote, pecuniary loss that would accrue, the company being their own insurers.
Titanic's own insurers, Lloyd's Maritime Insurers, also verified the ship's total insured value.
On Lloyd's website, official documents and historic information are freely available, proving that the insurance was paid out in the amount agreed upon between White Star and the insurers.
The company states that different underwriters took portions of the risk, ranging from £200 to £75,000, and by the 11th of January, the slip was complete.
The Olympic and the Titanic were fully insured for £1 million each.
Now, this would have been just shy of $5 million.
As we can see, there's no evidence pointing to White Star or the IMM profiting massively from Titanic's loss.
This doesn't mean that the company was staring down the barrel of bankruptcy, though, either.
Historian Mark Chernside points out that not even Olympics repairs would have set the company back enough for them to break a sweat.
He said, was in surplus by £1,102,756, even higher than IMMs.
With this in mind, the entire premise that the switch theory hinges on begins to look a bit flimsy.
The Olympics repairs were clearly not the financial burden that Gardner claims they were, nor were the insurance payouts after Titanic's sinking as hugely profitable as he would lead you to believe.
But let's suppose the insurance money was cleverly swept under the rug, with the financial reports having been doctored from the inside by Whitestar and externally in Lloyds and other agencies.
Then came the job of actually staging an event that would destroy the Olympic, which was in and of itself no easy task.
Olympic and Titanic would need to be swapped in a convenient, convincing manner.
But the facts tell us that this would have been far more difficult Next time on Fraud, the Titanic Conspiracy, we'll take a closer look at the huge workload actually involved in swapping the two ships.
We'll examine the photo record and rare film to determine once and for all which ship is which.
We'll decipher the evidence and combine our knowledge of the damage done to Olympic to the evidence present at the bottom of the ocean to determine once and for all If the Olympic and Titanic switch theory was ever possible.
possible.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's your friend Mike Brady from Ocean Liner Designs.
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