Nov 12: The Tirpitz Capsizes and the Vestris Sinks Off Virginia

Host 1 Welcome to This Day in Disasters, shipwrecks and survival. On this day, November 12th, well, just imagine standing on the slick upturned steel of a capsized battleship you're holding a bucket of paint marking an X everywhere you hear the faint desperate tapping of trapped men echoing from inside.

Host 2 Oh wow yeah that is an incredibly haunting image.

Host 1 Right and today we're exploring historical survival stories exactly like that one on this deep dive. We'll look at the logistics of rescue, the psychology of disaster, and, you know, the enduring lessons these moments leave for you.

Host 2 So, we're beginning in 1928, out on the open ocean with the SS Vestris. This was a British liner bound for South America, and they sailed into a severe storm and sank bow first about 200 miles off the coast of Virginia.

Host 1 Okay, so 200 miles out, that is... fairly far. How bad was the human cost?

Host 2 It was devastating. Though the exact numbers are still debated today some records claim there were 128 passengers and 198 crew while others say 129 and 199.

Host 1 So just off by one or two in each category.

Host 2 Yeah, exactly. But regardless of the starting count, the official inquiry put the death toll at 111. Tragically, I mean, that included all 13 children on board.

Host 1 Oh, God, that is just awful. But wait, if they were a major ocean liner, how did things go so wrong so fast? Did the storm just like overwhelm them instantly?

Host 2 No, and honestly, that makes the outcome even more heartbreaking. The ship took on a heavy list early on, but the crew hesitated. They waited hours before finally sending out an SOS.

Host 1 Hours. Really?

Host 2 Yeah. By the time multiple rescue ships arrived around 5 45 that evening, it was just too late.

Host 1 So it's basically a classic case of normalcy bias, right? It's like when a fire alarm goes off in a crowded office building and instead of running outside, everyone just sits at their desks, you know, waiting to see if someone else panics first.

Host 2 Right. Nobody wants to be the one overreacting.

Host 1 Exactly. The crew was essentially waiting for permission to panic while the ship was already sinking.

Host 2 That psychological hesitation definitely cost lives. But you know, it also highlights the extraordinary actions of individuals who stepped up when the system failed. Take Lionel Licorice, for example.

Host 3 Oh, he was the quartermaster from Barbados, right?

Host 2 He was. And he didn't wait for orders. He took charge of lifeboat number 14, plunged right into the chaos, and pulled roughly 20 people to safety.

Host 3 That is incredible.

Host 2 Yeah.

Host 3 And then there was Crewman Gerald Burton. He was actually in the freezing water, gathering swimmers around him, and he told them, stay with me and I won't let you drown.

Host 2 which is exactly what people need in a crisis, someone to anchor them psychologically. And you know, the Vestris disaster fundamentally altered maritime safety.

Host 3 Right, because it forced authorities to rethink disaster response.

Host 2 Yeah, it proved why early distress calls are just non-negotiable. It led to strict rules demanding lifeboats be kept ready to launch at a moment's notice and it totally overhauled how ships communicate by radio.

Host 1 So the Vestris

Host 4 shows us what happens when rescuers take too long to be called. But what happens when the rescuers are standing right on top of you, and they still can't reach you? Let's move to 1944.

Host 5 Yeah, we are looking at the German battleship Tirpitz. During Operation Cataclysm, RAF bombers struck the ship at its anchorage in Norway.

Host 6 And this was a major attack, right?

Host 5 Very much so. The physics of the attack were overwhelming and the ship capsized within minutes. Out of roughly 1700 men aboard, estimates of the dead range from 940 to 1204.

Host 6 Wow, so a huge portion of the crew.

Host 5 Yeah, almost 600 men escaped into the water but dozens were trapped in air pockets inside the upside down hull.

Host 4 Which brings us right back to that paint bucket from the intro, rescuers were crawling over the exposed bottom of the ship tracking the survivors entirely by sound.

Host 5 Exactly.

Host 4 But I am stuck on a mechanical detail here. This is a top tier battleship. How did they actually get through armor plating before the oxygen ran out?

Host 5 Well, they almost didn't. They desperately needed acetylene torches to cut the men out, but the military just didn't have adequate extraction tools on hand.

Host 4 Wait, really?

Host 5 Mm-hmm.

Host 4 That is a staggering oversight. You have a warship, but no emergency cutting equipment.

Host 5 I know, right? They actually had to rely on occupied Norwegian civilians to secretly provide a single hidden torch.

Host 4 A single torch? Just one tool to carve through battleship steel.

Host 5 Just one.

Host 4 My bottleneck is terrifying.

Host 5 It was excruciatingly slow.

Host 4 They managed to free either 82 or 87 men, historical records dispute the exact figure, but the operation proved too crucial things.

Host 5 And the first was the technique of locating survivors by sound in collapsed enclosed structures, right?

Host 4 Yes.

Host 5 And second, the critical importance of keeping heavy extraction tools immediately accessible.

Host 4 Those structural collapses actually remind me of two other profound events we need to mention for November 12th. In 1970, the Bola cyclone struck East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh.

Host 5 Right, and the storm surge killed an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people, it remains the deadliest tropical cyclone on record.

Host 4 And then in 1999, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit Düzce, Turkey. The death toll estimates run from 650 to 894.

Host 5 But amidst that unimaginable rubble, search teams pulled a 48 year old woman out alive more than 40 hours after the collapse.

Host 4 Which is an amazing testament to survival. If you ever find yourself in a crisis remember the lesson of that earthquake or the men in the Tirpitz the first 40 hours are often governed entirely by the people immediately around you not the authorities.

Host 5 That is such a crucial takeaway as we look at these historical events we see how technology and safety protocols have improved over the decades

Host 4 yeah they definitely have

Host 5 but it leaves you to wonder you know as our rescue systems become more automated are we losing the raw improvisational survival instincts that those Norwegian civilians used to cut through a battleship hull when the systems fail human ingenuity is often all we have left

Host 4 thanks for tuning in see you back here tomorrow