Titanic's secrets of the deep

8:50pm Saturday 12th April 2008

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SHE lies in cold, still waters deep beneath the Atlantic, the once proud and pristine Ship of Dreams is now slowly but surely crumbling away as time, inexorably, takes its corrosive toll.

It was 96 years ago that Titanic, then hailed as the greatest and most luxurious passenger liner of her time, began her ill-fated maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, a destination the ship was never to see.

Now in a race against time and using the latest technology, a brand new series of amazing images has been published capturing the graveyard wreck that is constantly under attack from the sea and which slowly but surely is crumbling away in clouds of rust.

These are some of the clearest views of Titanic ever seen, or will ever be seen as the wreck is rapidly deteriorating and some experts consider that soon the White Star ship's legend will be all that remains of the vessel, once dubbed the Ship of Dreams.

The story of Titanic and the dreadful disaster that befell the passengers after the liner struck an iceberg, is one that has claimed a unique place in maritime history while the circumstances surrounding the huge loss of life still captures the imagination of countless people around the globe.

This weekend a series of events taking place in Southampton will commemorate the catastrophe that overwhelmed Titanic, the hundreds of local crew members who went down with the ship and the lasting legacy the White Star liner still casts over the city, nearly a century later.

Titanic now rests 12,500 feet below the Atlantic's surface in a gloomy, watery world that only a few have visited since the ship's death dive into the abyss on the night of April 14, 1912.

The indomitable, Millvina Dean from Woodlands, near Southampton, now aged 96, is the world's last living survivor from that terrible event, when the liner plunged to the bottom of the ocean.

As one by one the personal memories disappear the most tangible reminder of the Titanic story is the wreck itself.

A remarkable new book, Titanic, The Last Great Images by Dr Robert Ballard, who previously searched tirelessly for the wreck and discovered it in 1985, charts his latest expedition, with a stunning series of high definition photographs.

Dr Ballard said: "When it comes to Titanic, I feel a sense of responsibility.

I suppose it's like discovering historical or archaeological sites: it's not yours, it's owned by the human race, but one worries about it, one tries to protect it, and does everything one can for it.'' Over the years between the author's initial dive on Titanic and his latest visit to the wreck he became increasingly annoyed at what was happening to Titanic.

"To sit by for 20 years and watch everyone have their way with Titanic - often doing things I wasn't terribly happy about - was hard,'' said Dr Ballard.

"I saw my return as an opportunity to pay my respects to the ship, somewhat apologising for the mean-spirited way in which the wreck has been picked over and vandalised.''

The book's underwater photographs show the wreck and the surrounding debris in painstaking details. These new images reveal portions of the wreck from a variety of perspectives during a detailed tour of the ship.

Using high-tech underwater images, historical black-and-white archive photographs and period illustrations, the book retells Titanic's history as never before.

Picked out from the darkness are Titanic's great reciprocating engines and massive boilers underlining the liner's significance as the culmination of 60 years of intense competition between different shipping lines as their vessel crisscrossed the globe.

The still gleaming telemotor on her bridge, the opening to the crow's nest and the lifeboat davits still poignantly extended outboard remain the tell-tale sign of the dreaful night Titanic slipped beneath the waves.

A glimpse of champagne bottles scattered across the sea floor or the gap that once held the magnificent first-class staircase evokes the differing social classes and the demarkations of accommodation on the vessel.

Other images capture the human tragedy. A leather suitcase or a pair of shoes marks where a body once lay, together with other haunting reminders of the passengers who found themselves helplessly trapped as the doomed liner sunk to the bottom of the sea.

Dr Ballard, absolutely passionate about Titanic, once described the experience of seeing the wreck: "The debris hit me the hardest. Here in that ghostly expanse of seafloor 350 miles off Newfoundland, the people who died during the frigid early hours of April 15, 1912, spoke to me again.

"A case of champagne lay on the bottom, its bottles still corked - a reminder of Titanic's role as a floating palace of the rich and powerful.

"The box holding the bottles had long ago disappeared, consumed by wood-eating molluscs. Next to them were tiles decorated with a red-and-white design, possibly from a public room.

"Suddenly my eye was drawn to a woman's shoe, lying on its side. Nearby were three large combs and a pair of smaller shoes that may have belonged to a child. And beside them was a hand mirror.

"How did these objects find themselves together on the bottom? Did the larger shoe belong to a mother, who combed her daughter's beautiful long hair? What did the girl's face look like that may once have been reflected in this mirror?

"A short distance away were more shoes, a pair from a young girl, and another pair near what looked to me like a sailor's black slicker.

"A pair of shoes cannot fall 12,500 feet by themselves and land like this. Their journey was together."

• Titanic: The Last Great Images, Dr Robert Ballard with Ian Coutts, published by Madison Press Books, £25.