Destiny,
The so-called switching of the Olympic and
Titanic's name plates in an insurance scam were
little more than a perpetuated rumor in the years
after the disaster.
However, any Titanic historian will be happy to
point out endless ways that this is not true. Some
of the more cursory examinations will reveal
several obvious differences:
The Olympic's
A-deck promenade was fully open.
Titanic's was enclosed the third week of March in
an improvement to her sister. The third sister,
Britannic, also had this feature.
Titanic's
B-deck configuration was completely
different than Olympic. This is obvious in the
window configuration.
Titanic's wheelhouse was flat, whereas Olympic's
was rounded (not the bridge wall, just the
interior wheelhouse). The wreck shows remains of a
flat, square wheelhouse.
Titanic's shipyard number was 401. Olympic was
400. Britannic was 433. The wreck clearly shows,
on the propeller blade, '401'.
As for why we remember Titanic over Olympic and
Britannic, Jason's post above put it best. The
Titanic sank, with a catastrophic loss of life.
The Olympic lived out an otherwise uneventful
career. Same reason why we hear about the
Lusitania but not her sister Mauretania. The
Mauretania, too, lived out a long career, and
like
the Olympic was scrapped in 1935-37.
You might also ask, "Well, the Britannic sank,
too. Why don't we hear about her?" The Britannic,
though sunk, was one of many war casualties in
WWI. Since the loss of life was minimal (28-30
people) and the British Admiralty kept the sinking
as low key as they could, this is why the shadow
of Titanic obliterates her sisters, merely because
of the scale of tragedy.
Erica, if you are still a little confused, just
holler, and I'll try to clarify things even
further.
Dan
