Ruth Becker's claims that the Titanic split in half before it sank were dismissed until the wreckage was discovered on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean in 1985.
Titanic Archive/YouTubeRuth Becker speaks about the Titanic during an interview in the 1980s.
In 1982, Ruth Becker — one of the last living RMS Titanic survivors — described watching the ship break apart as it sank. Her account was doubted at the time, but she lived to see her testimony vindicated when the wreck was discovered in two pieces in 1985.
A viral TikTok by @history.on.loop with more than 1.7 million views shows two images of Ruth Becker describing the final moments of the Titanic.
The text overlay of the video claims the following: “In 1982 Titanic survivor Ruth Becker was giving an interview where she stated the ship broke in two. The treasurer of the Titanic Historical Society actually took the microphone away from her and said she had been mistaken. Three years later they found the wreck broken in two.”
The story struck a nerve, with viewers criticizing officials for doubting a first-hand account and others saying that she deserves a public apology. But did she ever get one?
Ruth Becker’s Experience On The Titanic
Ruth Elizabeth Becker was born in India to American missionaries in 1899. In early 1912, her younger brother Richard fell ill, and at the advice of physicians, her mother Nellie took Ruth, Richard, and their sister Marion back to the U.S. for treatment so he’d have a better chance of surviving. They left Ruth’s father behind in India.
The family boarded the Titanic in Southampton on April 10, 1912, as second-class passengers. Ruth recalled her mother having doubts about the voyage and asking a crew member about the ship’s safety.
Public DomainRuth Becker in 1912, the year of her ill-fated voyage on the Titanic.
On the night of the sinking, a steward told Nellie, who had noticed that the ship had stopped moving in the middle of the ocean, that there had been “a little accident” but that they were going to fix it and would be on their way shortly, Becker recalled in an interview preserved by the Titanic Archive.
Nellie Becker wasn’t convinced. She gathered the children and headed to the upper decks. It was cold, so she sent Ruth back down to get blankets, but by the time Ruth returned, her two siblings had already been loaded into Lifeboat 11. When the crew said that the boat was full, Ruth later recalled, her mother screamed, “Please let me in that boat! Those are my children!” They let Nellie in, but Ruth was still left on the ship. Nellie screamed down to her to get in another boat.
Ruth went up to the crew member loading the next lifeboat. “I asked him if I could get in the boat,” she recalled, “and he says, ‘Sure.’ And he picked me up and dumped me in. I evidently was the last one put in that boat because they started lowering right away.”
Public DomainThe Titanic leaving Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912.
From the lifeboat, Ruth said she watched the Titanic go down.
“The Titanic was going down very slowly,” she recalled. “These people were standing there at the decks, at the railing, wishing somebody, I suppose, would come and rescue them. But finally, it did go down, and all the people who were standing at the decks at the railing jumped. They jumped out, and they screamed and they yelled for help… I can still hear them jumping from the deck and screaming and yelling for help, and the boat finally went under the water. There was nothing left.”
She and the other survivors rowed from 1:00 to 4:30 in the morning, when they spotted the lights of the rescue ship Carpathia. Ruth was so numb with cold that she couldn’t hold on to the rescue swing, so they tied her in and pulled her up. She was reunited with her mother and siblings on board.
Public DomainGerman artist Willy Stöwer’s 1912 depiction of the Titanic sinking.
Ruth went on to graduate from Wooster College, become a teacher, marry, and raise three children. For decades, she refused to speak about her time on the Titanic. Even her own children didn’t know she had been on board. It was only after her retirement and her move to Santa Barbara in 1971 that she began to open up.
The Debate About The Sinking Of The Titanic
In 1982, Becker spoke at a Titanic Historical Society convention and described how the ship broke in two before it went under. According to the caption of the TikTok video, an officer of the society took the microphone from her and told the audience she had been mistaken, though there is no video footage of this incident.
However, other survivors had certainly been dismissed over the decades after claiming that the Titanic split in two.
The conventional view was that the Titanic sank in one piece. This was largely due to the testimony of Second Officer Charles Lightoller, which was believed over the word of other survivors. Lightoller was the most senior officer to survive the disaster, and passengers had given conflicting reports due to the chaos and darkness of the night.
NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode IslandThe bow of the Titanic sits more than 2,000 feet from the ship’s stern on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.
Then, in September 1985, oceanographer Robert Ballard located the Titanic on the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean. When his crew found the wreckage, it was in fact in two pieces, just as survivors had described.
While Becker couldn’t receive an apology for an incident that isn’t credibly documented, she did live to see her testimony vindicated. She died on July 6, 1990, at age 90. Her ashes were scattered at sea over the spot where the Titanic shipwreck lies.
After reading about Ruth Becker and her testimony about the Titanic, go inside the stories of 12 other survivors of the disaster. Then, read about the iceberg that sank the ship
