On the shore of Staten Island, Peter Hull, a reporter from the New York Times, began his story:

Ghosts do exist. I know, I saw one in the mists for morning. Like some grotesque phantom that had been rejected fro hell, she passed before my unbelieving eyes. Surrounded by the invisible pall of a bygone tragedy, shrouded in the souls of her dead, she was truly an awesome relic from a past age. You could not lay your eyes upon her and not sense pride and sorrow together....

A CBS commentator expressed a more journalistic view: "The Titanic completed her maiden voyage today, seventy-six years after departing the dock and Southampton, England...." By noon the Titanic was edging past the Statue of Liberty and a vast sea of spectators on the Battery. No one on shore spoke above a whisper, and the city became strangely silent; only an occasional toot from a taxi horn gave any hint of normal activity. It was though the whole of New York City had been pickled up and placed in a vast cathedral.

Many watchers wept openly. Among them were three of the passengers who had survived that tragic night so long ago. The air seemed heavy and hard to breathy. Most people, describing their feelings later, were surprised to recall nothing but and odd sense of numbness, as though they had been temporarily paralyzed and struck dumb. Most that is , except a rugged fireman by the name of Arthur Mooney.

Mooney was the captain of one of New York Harbor fireboats. A big, mischief-eyed Irishman bor of the city, and a seagoing fire-eater for nineteen years. He slammed a massive fist against the binnacle and shook off the spell. Then he shouted to his crew.

"UP off your asses, boys. You're not department-store dummies." His voice carried into every corner of the boat. Mooney hardly ever require the services of a bullhorn. "This here's a ship arrivin' on her maiden voyage, ain't she? Then let's show her a good old-fashion traditional New York welcome."

"But skipper," a crew member protested, "it's not like she was the QE II or the Normandie comin' up the channel for the first time. That thing is nothin' but a wasted hulk, a ship of the dead."

"Waster hulk, your ass," Mooney shouted. "That ship there is the most famous liner of all time. So she's a little dilapidated, and she's arrivin' a tad late. So who gives a damn? Turn on the hoses and hit the siren."

It was a reenactment of the Titanic's raising all over again, but on a much grander scale. As the water spouted in great sheets over Mooney's fireboat, and his whistle reverberated off the city's skyscrapers, another fireboat followed his example, and another. Then the horns of the cars lined up along the shores of New Jersey, Manhattan, and Brooklyn joined the outpouring of noise followed by the cheers and yells from a million throats.

What had begun with the insignificant shrill of a single whistle now built and built until is was a thunderous bedlam of sound that shook the ground and rattled every window in the city. It was a moment that echoed across every ocean of the world.

The Titanic had made port.

Ch. 17 pg. 357-357 Raise the Titanic! by Clive Cussler (1976)

An oldie by a goody.

if only history had been different

4004789
Sad part is that book isn't even considered canon to it's home series anymore, not since the wreck was discovered

4005559
Given the break-up was still controversial at the time Raise the Titanic was written, it doesn't surprise me.

4006124
With all the weird things that happen in the Pitt-verse, Cussler could have just ignored the discovery.

4006619
That or he hated that god awful movie that was made biased on Raise the Titanic more then he let on

4007136
That too..' never seen the movie, but when the original writer disowns it you know it was bad

4007156
It ranks near the top of the list for Bad Titanic Movies

4010823
Where does James "License to Print Money" Cameron's film sit on that list?

4010890
That one was actually one of the good movies,

the only films worse then Raise the Titanic are the Italian Animated Titanic Trilogy. Let me put it this way Cameron's film actually had the historic characters and events known up to 1997, Jack, Rose, Cal and Ruth all interacted with the historical characters at one point or another in the film. The Italian Films Legend of the Titanic, In Search of the Titanic/Tentacolino, and Titanic: The Legend Goes On, cut out every single historic figure, Goes on even put a singer in the First Class Orchestra, and replaced the iconic Nearer My God to Thee with a generic Disney esq song, Legend and it's sequel had everyone on the Titanic survive and all the stories (and even the death toll) being the result of a misunderstanding, while having the disaster caused not by a series of coincidences, misunderstood orders, and bad luck but because of a whaler and a talking octopus, and of course in the sequel they put the Titanic back together (fully restored and everything) and raise her with no indication as to what the hell was found in 1985 if the Titanic was indeed raised and turned into the private residence of the hero and heroine.

But the one that tops the list of the worst Titanic movies ever is the Asylum's Titanic II