Titanic Explorer Hopes Others Will Let Ship ‘Rest in Peace’

The Titanic explorers brought their bounty of photographs home today, hoping that the visual treasure “will satisfy the curiosity of everyone . . . and the Titanic can finally rest in peace.”

As the research vessel Atlantis II with its 56-member crew arrived at the Woods Hole Ocenographic Institute, a crowd of champagne-toasting spectators shouted: “You’re the greatest! We love you!”

Expedition team leader Robert Ballard, who spent 13 days taking the first interior photographs of the legendary ship, which sank 74 years ago and rests 2 1/2 miles below the surface of the North Atlantic, said, “We’re now trying to assemble the images to create a mosaic of the ship.”

Ballard, expressing no desire to return to the sunken vessel, said he hopes the mountains of photographs “will satisfy the curiosity of everyone as to what its situation is, and there will be no real reason or need to go back and the Titanic can finally rest in peace.”