WASHINGTON • In the early hours of April 15, 1912, a lifeboat navigated the frigid waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, its skeleton crew scanning the dark, debris-littered surface for any sign of life. Hours earlier, the RMS Titanic, a majestic ocean liner deemed "unsinkable", had struck an iceberg and slowly disappeared into the sea on its maiden voyage.

Hundreds of passengers survived and were plucked from their lifeboats by the RMS Carpathia. Hundreds more perished. The only one of Titanic's lifeboats to turn back to the wreckage found body after body - until it discovered a young Chinese man, still alive, clinging to a piece of wood.