The Shootings on the Titanic. Part II. The only First Class Passenger shot

"Yes, I know where they are. Come along and I'll get them for you," Second Officer Charles Lightoller said.

He wrote about the moment in his memoirs. He had just been asked if he knew where the ship's guns were. He led Capt. E.J. Smith, Chief Officer Henry Wilde, and First Officer William Murdoch to an obscure locker and distributed revolvers to each of them.

"I was just going out when the Chief shoved one of the revolvers into my hands, with a handful of ammunition, and said,"Here you are. You may need it"," he recalled.

Now armed, the Titanic's senior officers returned to loading lifeboats.

The Captain, Wilde and Lightoller went to port and Murdoch to starboard.

Capt. Smith knew he had to play catch-up with the forward starboard boats. Murdoch had already sent off a hundred people in three lifeboats.  Only one port boat had been launched with fewer than 25 people aboard.

Smith had had to revise his game plan on the fly. He intended to load the port boats from A Deck, only to discover at the last moment that glass windows enclosed the deck and it would take valuable time that he didn't have to remove them.  All the women who had been sent to A Deck were marched back up to the Boat Deck and were being helped into boats from there.

Another change in plan involved husbands and other men at the boats. Originally, Smith had ordered the men and women separated, with the men standing back as the women were led to the deck below to  the lifeboats.  The men were torn between two Elizabethan values; on one hand, they were expected to follow orders, to demonstrate strength of character, to show intestinal fortitute in the face of danger; on the other, they were expected to protect and comfort their women, to be at their side when danger threatened, to stand strong in uncertain circumstances.

Mrs. Emma Bucknell told a reporter what happened when men initially heard the Captain's idea:

"Once a group of men shouted that they would not be separated from their wives if it became necessary to take to the boats and made a rush to find accommodations for themselves. The captain seemed to straighten out his shoulders and his face was set with determination."

"'Get back there, you cowards,' he roared. 'Behave yourself like men. Look at these women. Can you not be as brave as they?" 

"The men fell back, and from that moment there seemed to be a spirit of resignation all over the ship. Husbands and wives clasped each other and burst into tears." 

Forced to adopt Plan B, Smith reversed himself.  He maintained a strict policy of "women and children only", but he would allow husbands and escorts to lead women to the lifeboats and see them in.  Then they were expected to step back.  The only exception was made by Lightoller who, when loading No. 6, allowed Canadian yachtsman Arthur Peuchen to climb down the davits into the boat after the sailor in charge begged for help to row.

Twenty-four women were put in Lifeboat No. 4. Among the first was 18-year-old Ruth Taussig, whose mother Tillie refused to get in if her husband couldn't go with her.  Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Strauss led her maid Ellen Bird to the boat, but even when the officers agreed to make an exception for him because of his age (67),  he refused to take a seat that a woman could use, and his wife insisted on staying on the  Titanic with her husband of 40 years, regardless of the danger.

Frederick Kenyon told his wife he couldn't leave the Titanic as long as there was a woman or child on the ship. He kissed her goodbye and offered her the hope they would see each other again the next day.

Caroline Bonnell told a reporter for the Youngstown Vindicator that her uncle, who had pooh-poohed the danger earlier,  "gallantly stood aside."  He told his wife and niece he would join an acquaintance and they would follow in another lifeboat.

It was all so by the book.  Dr. Alice Leader wrote to a friend from the rescue ship Carpathia:

"It is all photographed on my mind. There was no panic. Every one met death with composure---as, one said, the passengers were a set of thoroughbreds."

Almost.

Mrs. Emma Bucknell recalled to a journalist (Chester Times (Pennsylvania), April 20, 1912):
"I did not hear an outcry from the women or the men. Wives left their husbands' side and without a word were led to the boats. One little Spanish girl, a bride, was the only exception.  She wept bitterly, and it was almost necessary to drag her into the boat."

Gladys Cherry wrote to her mother, also from rescue ship Carpathia:
 "We had a terrible scene with a little Spanish lady who would cling to her husband and at last he threw her in our arms and asked us to take care of her.  (Published in On Board RMS Titanic, George M. Behe, 2011.)

"Pepita, que seas muy feliz" ("Pepita, you'll be very happy"), were his last words, she told family members.

The distraught woman was  Mrs Maria Josefa Perezde Soto y Vallejo Peñasco the 22-year-old wife of Victor de Satode Peñasco. Although sometimes described as newlyweds, the couple had actually been on a 17-month European honeymoon of which the Titanic trip was the latest adventure.  Penasco, 24, you see, was fabulously wealthy.

And connected.  His mother was related by marriage to Spain's Prime Minister.

The boat loaded with as many woman as wanted or could be cajoled to leave, Capt. Smith, who was personally in charge of No.8, thought it time to lower away.

Said Mrs. Taussig (New York Times, April 22, 1912), who was watching from the deck,"Capt. Smith was preparing the eighth boat to be let down. There was only one seaman in sight, but a number of stewards had rushed up between the crowding men and women. The Captain turned to the stewards and asked them if they knew how to row. They answered ‘Yes' hastily, and four of them were allowed to jump in."  (None of them knew how to row and the women in the boat would have to do it for them.)

Lucy Noël Martha Leslie, Countess of Rothes had the perspective of someone in the lifeboat. (New York Herald, April 21, 1912)   "Captain Smith stood shoulder to shoulder with me as I got into the life boat, and the last words were to the able seaman--Tom Jones--'Row straight for those ship lights over there; leave your passengers on board of her and return as soon as you can.'

Mrs. Taussig again:
"There was room for fourteen more after the last woman had found her place, and they all pleaded to let the men take the empty seats."

"But the Captain said that he would not allow it. I was frantic. There was that boat, ready to be lowered into the water and only half full. Then the order came to lower. The men were pleading for permission to step in, and one came forward to take a place next to his wife. I heard a shot and I am sure it was he that went down."

"Then the boat swung out from the deck. I was still with my husband, and Ruth had already disappeared below the deck. I gave a great cry---I remember perfectly calling out the name of my daughter---and two men tore me from my husband's side, lifted me, one by the head and one by the feet, and dropped me over the side of the deck into the lowering boat."

Who was the husband making the fatal dash? Isn't it obvious?

A passionate Spanish gallant responding to his new bride's heart-rending pleadings?

Who else?  Fifty-seven year old George Wick? Frederick Kenyon who was ready to die as a gentleman should?  Thomas Pears, 29,  was a risk-taker who raced cars and motorcycles, but his British upraising suggests he would obey orders on a British ship.

Spanish histories include quotes from Penasco's wife.  In her account, she says she saw an officer fire his gun in the air to stop some disorder.  Unless she's referring to the shooting at No.5, it's the earliest mention of anyone firing a gun at a port boat and coincidental with Mrs. Taussig's account.

She also said she saw Victor start to climb into the lifeboat, but stepping aside to let a woman with a child enter.  She said she never saw him again---lost in the hubbub.

Did he try to get into the lifeboat, step back, and try again?

The circumstantial evidence points to Victor de Satode Peñasco being shot rushing Lifeboat No. 8.  
Who shot him?  By that point in time, Capt. Smith, Chief Officer Wilde and Second Officer Lightoller were all carrying guns and all three were helping load No. 8.

 Lightoller made it a point of pride that he never fired his revolver (although he told Titanic survivor Dr. Washington Dodge on the Carpathia that he shot in the air one time at Collapsible D to maintain order).
Some survivors said they saw Capt. Smith with a gun in his hand later in the sinking, but while several women put into No. 8 mention the Captain, not one mentions a gun.

That leaves Wilde as the most likely suspect.  (No ordinary crewman would shoot a passenger in the presence of the Captain or senior officers---without orders.)

On a final note, Victor and Maria Penasco were accompanied on their honeymoon trips by a governess-slash-maid, Fermina Oliva y Ocana.  In a book published on the hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic ( "Ten of the Titanic, LID Editorial, by Javier Reyero, Cristina Mosquera and Nacho Montero) the authors ask, and answer, 'what happened to the maid?'

They quote her own account of being saved. (I'll paraphrase her story in Spanish.)

She was, she said, left out of the boat when it started to lower. She started screaming. She was desperate.   She was seized by an officer and thrown "like a sack of straw" into the boat, about 3 feet.

"It was the most horrible moment of my life," she said.

The Shootings on the Titanic. The Definitive Story

It's the deepest, darkest, best-kept secret of the Titanic disaster.

And it was reported on the front page of every newspaper in North America the day the rescue ship Carpathia reached New York a hundred years ago.

How can those two statements be reconciled?

Newspaper readers in 1912 were shocked, outraged, and more than a little bit titillated at reports that officers on the sinking Titanic shot and killed steerage passengers who tried to board lifeboats ahead of women and children.

In the days and weeks after the Titanic sank, the story of shootings was repeated by newspaper syndicates and in individual survivor accounts published in daily papers in towns and cities across the U.S. and Canada.
The tale reached a crescendo in the public hearings into the sinking held in the U.S. and England. Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, one of only a handfull of officers who survived, was questioned in public over whether he shot  at passengers.  It's true, he said, but the shots were fired in the air to warn off anyone thinking of leaping into his lifeboat as it was lowered to the ocean, and not at anybody in particular.

And with that, the story of shootings lost steam. For the next four decades, the Titanic story was nothing more than a curiosity to be dredged up at anniversaries of the disaster.  Then, in 1955 came the book A Night To Remember which introduced the dramatic tale of the sinking ocean liner to a new generation.

As amateur historians tracked down the survivors who were still alive, held reunion conventions and published newsletters, interest in the Titanic grew and with it, the stories of shootings of passengers.  A consensus developed that the shooting stories were bogus, invented by yellow journalists of the day to spice up their Titanic coverage.

But...then some personal letters of survivors surfaced, relating the story of officers shooting passengers shortly before the Titanic took its final plunge. And the consensus shifted a bit to include the possibility that there might have been one incident where two frenzied men might have been shot down.  Maybe.
The new consensus is just as wrong as the old one.

More than 50 survivors saw with their own eyes passengers shot to keep them from swamping lifeboats. As well, at least two of Titanic's crew were shot dead, one by a passenger.

An estimated 27 men were shot in at least 16 different incidents. Remember, the Titanic covered an area of four city blocks square and the sinking took two and a half hours.

I can hear it now. How could this be? How could such a historical fact be missing from the history books?

Well, it's not.

Each of the shooting incidents was reported somewhere, or else how would we know they happened?  It's just that nobody---until now---collected them all, correlated them with lifeboats, and pieced together when and where they happened.

Here, then, for the first time ever, is the true and full story of the men who were shot and killed during the evacuation of the Titanic.  You will learn the circumstances of each shooting, the names the men who did some of the shooting, and the identities of many of the men who were shot.

                                                           **************
                                                             First Blood.

No way. Too early. It's impossible.

My sentiments exactly when I first discovered the story.  But the harder I looked, the louder the evidence spoke until it couldn't be denied any more.

Nobody wanted to leave the Titanic when the loading of the first lifeboat started.  Officers cajoled, pleaded with, instructed, encouraged, and begged women and their male companions to enter Boat No. 7.  They did everything but hurl them in bodily, until, finally, they convinced  honeymooning couple Helen Bishop and her husband Dickinson Bishop to step in. The precedent set, other couples began to climb into the boat and the loading began.

The loading of the next boat, No. 5, went smoother.  People who passed on getting into No.7 were now eager to climb into a lifeboat. But--- the first signs of disorder on the ship broke out unexpectedly---and it wasn't from steerage passengers.

While First Officer William Murdoch begged men to get into No.7 with the women, at No. 5 the men were getting mixed signals.  Seven men were allowed in---most to accompany their wives or sweethearts---but others were held back. First cabin passenger Charles Stengel testified at the Senate Inquiry:

Mr. STENGEL.
 After my wife was put in a lifeboat she wanted me to come with them, and they said, "No; nothing but ladies and children." 

The boat was nearly filled to Murdoch's satisfaction when men started jumping into the boat.

First ,Edwin Kimball jumped in to be with his wife. Then, Norman Chambers, whose wife was also in No. 5. But it wasn't until Dr. Henry Fraunthal and his brother Isaac Fraunthal leaped into the lifeboat to join their wives that Murdoch became agitated.

Bedroom steward Henry Etches described the scene to the Senate Inquiry:.

"There was a stout gentleman, sir, stepped forward then. He had assisted to put his wife in the boat. He leaned forward and she stood up in the boat, put her arms around his neck and kissed him, and I heard her say, "I can't leave you," and with that I turned my head. The next moment I saw him sitting beside her in the bottom of the boat, and some voice said "Throw that man out of the boat." But at that moment they started lowering her away, and the man remained."

That stout gentleman was Dr. Henry Fraunthal who weighed about 250 pounds.  He not only remained in the boat, but his brother Isaac jumped in after him.  Crewmen who survived the sinking of the Titanic said they worried that the lifeboats would buckle if they held too many people while still on the davits, so you can imagine their reaction to the sudden strain of two men, one huge, suddenly added to the boat.

First class passenger Charles Stengel again:

"I saw two, a certain physician in New York and his brother, jump into the same boat my wife was in. Then the officer or the man that was loading the boat, said "I will stop that. I will go down and get my gun"."

But Murdoch, "the man that was loading the boat", would have to wait to be armed.

The ship's firearms were under the control of the First Officer, who Murdoch was. But there had been a reshuffle of senior officers before the Titanic started its maiden voyage. Surviving officer Charles Lightoller explained it in his book 'Titanic and Other Ships' published in 1935:

"Owing to the Olympic being laid up, the ruling lights of the White Star Line thought it would be a good plan to send the Chief Officer of the Olympic, just for the one voyage, as Chief Officer of the Titanic, to help, with his experience of her sister ship. This doubtful policy threw both Murdoch and me out of our stride; and apart from the disappointment of having to step back in our rank, caused quite a little confusion. Murdoch, from Chief, took over my duties as First; I stepped back on Blair's toes, as Second..."

Murdoch had to go to Lightoller, who was now the keeper of the weapons, to get a gun. But Lightoller was busy loading Lifeboat No. 6, so Murdoch would have had to wait.  He saw that No. 5 was lowered, then began loading No. 3.

The first rocket went off.  Robert Hichens, who would be sent off in charge of No. 6, told the Senate Inquiry the first signal rocket went up before his boat left the ship. This confirms that Murdoch started loading No.3 even as No. 6 was still being loaded on the port side.

Henry Sleeper Harper and his wife were first to get in, it seems. In Harper's Weekly, April 27, 1912, Sleeper Harper told his story:

"Presently a number of stewards and other men of the ship's company began to fuss with the tackle of a couple of life-boats near where we were on the upper deck...We took a look at both boats. My wife thought the one farther off was better because there would be hardly a dozen people left to go in it after the big boat beside us was filled. I looked them both over, saw that the farther boat had no watertight compartments in it while the one near had; so I said," No, let's take this. It will float longest."

"With that I handed my wife down into the nearer, bigger boat and she comfortably seated herself on a thwart." 

There was no reluctance to climb into Lifeboat No. 3.

Daisy Spedden's Diary, 
April 10 - 18, 1912
There was a little group of men gathered on the deck at this time, and they were ordered by Chief Officer Murdoch to wait while Burns, Alice, D., F. and I were put in the boat. It was so dark we could hardly see where we were stepping, and as the boat was clear of the ship by a few feet, the short legged people had to be practically thrown in. I was placed up on the side of the boat, while B. and D. were on the middle seat, the latter stretched out with a rug over him and his head on B's lap, while F. and Alice were standing near me...

The diary refers to F, her husband Fred Spedden;  D, her son Douglas; their nanny, Margaret Burns; and  their maid, Helen Alice Wilson.

Mrs. Vera Dick, of Calgary, was asked by a reporter for the Saskatoon Daily Phoenix (April 20, 1912)  "How was it so many men were saved?"

"They were permitted to get into the first two lifeboats as no one seemed quite to realise (sic) the danger. Then officers began to reserve the places for the women..."

Mr. Charles Hays assisted his wife and her maid into No. 3 and his son-in-law Thornton Davidson assisted his wife.  Both men then stood aside.

Edith Graham was interviewed by the Trenton Evening Times (April 20, 1912) about how she, her daughter and Elizabeth Shutes, her daughter's governess, escaped:

"Mr. Roebling and Mr. Case bustled our party of three into the boat in less time than it takes to tell it. They were both working hard to help the women and children. The boat was fairly crowded when we three were pushed into it. A few more men jumped in at the last moment, but Mr. Roebling and Mr. Case stood at the rail and made no attempt to get into the boat."

Thomas Cardeza told the New York Sun (April 27, 1912):

"... we went back to the forward part of the starboard side and found a boat that was being loaded and they were calling for women to get in. My mother got in with her maid.The officer called for other women, but there were none thereabout. Then he called for men passengers. There were only about six just there, of whom I was one, and we got in."

The men climbed eagerly into the boat. Thomas Cardeza and his valet Hammad Hassab. Col. Alfons Simonius, Max Stahelin, Harry Anderson, Adolf Saalfield.  Gustav Leseur, Henry Sleeper Harper's valet, "made himself quite at home," according to his employer.

A hundred years after the sinking, Walter Hawksford's granddaughter recalled a family legend for the local Weymouth, England, newspaper, the Dorset Echo.

Said Bridget Penney, “He was standing near lifeboat number three and they were a rower short. First officer William Murdoch turned and said ‘Is there anyone here who can row?’ “He put his hand up."

Even then, said Cardeza, there was room for more.

 "The boat was still not filled, so the officer put in some of the crew."

Henry Sleeper Harper watched the boat fill up.

"Four or five stokers or some such men came along and jumped into the boat at the forward end. The sailor who seemed to be in charge of the boat laughed a little."

"Huh!" he said, "I suppose I ought to go and get my gun and stop this." But he did not go and get any gun and neither did he order the stokers out." 

"Everybody seemed to take what was happening as a matter of course and there wasn't a word of comment. I stepped in and sat down among the stokers. There was no one in sight on the decks... I had on my arm a little brown Pekingese spaniel we had picked up in Paris...nobody made any objection."

The "sailor in charge", apparently AB George Moore who was in charge of No. 3 when it was launched, was clearly mocking Murdoch, for his comment is almost word for word what Murdoch said at Boat No. 5 (above).

As this was happening, Mrs. Dick and her husband stood off to one side of the boat deck.  Three times Mrs. Dick had been called to get into the lifeboat and each time she declined. Then something happened to change her mind.  Her husband told the Calgary Daily Herald ("Mr. and Mrs. Dick Reach Home And Tell, Over Again, Story of Escape From The Titanic", April 30, 1912, P.1):

"After the sixth boat had been lowered from where A.A. Dick and his wife stood and there were no more women in sight, some men in the crowd attempted to jump into the boat. This action on the part of the men angered the officer so that he called out: "If I had a gun I would fix those fellows."

"Immediately a sailor said "Here is a gun, sir" and handed the officer one."It was not till then," said Mr.Dick, "that I was absolutely convinced that we were in really extreme danger." Then he told his wife that she had better get aboard, but she said "I will not go without you" and clung to him..."

Mrs. Dick finished the story ("Mr. and Mrs. Dick Reach Winnipeg On The Way Here", Calgary Daily Herald, April 29, 1912):

"Mr. Dick stooped to kiss me goodbye and I just held on, and the officer shoved him into the boat."


Mr. Dick revealed even more to the Toronto Star ("Mr. Dick, Calgary, Owes His Life to Wife's Devotion", April 20, 1912):

"When my wife and I got into the boat there were no women left near it, and the men who remained began to fight for places. An officer drew a revolver and threatened to shoot, and that reduced them to order, yet our boat was nearly upset."


"The sailor who seemed to be in charge ordered "Lower away," said Henry Sleeper Harper in his account.

That was the story preserved for posterity.

But Helen Alice Wilson, the Spedden family maid, had a piece of the story, that never made the history books.

"While we were being put into the boat there was a mad rush of some foreigners to get in, and two Italian men were shot dead before my eyes." ("Sister of Plainfield Man Saved Little Boy", April 22, 1912, unidentified newspaper, posted on the Encyclopedia Titanica website.  http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/sister-plainfield-man-saved-little-boy.html Plainfield, New Jersey, had only one newspaper in 1912, the Plainfield Daily Press.)

Daisy Spedden's diary (excerpted above) says that Alice Wilson was standing in the lifeboat. That would have given her a vantage point nobody else in the boat had.

The names of the men who were shot will never be known.  Who fired the fatal shots?  Fifth Officer Harold Lowe was helping load the boat with First Officer William Murdoch.  Lowe  put his own gun in his pocket when leaving his quarters. As he told it to the British Inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic:

6301. Now, what did you do after you went out on the deck and ascertained the position of the ship in the water, and saw what had occurred?
- I first of all went and got my revolver.
6302. What for?
- Well, sir; you never know when you will need it.

Murdoch, on the other hand, would have needed the loan of a gun.

He didn't get his own revolver until after No. 3 left the ship.  Second Officer Lightoller told that story in his memoirs. He had just lowered Lifeboat No. 6 when he was approached about arming the ships' officers.

"It was about this time that the Chief Officer came over from the starboard side and asked, did I know where the firearms were?"

"...Murdoch, who was now First Officer, knew nothing about the firearms and couldn't find them when they were wanted..."

"...into the First Officer's cabin we went---the Chief, Murdoch, the Captain and myself where I hauled them out, still in their pristine newness and grease."

"The whole incident had not taken three minutes..."

Henry Stengel was one of only five passengers in Lifeboat No. 1, the next boat after No. 3 to leave the Titanic.  As a single man (his wife went off in No.5) he kept a close eye on who was allowed into the lifeboats and who wasn't. In what appears to be his first account of the disaster (Newark Evening News, April 19, 1912, Stengel Tells Tragedy Story) he said:

"Some boats that could hold fifty were lowered with only twenty-five and even though there was room for men none was allowed to go.  A mate said that only women and children could go after oars were manned and he said he would shoot any man who tried to get in.  He fired a revolver off in the air to show it was loaded and that he meant business."

The nautical definition of a "mate" is more than just a member of the ship's crew. One definition, especially in British usage, means a deck officer just below the master.  That would fit Murdoch perfectly at Boat No.3.

The big question is why three starboard-side boats were lowered in the time it took only one portside boat to be launched.  The answer is less complicated than it appears.

As I discovered, the order to load the lifeboats was given by Captain Smith about 12:10 a.m. the morning after the Titanic hit the iceberg. This was roughly half an hour after the collision.

http://titanicsecrets.blogspot.com/2009/07/first-boats-cutting-gordian-knot.html

The Titanic's lifeboats, at the bow at least, had already been cleared, and lowered in their davits even with the boat deck. But the officers at the opposite ends of the ship had quite different ideas of how to load the passengers.

On the starboard side, Murdoch was in charge. He loaded the boats sequentially from the boat deck. That is, he filled No. 7 first, lowered No.7, then filled No. 5, lowered No. 5, then did the same with Nos. 3 and 1 boats.

On the port side, Chief Officer Wilde was in charge under the ultimate supervision of Capt. Edward Smith. Smith intended to load the boats from A Deck. To that end, he had Boats 4, 6 and 8 lowered one deck further to A. At the same time he separated the women on his side of the boat from the men and sent the women down the stairs to A Deck to wait for the order to climb into the boats.

Wilde, it would appear, intended to load his forward boats concurrently, just as he later loaded the aft boats (Nos. 12, 14 and 16) under his command.

First Class passenger Helen Candee was one of the women following orders. She wrote a detailed memoir for her family about her experience on the Titanic. You can read it here:
http://www.charlespellegrino.com/passengers/helen_candee.htm

In her account, she wrote:

"Captain Smith’s big voice called out an order:- “Lower all life-boats to the promenade deck, the deck below. Passengers will take the boats there!” My impulse was to remind him of the plate glass which would prevent passengers. But a Captain is to be obeyed, not informed..."

"... Woolner and I descend to the promenade deck. It was no surprise to see life-boats hanging unreachable on the outside of the unbreakable plate-glass. We sought the Captain. [going back the way we came.]"

"[Woolner]: “Beg your pardon, Sir, but the plate glass is too heavy to break and boats cannot be reached.”
“My God! I forgot it!” said Captain Smith in anguished humility. Then in the same breath -- an order. “Raise the life-boats! The passengers will take life-boats from this deck.” 

Note her mention of lifeboats, plural. If the order to load the boats was given at approximately 12:10 a.m., Wilde would have spent about 10 minutes (at 3 minutes a boat) lowering three lifeboats to A deck and getting all the women in the vicinity down the stairs and ready for loading.  Murdoch, on the other hand, would have spent that time loading No. 7 and getting the boat off the ship.

Ten minutes is also the estimated length of time that Capt. Smith was away from the bridge to visit the engine room.  When he returned, he was informed that A Deck was enclosed by glass and the women couldn't be loaded from there until the glass was removed. This was exactly what Mrs. Candee said and her companion Hugh Woolner confirmed separately.

It appears Wilde then ordered Boats 8 and 6 to be raised to the boat deck, but left No. 4 at the level of A Deck.  By the time he actually began loading  No. 6, Murdoch had finished seeing off No. 5 and had turned to No.3.

No. 6 launched, No. 3 gone, Lightoller picked up the story with Murdoch approaching Wilde for a gun and Wilde coming to Lightoller.

In the next chapter of the story, Capt. Smith, Wilde, Murdoch, Lightoller and Lowe all have guns.  But only one of them almost sparked an international incident.

Luigi Finole's account in his own words. Or not?

First hand accounts are the gold standard of Titanic research.
Unfiltered by reporters, rewrite men, or well-meaning relatives, they tell the story of a survivor's experience in his or her own words, frequently revealing valuable details of the Titanic story.
The only thing better is the first-hand story of a survivor whose tale has never, or rarely, been reported.
I've found several interviews of steerage passenger Luigi Finole, but this one is my favorite.  You will immediately see why.
I've only come across it in two newspapers: New York Post, April 20, 1912, Page 8 and the Reading Eagle, April 20, 1912, Page 3.  For the longest time I wasn't sure it was legitimate.
As a newspaper reporter for half my career as a journalist, I know how to "read" a newspaper story.  That is, I can tell how a story was built, what questions were likely asked, who the sources were (often), and so on.
This story was a challenge.  It was likely written by a stringer for either the New York Post or the Reading Eagle because it was so inconsequential.  That means a reporter who was not on staff, but was hired to go to the dock where the Carpathia arrived to float.  He was to gather interviews with whomever  he could pigeonhole while the staff reporters chased the rich and famous survivors.
The story mentions the subject was interviewed on the pier.  Access to the pier was severely limited and everyone permitted to approach had to be screened. You either had to have a relative aboard the Titanic or to be a member of the press. So, even for an unaccompanied Italian immigrant who speaks broken English to be  there means he was undoubtedly off the Carpathia.
The story was published April 20, two days after the Carpathia delivered the Titanic's passengers to shore.  That indicates it was considered too minor to make the April 19 paper which, of course, was filled with the broad story of the sinking of the Titanic plus as many accounts as possible of how the ship's more prominent passengers survived or died.
And why not? It's the story of a steerage passenger nobody ever heard of who had little exciting to say.  It starts with the alleged survivor himself saying that his name is not on the survivor list.  How much less interesting could the story be?
Add the fact that he's identified as Phillipo Franginoli,  a name that's unknown even today, when passenger lists are available on the Internet and when the names of all Titanic survivors have been checked and rechecked by Titanic buffs.
Why, then, imagine that he's the Luigi Finole from Philadelphi who survived the Titanic and not one of the many fraudulent survivors that sprang up in the wake of the Titanic?  The answer lies in what popped up when one day I decided to search for Phillipo Luigi Finole.
In 1927,  Filippo D'Angelo, an Italian living in Pennsylvania, applied for American citizenship and his naturalization petition was online.  He had been in the country since 1920, it said. His application was supported by two witnesses.  The first witness was Luigi Finoli.

Publication Number:
M1522

Publication Title:
Naturalization Petitions for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1795-1930

Publisher:
NARA

National Archives Catalog ID:
573414

National Archives Catalog Title:
Petitions for Naturalization, compiled 1795 - 1991

Record Group:
21

State: Pennsylvania

Short Description:
NARA M1522. Naturalization petitions for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania 1795-1930.

Roll:
309

Court:
US Circuit Court

Year:
1927

Date:
1927-02-10

Immigrant Full Name:
Filippo D'Angelo

Document Type:
Petition for Naturalization

Home Country:
Italy

Witness 1 Full Name:
Luigi Finoli
Witness 2 Full Name:
Luigi Michetta

Year Immigrated:
1920

Original data from:
Naturalizations - PA Eastern

These are Naturalization Records of the US Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Compare the names. Phillipo Franginoli and Fillipo D'Angelo.  They're too close to be coincidence.
Did Luigi Finole give the reporter a false name?  That certainly wouldn't be unusual as anybody who has studied the Titanic survivors knows.  Or was he pretending to be Fillilpo D'Angelo and the reporter misunderstood the name, seeing as it was given in thick broken English?
The interview certainly has the ring of truth. It doesn't contain any false heroics that are a staple of bogus survivor stories. Instead it's the simple story of a steerage passenger who was offended by the swearing of crewmen and who was ashamed of his own helplessness in the face of women and children facing certain death.
And finally, what makes this story unique is the reporter's style---telling the story in his subject's voice with no interruptions. Priceless.

                                         Wreck As Seen By The Steerage

New York, April 20---"My name notta on de list? Allrighta, but I'm here!"
Phillipo Franginoli, third classs passenger on the titanic, hugged a little bundle closely under his arm as he stood on the pier."
"Sure, I was comen back o de States for de make-a de mon'! Me make-a de mon' over here! Diavolo! I am so shake that I canno spik! De sheep w'en she strike de ice? W'at happen den? I was sound asleep, an' you know in dose sheeps de stee'ge passagire ees far down. So w'en I feel kind-a shiver an' shake I turn over an' go 'sleep 'gain. Bimeby, come boy. He say, 'Get up! Sheep doin' sink!' I say 'Go way! Bimeby (by-and-by...ed.) I hear croosh, croosh. And I hear feets ronning all round an' Ieesten. Den I hear somebody say 'De boats! Run for de boats!' Per Baccho, I jomp up an' go lok for see w'at she has 'appen! Dere was a woman crying.
" 'In de steer'ge was many dat wan' be save! Signor, dose in de bad part of de sheep want be save same as mans and womens wid de mon' dat buys de bes beeg room! I'm onlee poor Italian, work for liven'---work hard, an' when I see so mooch cry, so mooch unhapp', I say, 'Phillipo, you help dose. An' so I try help! De officiere was joompin' round givin' words to evereebodee w'at to do, and I couldn't get no chance.
" 'Get out of the way!' dey says to me an' I went straight up in de front of de sheep, and' dere I wait. Bimeby I hear officiere saying "Room for all, women first!' Den I see de lots peoples all crowd togedder an' den de boats begin leave. I donno what happen w'en de boats dey gone. Dere was one womans next to me an' she said, ve'quiet, 'Ees de water cold?' I look at her an' she put her face in her han's an' was cry. I say 'Maybe more boats come quick to save us.' 'No,' she say,'I'm goin' have to drown---an' its so terrible cold!'
"Was I 'fraid? No, Signor, I was no 'fraid! De onlee ting dat I was leesten to was de croosh-crossh of de water an' de begs of de women dat could not be save. Some say 'Oh, God, help us.' Some say 'Deat 'ees too hrr'bl!' Joost w'en all was quiet I hear a baby---a leetle babmino. Signor, cry an'den my heart come t'rogh my face, an' I feel such a awful sadness! Not for me myeself, Signor, but for dose poor womens an' bambinos.
""an' so de sheep she being seenk. She deed not go fas', joost leetle by leetle, an'all the time dere was music playin'. De Capitano was doin' bes' he know, but we keep goin' down jus' same. De stars dey won'ful an' de water fine. De boats was all vanish an' den de firemens an' de enginemen come on de deck. Dey spoke bad words, Signor, an' dey hitted each odder bad. Somebody knock me down as he pass. I stand up; I get knock down 'gain an' I stan' up, and bimeby de sheep goof one ver' bad---how you say---stagg'r, an' she begin go down.
"De womens, Signor, dey run so fast can from de water, an' de mens dey say bad things. One-two-t'ree presto! I hear onlee de screams an' de soun' of de water tryin' to get into my ears as I go down. Bimeby boat come along an' de mens pull me in. Da's all, Signor, onlee say prayer for de odders."

                                                              -30-