Lowe's Flotilla Unravelled
Sooner
or later when reading about the Titanic, you come across the story of Harold
Lowe and his flotilla of lifeboats, the tale that made Lowe the unchallenged
hero of the tragedy. The story, in a
nutshell, is that after the Titanic sank, Lowe gathered together a group of
lifeboats, then:
*
distributed the passengers in his boat into the other lifeboats,
*
took a scratch crew back to where the Titanic sank
*where
he managed to save four survivors (but one died),
*then,
finding an overloaded collapsible boat, he took it in tow
*
before sailing to a lifeboat that was sinking and rescuing another 20 or so
people in his own boat.
No matter how much I tried, I could never remember which boats tied to which boats and transferred whose passengers from which boat to which boat when. Finally I remembered the aphorism 'a timeline tells the tale' and here's that tale.
The "flotilla' assembles
No. 12 John Poingdestre,
AB, British Inquiry
2991. How far away from the
"Titanic" were you?
- About 150 yards.
**********************
Collapsible D Arthur Bright,
Quartermaster, Senate Inquiry
Mr. BRIGHT. We were told to pull clear and get out of the
suction; and I suppose we got out about 100 yards, or maybe a little
more, away from the ship.
Hugh Woolner Col. D
We got out three oars first, and shoved off from the side of the
ship...I should think, we were 150 yards away, when the Titanic went
down.
William Lucas British Inquiry
1562. How far off were you when she sank? - I suppose about 150 yards.
*************************
No. 4 Samuel Hemming, seaman, Senate
Inquiry
10423. You swam out to this
boat that you saw? - Yes, sir.
10424. How far was it from the
side of the Titanic? - About 200
yards.
********************************************
No. 10 Edward Buley, AB, Senate
Inquiry
Senator FLETCHER. How far were
you from the Titanic when she went down?
Mr. BULEY. About 250 yards.
*****************************************
No. 14 Miss Sara Compton quoted in Archibald Gracies' book 'The Truth About the
Titanic'
Officer Lowe insisted on
having the mast put up. He crawled
forward and in a few moments the mast was raised and ready. He said this was
necessary as no doubt with dawn there would be a breeze. Mr. Lowe wished to
remain near the ship that he might have a chance to help someone after she
sank. Some of the women protested and he replied: 'I don't like to leave her,
but if you feel that way about it we will pull away a little distance.' "
No. 14 Harold Lowe, Fifth Officer, Senate Inquiry
Senator SMITH.
You were about 150 yards off?
Mr. LOWE.
I was just on the margin. If anybody had struggled out of the mass, I was there
to pick them up; but it was useless for me to go into the mass.
No. 14 Joseph Scarrott, AB,
British Inquiry
406. How far off from the
"Titanic" was your boat rowed? - I should judge about 150 yards.
407. Then did she lie there? - She lay there with the remainder of the
other boats - with the four other boats that we saw when we got clear of the
ship.
410. And was anything done
with the other boats? - Mr. Lowe asked
them who was in charge of the boats, what Officers were there, and we got a
reply from each boat individually to say they had no Officer in the boat. He
said: "All right consider the whole of you are under my orders; remain
with me,"
The
Titanic Sinks
No. 14 Ida Minahan affidavit Senate Inquiry
The Titanic was fast sinking.
After she went down the cries were horrible. This was at 2:20 a.m. by a man's
watch who stood next to me.... Some of the women implored Officer Lowe, of
No.14, to divide his passengers among the three other boats and go back to
rescue. His first answer to those requests was, "You ought to be damn glad
you are here and have got your own life."
Archibald Gracie, book Titanic:
A Survivor's Story
“…there arose to the sky the
most horrible sounds ever heard by mortal man except by those of us who
survived this terrible tragedy. The agonizing cries of death from over a
thousand throats, the wails and groans of the suffering, the shrieks of the
terror-stricken and the awful gaspings for breath of those in the last throes
of drowning none of us will ever forget to our dying day. ‘Help! HELP! BOAT
AHOY! BOAT AHOY!’ and ‘MY GOD! MY GOD!’ were the heart-rending cries and
shrieks of men, which floated to us over the surface of the dark waters
continuously for the next hour, but as time went on, growing weaker and weaker
until they died out entirely.”
John Thayer From “A Survivor’s
Tale: The Sinking of the Titanic 1912”
Probably a minute passed with
almost dead silence and quiet. Then an individual call for help, from here,
from there; gradually swelling into a composite volume of one long continuous
wailing chant, from the 1,500 in the water all around us. It sounded like
locusts on a midsummer night, in the woods in Pennsylvania.This terrible
continuing cry lasted for 20 or 30 minutes, gradually dying away, as one after
another could no longer withstand the cold and exposure.
******************************************************************************
Scarrott Senate Inquiry No. 14
427. (Mr. Butler Aspinall.) As
soon as the ship went down, what was done with your boat? Did she remain where
she was for a little time, or did she row in to where the ship had sunk?
- She rowed in company with
the four other boats, under the orders of Mr. Lowe, to see if we could pick up
anybody from the wreckage.
428. The whole five of you
rowed in? - The whole five of us.
Scarrott, No. 14
433. Now did you succeed in
rescuing anybody? - Not our boat
individually, but the other boats in our charge did get somebody, but how many
I cannot say.
*********************************
Lowe British Inquiry No. 14
15943. Did you return to the
wreckage immediately after the "Titanic" had disappeared? - I did
not.
15944. Had you any reason for
not doing so? - I had.
15945. Would you mind telling
me what it was? - Because it would have
been suicide to go back there until the people had thinned out.
********************************
Perkis NO. 4 Senate Inquiry
Mr. PERKIS. We picked up
eight, sir.
Senator PERKINS. You picked
up eight men that were swimming with life preservers?
Senator PERKINS. How far was
this away from the ship?
Mr. PERKIS. I should say about the length of the ship
away, sir.
Senator PERKINS. You picked up eight in the water?
Mr. PERKIS. Yes; and two died afterwards, in the boat.
********************
Senator PERKINS. Could you not
have found more of them?
Mr. PERKIS. We stopped picking up. The last man we picked
up, we heard a cry, and we did not hear any more cries after we had picked up
the last man.
Mr. HEMMING. Senate
Senator SMITH. ... what did
you do then?
Mr. HEMMING. We hung around
for a bit.
No. 12 John Poingdestre, British Inquiry
3013. How long did you remain
looking... for the people? - About a
quarter of an hour.
3014. And you saw nothing? - Nothing at all.
3015. Did you see wreckage? - Only about a couple of hundred deck chairs.
3016. But you saw no bodies? - No bodies whatever.
3017. During that quarter of
an hour, while you were looking, how long did the cries continue?
3018. And yet you found
nothing? - We found nothing at all.
3022. Can you account for
that? - There were not enough sailors in
my boat, only me and my mate, and we could not get there.
**************************
Hugh Woolner, Col. D Senate
Inquiry
Senator SMITH. Did you go back
to the scene of the wreck after pulling out this 150 or 200 yards?
Mr. WOOLNER. No.
Senator SMITH. Was there any
attempt made by your boat to go back, so far as you know?
Mr. WOOLNER. Not by our boat;
no.
Col. D picked up 3 at least--Charles Williams, Sophie Abraham, Joseph
Duquemin plus Frederick Hoyt. This implies that they picked people out of the
ocean before theTitanic sank.
Waiting for Survivors to
Die
**************************************
No. 12 Poingdestre British
Inquiry
3029. At the end of this
quarter of an hour what did you do then?
- I hailed for other boats.
3031. What do you mean by
that? - Called to see if there were any
in the vicinity of where I was.
3040. What answer did you get? - I heard somebody call out, and they came
up to us - another lifeboat.
045. Do you know
the name of the man in charge? - I think
it was Foley, a storekeeper. (John
Foley manned lifeboat No. 4)
************************************
Scarrott No. 14 Senate Inquiry
- Mr. Lowe ordered four of the boats to tie together by the painters. He
told the men that were in charge of them, the seamen there, what the object
was. He said, "If you are tied together and keep all together, if there is
any passing steamer they will see a large object like that on the water quicker
than they would a small one."
Hugh Woolner Senate Inquiry Collapsible D
Senator SMITH. After pulling out for 15 minutes or so, what took place?
Mr. WOOLNER.
Then some officer came along and said: "I want all these boats tied up by
their painters, head and tail, so as to make a more conspicuous mark"; and
we did that; and there was no call to row much after that because we were
simply drifting about.
After the lifeboats in the "flotilla" tied up to each other, they
waited for about hours until the terrible cries from dying survivors tapered
off as one-by-one they succumbed to the cold water.
While waiting, the women in Collapsible D were near panic. The boat was
ankle deep in water and the women feared it would sink and throw them into the
ocean. Able Seaman William Lucas, in charge, made a decision.
William Lucas Col. D British Inquiry
I transferred all the women from my boat to (No. 12) because I was
frightened of my boat capsizing...
1611. I daresay you were rather
crowded, were you?
- Yes, we were; the gunwales were under water.
1628. Was it full of water?
- There was water under our feet. The women were frightened of her.
More than 30 women were transferred
from Collapsible D into No. 12, giving No. 12 a double load.
Lucas, British Inquiry
1598. Then
what did you do with your boat?
- Poingdestre asked me if I would go in the boat and get hold of an oar and I said
yes.
Lucas and
two firemen joined the crew of No. 12, a fortunate circumstance as it turned
out.
Lucas, British Inquiry
1608. What happened to your
collapsible?
- I let that go with the three men in it.
1609. Where did they go?
- Well, they hung on to the remainder and were knocking round - tied themselves
together afterwards.
Frank Evans, Senate Inquiry, No. 10
Mr. EVANS. I was in No. 10, and
we tied up to No. 12. We gave the man our painter and made fast, and we stopped
there.
Mr. EVANS. We stopped there about
an hour, I think it was, sir, when No. 14 boat came over with one officer.
Senator SMITH. Mr. Lowe; No. 14 boat?
Mr. EVANS. No. 14 boat. He came over in No. 14 boat, and he says,
"Are there any seamen there?" We said, "Yes, sir." He said,
"All right; you will have to distribute these passengers among these
boats. Tie them all together and come into my boat," he said, "to go
over into the wreckage and pick up anyone that is alive there.
After waiting for hours, Harold Lowe
decided it was safe to return to where the Titanic sank and see if he could
rescue anyone still alive. But first he had to transfer the people in his
lifeboat to the other boats in the flotilla.
Harold Lowe No. 14 Senate
Inquiry
and of course I had to wait
until the yells and shrieks had subsided - for the people to thin out -
and then I deemed it safe for me to go amongst
the wreckage.
So I transferred all my
passengers - somewhere about 53 passengers - from my boat, and I equally
distributed them between my other four boats.
Then I asked for volunteers to
go with me to the wreck,
Senator SMITH. Had their cries
quieted down before you started?
Mr. LOWE. Yes; they had
subsided a good deal. It would not have been wise or safe for me to have gone
there before, because the whole lot of us would have been swamped and then
nobody would have been saved.
Senator SMITH. About how long
did you lay by?
Mr. LOWE. I should say an hour
and a half; somewhere under two hours.
I left my crowd of boats
somewhere, I should say, about between half-past 3 and 4 in the morning, and after
I had been around it was just breaking day..
John Hardy
Collapsible D Senate Inquiry
We got clear of the
ship and rowed out some little distance from her, and finally we all got
together, about seven boats of us, and I remember quite distinctly Boatswain
Lowe telling us to tie up to each other, as we would be better seen and could
keep better together. Then Officer Lowe, having a full complement of passengers
in his boat, distributed among us what he had, our boat taking 10. We
had 25 already, and that number made 35.
Collapsible D, having transfered her women to No. 12, was now full again.
Ida Minahan affidavit ,No.14
transferred to Col. D
As I came up to him to be
transferred to the other boat he said, "Jump, God damn you, jump." I
had showed no hesitancy and was waiting only my turn. He had been so
blasphemous during the two hours we were in his boat that the women at my end
of the boat all thought he was under the influence of liquor
William BURKE. Senate Inquiry No.
10
An officer's boat came alongside during the
night and gave us about 12 or 15 passengers. He took our two seamen away, with
the intention, I presume, to go back to the wreckage.
Arthur Bright Collapsible D
Senate Inquiry
Senator
SMITH. Did he take any people out of your boat and put them into his?
Mr.
BRIGHT. One seaman out of my boat.
John Poingdestre, British Inquiry No. 12
3049. What happened next? - We saw another boat in charge of Officer
Lowe.
3050. Did that boat come to
you, or did you go to it? - He came to
me.
3051. When he came to you,
what happened? - He discharged some of
his passengers into my boat and some into the other boat that was tied up
astern of me.
3052. How many passengers did
he put into your boat? - About a dozen.
3053. Did he remain with you
then, or go away? - A few minutes.
3054. And at the end of the
few minutes what did he do? - He took
the men crew, what he had already had, and went and searched.
Miss Sara Compton transferred to
Col. D quoted in Gracie's book Titanic: A Survivor's Story
"I now found myself" she said, "in the stern of a
collapsible boat. In spite of Mr. Lowe's warning the four small boats began
to separate, each going its own way. Soon it seemed as though our boat was the
only one on the sea. We went through a great deal of wreckage.
*******************************
Lowe to the Rescue
Scarrot No. 14 Senate Inquiry When we got to where the cries were we were
amongst hundreds, I should say, of dead bodies floating in lifebelts.
AB Frank Evans No. 14 There were plenty of dead bodies about us. You
couldn't hardly count them, sir. I... I should think between 150 and 200. We
had great difficulty in getting through them to get to the wreck." (US
Inquiry)
**********
William Lucas, AB, British
Inquiry (in no. 14 now)
1622. I suppose it took you some time to get there, did it?
- Well, say about a quarter of an hour.
Scarrott British Inquiry
440. Was it dark then?- Yes.
441. Still dark?- Yes,
********************************
Lowe No. 14 Then I went off and I rowed off to the
wreckage and around the wreckage and I picked up four people...But one died,
**********************
Scarrott British Inquiry
When we got up to it we got
one man, and we got him in the stern of the boat - a passenger it was, and he
died shortly after we got him into the boat.
We got two others then as we pushed our way towards the wreckage,
and as we got towards the
centre we saw one man there...he was calling for help...-it took
us a good half-hour to get that distance to that man to get through the bodies.
We could not row the boat; we had to push them out of the way
***************************************
Frank Evans, AB, Senate
Inquiry, No. 14
Mr. EVANS. He said, "Have
a good look around, and see if you can see anybody alive, at all."
Senator SMITH. And when you
did find anybody alive, what did the officer say?
Mr. EVANS. The officer said,
"Hoist the sail forward." I did so, and made sail.
Lowe British Inquiry
15965. (The Commissioner.)
When did you use the sail?
- I used the sail from the
time I got to the wreck until I got on board the "Carpathia."
Lowe, Senate Inquiry
Mr. LOWE. ...I am quite satisfied that I had a real good look around,
and that there was nothing left.
Senator SMITH.After you looked around, then what did you do?
Mr. LOWE.I then thought - well, the thought flashed through my mind,
"perhaps the ship has not seen us in the semigloom."
Senator SMITH.The Carpathia?
Mr. LOWE.Yes. I could see her
coming up, and I thought, "Well, I am the fastest boat of the lot,"
as I was sailing, you see. I was going through the water very nicely, going at
about, well, I should say, four knots, five knots, maybe; it may have been a
little more; it may have been six; but, anyhow, I was bowling along very
nicely.
And I thought, "I am the fastest boat, and I think if I go toward
her, for fear of her leaving us to our doom" - that is what I was scared
about, and you will understand that day was dawning more and more as the time
came on.
Mr. LOWE.And by and
by, I noticed a collapsible boat [D], and it looked rather sorry,
so I thought, "Well, I will go down and pick her up and make sure of
her."
Hugh Woolner Col. D Senate
Inquiry
Mr. WOOLNER ...just at that time, when we began to row
toward the Carpathia, Mr. Lowe came down with his boat under sail, again, and
hailed us and said, "Are you a collapsible?" We answered,
"Yes." He said "How are you?" I said, "We have about
all we want." He said, "Would you like a tow?" We answered,
"Yes we would." So he took our painter and towed us away from the
Carpathia, and then we looked and saw that there was another little group of people
standing up in the sea who had to be rescued...
Sara Compton, transferred to Col. D
...With daylight we saw the Carpathian and
not so very long afterwards Officer Lowe, sailing towards us, for, as he
had predicted, quite a strong breeze had sprung up. We caught the rope which
he threw us from the stern of his boat. Someone in ours succeeded in catching
it and we were taken in tow to the Carpathia.
Mr. LOWE. Senate Inquiry
I had taken this first
collapsible in tow, and I noticed that there was another collapsible in a
worse plight than this one that I had in tow. I was just thinking and
wondering whether it would be better for me to cut this one adrift and let her
go, and for me to travel faster to the sinking one, but I thought, "No, I
think I can manage it"; so I cracked on a bit, and I got down there just
in time and took off, I suppose, about 20 men and 1 lady out of this sinking
collapsible.
Olaus Abelseth Collapsible A
Senate Inquiry
The next morning we could see
some of the lifeboats. One of the boats had a sail up, and he came pretty
close, and then we said, "One, two, three"; we said that quite often.
We did not talk very much, except that we would say, "One, two,
three," and scream together for help
Evans, now in No. 14 Senate
Inquiry
"He fired four shots when
we went to this boat that was in distress. She was half full of water, and they
were up to their ankles in water. There was one collapsible boat that we had in
tow, and we went over to this one that was swamped, sir.
Mr. EVANS.... the boat was
swamped within about 5 or 6 inches of the gunwale, the top of the boat, sir.
Mr. EVANS. He told people in
this boat it was to warn them not to rush our boat when we got alongside.
Senator SMITH. How far was
this swamped collapsible lifeboat from lifeboat No. 14 when you started to it?
Mr. EVANS.About a mile and a
half, sir.
Senator SMITH. How near were
you to the swamped boat when Lowe fired those shots?
Mr. EVANS. About 150 yards,
sir.
Scarrott, No. 14
"After we came back from
the wreckage where we had taken one of those rafts in tow, Mr. Lowe emptied his
pistol into the water; as regards the number of rounds left in it I cannot say,
but I think he emptied five rounds out of it." (British Inquiry)
For reasons unknown, Lowe later
denied to the Senate Inquiry that he fired any shots other than the three he
fired as No. 12 was lowered off the Titanic in order to deter anyone from
jumping in.
Elizabeth Eustis No. 4 "The Titanic--Our Story"
With the dawn came the wind
and before long quite a sea was running. Just before daylight on the horizon we
saw what we felt sure must be the lights of a ship. The quartermaster was a
long time in admitting that we were right, urging that it was the moon, but we
insisted and they then said it might be the Carpathia as they had been told
before leaving the Titanic that she was coming to us. For a long time after
daylight we were in great wreckage from the Titanic, principally steamer
chairs ... We felt we could never reach the Carpathia when we found she had
stopped, and afterwards when we asked why she didn't come closer we were
told that some of the early boats which put off from the starboard side reached
her a little after four, while it was after six when we drew under the side of
the open hatch.
Lowe No. 14 British Inquiry
15860. Can you judge how long
that was before the ship went down?
All I know is that when we boarded the
"Carpathia" in the morning it was six o'clock, and that is the only
time I know of.
Ida Minahan affidavit to the Senate
Inquiry Col. D
It was just four o'clock when
we sighted the Carpathia, and we were three hours getting to her.
William Burke No. 10 Senate
Inquiry
We remained drifting about
practically all night. At one time we were tied up with three boats together,
until I gave the order myself in that boat to cut us adrift that we might go
to a collapsible boat that was in distress. When they cut our boat adrift I
found an officer in another boat had come to the aid of this collapsible boat,
so we remained there for some hours, drifting about. At daybreak, we made fast
to another officer's boat (Lightoller in
Col. 12) , and we arrived alongside of the Carpathia with these two boats tied
together.
Gracie, Collapsible B
Finally dawn appeared and
there on the port side of our upset boat where we had been looking with anxious
eyes, glory be to God, we saw the steamer Carpathia about four or five miles
away, with other Titanic lifeboats rowing towards her. But on our starboard
side, much to our surprise, for we had seen no lights on that quarter, were
four of the Titanic' 's lifeboats strung together in line.
Meantime, the water had grown rougher, and...
was washing over the keel... Lightoller put his whistle to his cold lips and
blew a shrill blast, attracting the attention of the boats about half a mile
away. "Come over and take us off," he cried. "Aye, aye,
sir," was the ready response as two of the boats cast off from the others
and rowed directly towards us.
Frederick CLENCH. Senate
Inquiry
...while Mr. Lowe was gone I
heard shouts. Of course I looked around, and I saw a boat in the way that
appeared to be like a funnel. We started to back away then...I put my head over
the gunwale and looked along the water's edge and saw some men on a raft. Then
I heard two whistles blown. I sang out "Aye, aye; I am coming over,"
Lightoller British Inquiry
I had my whistle in my pocket. I whistled by
way of showing it was an Officer that was calling, and I asked them if they
could take some of us on board, and I said if they could manage to take
half-a-dozen - because we were sinking then - it would lighten us up so that we
could continue afloat.
Charles Joughin British
Inquiry Collapsible B
... eventually a lifeboat came
in sight.
6106. And they took you
aboard?
- They got within about 50
yards and they sung out that they could only take 10. So I said to this
Maynard, "Let go my hand," and I swam to meet it, so that I would be
one of the 10.
********************
John Thayer, Collapsible B his
book 'The
Sinking Of The S.S. Titanic, April 14 15, 1912'
... shortly before 4 o’clock
we saw the mast head light of the Carpathia come over the horizon and creep
toward us. We gave a thankful cheer. She came up slowly, oh so slowly. Indeed
she seemed to wait without getting any nearer. We thought hours and hours
dragged by as she stood off in the distance. We had been trying all night to
hail our other lifeboats. They did not hear us or would not answer. We knew
they had plenty of room to take us aboard, if we could only make them realize
our predicament.
The Carpathia, waiting for a
little more light, was slowly coming up on the boats and was picking them up.
With the dawn breaking, we could see them being hoisted from the water. For us,
afraid we might overturn any minute, the suspense was terrible.
The long hoped-for dawn
actually broke, and with it a breeze came up, making our raft rock more and
more. The air under us escaped at a more rapid rate, lowering us still further
into the water. We had visions of sinking before the help so near at hand could
reach us.
About 6:30, after continued
and desperate calling, we attracted the attention of the other lifeboats. Two
of them finally realized the position we were in and drew toward us. Lightoller
had found his whistle, and more because of it than our hoarse shouts, their
attention was attracted.
It took them ages to cover the three or four hundred
yards between us. As they approached, we could see that so few men were in them
that some of the oars were being pulled by women. In neither of them was much
room for passengers... The first took off half of us. My mother was in this
boat (No. 4)...The other boat took aboard the rest of us.
It was just about this time
that the edge of the sun came above the horizon.
The Carpathia was about eight
hundred yards away...
No. 12 towing No. 10 reached
the Carpathia as the last boats to be recovered, between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m.
Conclusions: Harold Lowe acted decisively, saved many
lives and earned his heroic status. But other crewmen shouldn't be overlooked.
After the Titanic sank, Lowe
went back and saved 3 survivors. Quartermaster
Walter Perkis in No. 4 saved 7.
Lowe saved 20 from Collapsible
A. Poingdestre in charge of No. 12 saved
almost twice as many (36) from Collapsible B.
Lowe towed Collapsible D to
Carpathia. Poingdestre in No. 12 towed No. 10 to Carpathia carrying almost
three times as many aboard as Collapsible D.
