Not every Titanic mystery is a big one.
Take whales, for example. They're big, but whether Titanic survivors saw whales or not is neither here nor there.
Still, in the interests of historical truth, let's look at the evidence.
On the night the rescue ship Carpathia reached New York City, survivors Lord and Lady Cosmo Duff Gordon booked into the Ritz-Carlton hotel and had supper with a group of friends.
"Six ladies," said Lady Duff Gordon, at the British Inquiry into the sinking. And Abraham Merritt, the assistant editor of the American Weekly, "a great friend of ours."
Lady Duff Gordon, of course, regaled her friends with the story of her trip and her safe escape. After supper, publisher William Randolph Hearst phoned Merritt to get the lowdown, and after hearing what Merritt heard gave him an earful, reminding him that the Duff Gordon's story wasn't just gossip, it was NEWS.
" - After he had left us about half-an-hour he telephoned to me, and he said, "Mr. Hearst has just rung me up, and must have your story of the 'Titanic' wreck for tomorrow morning's newspaper." He said, "May I tell your story as I have heard it?" testified Lady Duff Gordon.
She said "Yes." And the next day the story appeared in the daily New York American newspaper, under her byline as if she wrote it, and with a reproduction of her signature to certify its authenticity.
But remember, Merritt heard the story at a social gathering; he didn't take notes and wasn't expecting to write a formal story. He would have just repeated to a rewrite man what he remembered and let the other man craft the story.
What about the whales? Getting there...
Lady Duff Gordon was aghast. Although she wrote a weekly fashion column for the newspaper, she wasn't about to sink to so low as to be a common reporter. At the Inquiry she denied much of what appeared under her name.
One reference in the story went unmentioned:
Saw a School of Whales.
At last –– morning. On one side of us were the ice flows. On the other we were horrified to see a school of tremendous whales. As the mist lifted we caught sight of the Carpathia looming up in the distance. We were too numbed by cold and shock to cheer, or even utter a sound.
An even more florid version of her story ran in the London Daily Mail,
"A graphic account of the terrible disaster to the Titanic has been supplied to the New York correspondent of the London "'Daily Mail" by Lady Duff-Gordon who, with her husband, Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, was among the survivors picked up by the Carpathia."
It included this passage:
"At last morning broke on a desolate scene. On one side of us were numerous icefloes and on the other, big threatening bergs. We were also horrified to see a school of tremendous whales in the vicinity of our boat. Then, as it became lighter, we were cheered by the sight of the Carpathia, which had been advised by wireless of the disaster, looming up in the distance and heading straight for us. We were all too numb with the cold and the horror of the awful disaster to utter a sound."
A recent article on Lady Duff Gordon's Titanic experience contained this footnote:
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/documents/i-was-saved-from-the-titanic-lady-duff-gordon.pdf
7. There are no other known accounts of a school of whales surfacing near the wreck site.
Really?
LOCAL SURVIVOR DEFENDS ISMAY
Atlantic City Daily Press
Sunday, 5th May 1912
City Clerk Donnelly’s Cousin Sends Sympathetic Note to Official
----------
NOT A COWARD, BUT BRAVE AND GALLANT
----------
“Ismay was unjustly critcised and abused for his actions regarding the Titanic
wreck,” stated E. C. [sic] Taylor, one of the survivors of the steamship,
yesterday, and who is spending a few days at the residence of his cousin, City
Clerk E. R. Donnelly. Mr. Taylor, who with his wife, were [sic] saved in one
of the small boats, is a big stockholder in a paper cup concern. He and his
wife were on the deck of the Titanic a few moments after she struck the iceberg.
...
“While we were on the Carpathia we passed through a school of about a dozen
whales and later on we passed a seal that was floating on a cake of ice. A
little farther on we passed a big floe of ice on which there was a big white
polar bear prowling around.
************************************
Sidney Collette in the Auburn Daily Advertiser, April 23, 1912
COLLETTS OWN STORY
Port Byron survivor of Titanic wreck
First Boats carried men.
Several boats had been lowered full of men, among them President Ismay. The officers were just lowering boat no. 9, the third from the last to be put off. The ladies stepped in , then the officer with drawn revolver said to me:
"Well, what of you, where are you going?" I replied that I have these young ladies in my chargeand felt it my duty to take care of them. "Get in", said the officer and a moment later the boat was lowered.
Fright for those in small boats.
After we had floated for an hour or more there came our first real scare for our own safety, All about us we could see the backs of monster fish, their shiny skins or scales glimmering grew in the moonlight. They were terrible looking monsters and we feared that they would swim under our boats and upset them, but they did not. It was a time when we were close to our Maker. I prayed constantly from the time our boat struck the iceberg intil I reached Neew York. Never was there a wireless message that went so quickly and straight as my prayers to the throne of God. Never will I forget those horrible hours after the sinking of the ship, It wass maddening. Minutes seemed like hours and hours like days.
*************************************
The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters
By Logan Marshall
1. The Sinking of the Titanic - Page 132
A passenger on the Carpathia said there was no wonder that none of the wireless telegrams addressed to Mr. Ismay were answered until the one that he sent yesterday afternoon to his line, the White Star.
"Mr. Ismay was beside himself," said this woman passenger, "and on most of the voyage after we had picked him up he was being quieted with opiates on orders of the ship's doctor.
"It was not until noon on Monday that we cleared the last of the ice, and Monday night a dense fog came up and con- tinued until the following morning, then a strong wind, a heavy sea, a thunderstorm and a dense fog Tuesday night, caused some uneasiness among the more unnerved, the fog continuing all of Tuesday.
"A number of whales were sighted as the Carpathia was clearing the last of the ice, one large one being close by, and all were spouting like geysers."
*********************************
And there's even this recollection by a woman who crossed the Atlantic 115 days after the Titanic sank, along the same route.
Beaver County Times (Pennsylvania)
April 12, 1982
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2002&dat=19820412&id=sVkuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_NkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1628,2604598
A Story of Two Ships
Woman's Voyage Almost Has Titanic Outcome
by Terri Gallagher, Times Staff
Seventy years ago this Wednesday, the world was stunned by perhaps the greatest sea disaster in the history of man. The Titanic, the world's largest and most luxurious ocean liner, sunk to an ice grave in the Atlantic after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage.
... snip
Fifteen day after the sinking of the Titanic, another ship, though not so luxurious nor large, narrowly escaped what could have been a similar fate in the same waters.
Beaver Falls resident Mary Carr, then a frightened 9-year-old from a small village in Austria, was aboard that ship.
She explained, "My mother, sisters, brother and I were coming over from Austria. My father had been here for nine years."
"The ship was called 'The Fatherland' and it was an old ship. It was supposed to be its last trip," the silver-haired woman said.
Mrs. Carr, then Mary Fleisher, and her family boarded "The Fatherland" bound for Ellis Island at the port of Antwerp, Belgium. The trip would last two weeks...
Mrs. Carr reminisced: "We saw three whales, I remember. That really scared me. We saw the sun draw water up from the ocean." Exciting events for a nine-year-old, Mrs. Carr explained...
snip
It was the middle of the night when The Fatherland trekked the route south of Newfoundland that had recently ended in treachery for the Titanic.
"We were sleeping. Then we were told we were going to hit an iceberg. Everyone got up," she said.
snip
"They steered the ship around and everything was OK."
snip
Mrs. Carr said her family never talked of the incident after arriving in New York and coming to Beaver Falls to live.
***********
Abraham Merritt went on to become a well-known writer, including the famous book Seven Footprints to Satan.
**************
Compare the two versions of Lady Duff Gordon's account:
New York American
April 19, 1912
LADY DUFF GORDON TELLS OF LAST AWFUL SOUNDS WHEN SHIP SANK, PISTOL SHOTS AND PIERCING CRIES
______
Declares That When She and Her Husband
Entered Lifeboat Other Passengers Twitted Them About Catching
Cold - "Ship Can't Sink." They Said.
______
Lady Gordon Is Positive That Two Mighty Explosions Preceded the Final Plunge of the
Titanic - After That for an Hour the Moans
and Cries of Drowning Men Were Heard.
______
By LADY DUFF GORDON.
The night was perfectly clear. We had watched for some time the fields of ice. I noticed a number of large bergs. There was one which an officer pointed out; he said it must be 100 feet high and seemed miles long.
I was asleep, awakened by a long grinding sort of shock. It was not a tremendous crash but more as though someone had drawn a giant finger along the side of the ship. I awakened my husband Sir Cosmo and told him I thought we had struck something. He went up on deck and told me we had hit a big iceberg, but that there seemed to be no danger.
Her Husband Bade Her Dress.
We were not assured of this, however, and Cosmo went upstairs again. He came back and said, "You had better put your clothes on because I heard the order given to strip the lifeboats."
We each put on a life preserver and over mine I threw some heavy furs. I took a few trinkets and we went up on deck. There was no excitement at that time. The ship had listed slightly to port and was down a little at the head. As we stood there one of the officers came rushing up and said, "The women and children are to go in the boats." No one apparently thought there was any danger. We watched a number of women and children and some men going into the lifeboats. At last an officer came to me and said, "Lady Gordon (sic), you had better go in one of the boats."
I said to my husband: "Well, we might as well take the boat; it will be only a pleasure cruise until morning.” The boat was the twelfth or thirteenth to be launched. It was the Captain's special boat. Five stokers got in and two American passengers –– A.L. Salomon, of New York, and L. Stengel (sic), of Newark. Besides these there were two of the crew, Sir Cosmo, myself, and a Miss Frank (sic).
Men said “Ship Can’t Sink.”
There were a number of other passengers, mostly men, standing nearby and they joked with us because we were going out on the ocean. "The ship can't sink," said one of them. "You will get your death of cold out there in the ice."
We were slung off and the stokers began to row us away. Cosmo had glanced at his watch as we cut loose. It was exactly 12:15 A.M (sic), fifteen minutes after the collision with the berg. It did not seem to be very cold. Suddenly I clutched the side of the lifeboat. I had seen the Titanic give a curious shiver. We were probably a mile away.
Heard Pistol Shots and Screams.
Almost immediately we heard several pistol shots and a great screaming arose from the decks. There were no lights on the ship now except for a few lanterns that had been lit by those who remained aboard. Then the boat’s stern lifted in the air and there was a tremendous explosion. After this the Titanic dropped back again. The awful screaming continued. Two minutes after this there was another great explosion. The whole forward part of the great liner dropped under the waves. The stern rose a hundred feet, almost perpendicularly. The boat stood up like an enormous black finger against the sky. Little figures hung and dropped into the water. The screaming was agonizing. I never heard such a chorus of utter despair and agony.
The great prow of the Titanic sank under the waves. As it went, the screaming of the poor souls on board grew louder. It took the Titanic perhaps two minutes to sink after the last explosion. It went down without a ripple.
We had heard of the danger of suction. But there was no such thing about the sinking of the Titanic. The amazing part of it all to me as I sat looking at this monster being destroyed was that it could be accomplished so gently. Then began our personal miseries of the night. Up to that time no one in our boat, and I imagine no one in the other boats, had really thought the Titanic was going to sink. For a moment a silence seemed to hang over all and then from the water where the ship had been there arose a bedlam of shrieks and cries. There were men and women clinging to bits of wreckage in the icy water.
Says Cries Lasted an Hour.
It was at least an hour before the last shrieks faded. I remember the last cry was that of a man calling "My God! My God!" He cried monotonously in a dull, hopeless way. For an entire hour there had been an awful chorus of shrieks until this last cry. Then all was silent. When the terrible quiet came we waited gloomily in the boat through the rest of the night.
Saw a School of Whales.
At last –– morning. On one side of us were the ice flows. On the other we were horrified to see a school of tremendous whales. As the mist lifted we caught sight of the Carpathia looming up in the distance. We were too numbed by cold and shock to cheer, or even utter a sound.
Our boat was among the first picked up by the Carpathia. After I had been helped aboard I stood by the rail and watched the other boats draw alongside and the women and children being assisted out.
Those in the other boats seemed to have suffered greater than we had. In one boat there was a woman whose clothing was frozen to her body. Men on the Carpathia had to chop it off before she was taken below to a warm bed. Several sailors had frozen to death and they lay stiff in the bottom of the boats.
Says Captain was Seen Swimming.
The rumor that Captain Smith committed suicide is untrue. I did not see him after I was away in the boat but others have told me the captain was seen swimming. He picked up a baby floating in the wreckage and swam with it to one of the boats, lifting it aboard only to be told it was dead. The women in this boat, according to the story told me, wanted the captain to get into the boat with them but he refused. Nothing more was seen of Captain Smith.
There was absolute calm on the Carpathia There were hundreds of women who had lost their husbands. No one cared to talk. The gloom was terrible. I buried myself in my cabin and did not come on deck again.
Signed
LUCY DUFF GORDON
*********************************
THE DREADFUL PLUNGE.
HOW THE TITANIC WENT DOWN.
LADY DUFF-GORDON'S GRAPHIC STORY
WAS THE CAPTAIN RECKLESS?
WARNING BY LOOK-OUT MEN IGNORED.
MR. ISMAY DEFENDED IN THE SENATE.
LONDON, April 21.
A graphic account of the terrible disaster to the Titanic has been supplied to the New York correspondent of the Lon- don "'Daily Mail" by Lady Duff-Gordon who, with her husband, Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, was among the survivors picked up by the Carpathia.
"I was asleep when the crash came,'said Lady Duff-Gordon, "but previously and while I was on deck watching the icefield the officers pointed to one immense ice berg, apparently 100 ft. high and several miles long. I was awakened by a long grinding crash. I aroused my husband, who ran out to investigate, and returning he said, 'We have hit a big berg. We then immediately adjusted the life preservers round our bodies and went on deck. There was then no excitement among the passengers or crew. The big vessel had listed slightly, but nobody at that time dreamed it would sink, and there was little alarm even when the officers came running along announcing that the women and children must go in the boats. We thought then that this was merely an ordinary precaution. Our boat was the twelfth or thirteenth launched and it contained five stokers, two Americans named Solomon and Stengel, two sailors, Sir Cosmo and myself, and Miss Frank, an English girl. Numbers of men standing near as our boat was launched were joking at our expense because we were going out in the ocean. Some of them, said to us, 'You'll catch your death of cold out there amid the ice.'
Pistol Shots and Screaming.
"We cruised round for about two hours in the vicinity of the ship and suddenly as we looked we saw the Titanic give a curions shiver. There were then no lights on the ship, with the exception of a few lanterns. Then we heard several pistol shots and great screaming from the deck. of the doomed vessel.
The Boilers Explode.
"Suddenly the stern of the ship was lifted in the air by a tremendous explo- sion. This was followed by another explosion among the boilers, and the forward part of the ship went under, while the stern rose a hundred feet or so in the air, like an enormous black finger silhouetted against the sky, and with little figures of human beings hanging to the point of the finger. These people dropped off into the water, uttering meanwhile most agonising screams. I have never heard such a continued chorus of utter agony.
Last of the Titanic.
"A minute or two later the Titanic's uplifted stern slowly disappeared, though a great hand were pushing it gently under the waves. As the steamer sank, the screaming of the poor souls on board seemed to become louder and louder. We were then about 200 yards away, watching her go down slowly and almost peacefully.
Bedlam of Shrieks and Cries.
"For a moment after the vessel had disappeared there was an awful silence. Then from the water where the Titanic had been there arose a bedlam of shrieks and cries from women and men, who had risen to the surface and were clinging to the wreckage in the icy-cold water. These cries lasted for an hour. Gradually the chorus of shrieks became moans of despair and finally ceased.
"The very last sound we heard from the water was a man's voice crying, 'My God! My God!' in a monotonously dull, hopeless manner.
A School of Whales.
"There was one iceberg. possibly the one the Titanic struck, that seemed to pursue us through the night, despite the rowers' frantic efforts to get past it. At last morning broke on a desolate scene. On one side of us were innumerable icefloes and on the other, big threatening bergs. We were also horrified to see a school of tremendous whales in the vicinity of our boat. Then, as it became lighter, we were cheered by the sight of the Carpathia, which had been advised by wireless of the disaster, looming up in the distance and heading straight for us. We were all too numb with the cold and the horror of the awful disaster to utter a sound.
Fifty Widows on the Carpathia.
"On board the Carpathia there were more than 50 women who had lost their husbands and included in these were 15 brides. The gloom on the Carpathia caused by the distress of the bereaved Titanic passengers was so ghastly that I buried my- self in my cabin and did not come on deck again till we reached New York.''
-30-
Friday, February 14, 2014
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Shocking Racism Shown to Titanic's Chinese survivors
The level of racism shown to the Chinese survivors of the Titanic is staggering.
The Titanic carried eight Chinese men. Six survived. Four hid on the bottom of Collapsible C before women were allowed in. One wound up in Lifeboat No. 13. And one was picked up by Lifeboat No. 4 as he drifted, nearly frozen to death, atop a door.
Unlike most of the other survivors, details about the Chinese passengers is sparse to none. They were travelling on the same ticket. How they got split up nobody knows. They were sailors, connected somehow to the ship Anetta. They may have all been from Hong Kong, with the emphasis on 'may'. Where they were going has never been explained. One source says the survivors were put on a ship headed for Cuba, but without sourcing that information. No interviews with any of the men has surfaced. Or of any of their relatives. Or of anyone from the Anetta.
The Anglo-American crew and passengers on the Titanic sneered at "Italians"for showing panic, but that was nothing compared to the attitude shown to the Chinese who were literally threatened with death by their rescuers, thrown into irons, held incommunicado, and expelled from the United States as soon as humanly possible.
Camden Post-Telegram
ISMAY PRAISED BY TITANIC SURVIVOR
Wednesday 15th May 1912
Ship's Head Barber Tells Camden Elks of His Thrilling Experience.
Unfortunately, all Weikman has to say is as follows:
"In loading the boats they aimed to put one man to every four women, and in this work Mr. Ismay lent valuable aid. Mr. Weikman says that the managing director of the company was attired then only in his pajamas and was barefooted. He gave orders quickly and coolly and did not go below to fully dress until after several of the lifeboats had been filled and lowered into the ocean.
"There was no finer man on the boat than Ismay," said Mr. Weikman. "He is a brick, a white man, and did not get a square deal in the papers. He was in one of the last boats to be lowered because I was right there helping to get them overboard."
****************************************************************
Senate Inquiry.
Senator FLETCHER. How many men were in the boat?
Mr. ISMAY. Three - four. We found four Chinamen stowed away under the thwarts after we got away. I think they were Filipinos, perhaps. There were four of them.
Senate Inquiry
Senator BURTON. The passengers, aside from your sailors, were all women and children?
Mr. ROWE. Except Mr. Ismay and another gentleman. When daylight broke, we found four men, Chinamen, I think they were, or Filipinos.
Senator BURTON. When day broke, you found four Chinamen or Filipinos under the seats?
Mr. ROWE. Not under the seats then, sir. They came up between the seats.
*********************************************************
Daily Enterprise (Burlington, New Jersey), April 20, 1912
Liner's Last Moments Graphically Described
- ----------
Palmyra Resident, Titantic's [sic] Barber, Tells of Thrilling Experience; Shock on Striking Iceberg was Slight; Saw Officer Shoot Man Who Tried to Climb Into Life Boat; Two Explosions Occurred
- ----------
August H. Weikman, of Palmyra, ship's barber on the Titanic, who was among those rescued, graphically described at his home yesterday the wrecking and sinking of the Titanic.
In speaking of what happened on board the Titanic Weikman said: ...
"They put the women and the children in the lifeboats and then they started to put in the crew with them. One man to every five women. When no women were near the boats they took the men, whether they were passengers or crew, anybody who stood nearest, and this accounts for the three Chinamen who were taken off.
**************************************************************
HARROWING TALE OF SCENES ON TITANIC BY MISS DOWDELL
Hudson Dispatch
Saturday 20th April 1912
Miss Elizabeth Dowdell, of 215 Park avenue, Union Hill, one of the Titanic's passengers mentioned in yesterday's issue of the Hudson Dispatch, was willing to relate some of the stories connected with her experience in the greatest sea tragedy of the world's history to one of the Dispatch reporters last evening after recovering from her nervous condition...
"Several Chinamen were clever in wrapping themselves snugly into blankets and thereby escaping and joined the women and children who had been saved..."
*********************************************************
A Limberickwoman's Account of the Titanic Disaster
http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/limerickwoman's%20account.pdf
Nellie O'Dwyer was rescued from the
sinking of the Titanic by the liner
Carpathia. She had been living in
Brooklyn, New York, for six years, and
was returning to America after visiting her
parents in Limerick. She gave a dramatic
account of the nightmare to the Brooklyn
Daily Times, and the Limerick Chronicle
reprinted it at the time:
...
Five or six Chinamen were found at the bottom
of one boat. The way they were saved
was by fixing their hair down their
backs, and putting their blankets about
them. They were taken for women when
the boats were leaving the ship.
*********************************************************
Titanic Ship of Dreams
http://titanic-shipofdreams.tumblr.com/post/4565189272/recalled-by-millvina-dean
Recalled by Millvina Dean:
"My mother didn’t talk about the disaster very much. She only said one or two things… I don’t think she wanted to think much about it
She told me of one or two episodes, that my father heard something had happened and came down and said ‘You’d better put something on the children and get dressed because apparently we have struck an iceberg.’ So we hurried on deck and my mother was put in a lifeboat, and my brother, and I of course went in a sack and went over… that was the last my mother saw of my father.
I remember her telling me in the lifeboat was a Chinaman and the other women there were so annoyed that a Chinaman was in there when their own men couldn’t get on that they said they would throw him overboard, but they didn’t, they thought better of it."
*********************************************************
The Denver Post, April 19, 1912:
Two Chinamen Hidden in Lifeboat Killed by Members of the Crew.
In one of the last lifeboats launched, two Chinamen, employed in the galley, had hidden themselves. They were stretched in the bottom of the boat, faced downward, and made no sound. So excited were the women that they did not notice the presence of the Chinese until the boat had put off the liner. The Chinamen were found. The officer in charge of the boat drew his revolver and in the presence of the already horror-stricken women shot both to death. The bodies were thrown overboard.
(No survivor ever described an incident such as this in any lifeboat.)
********************************************************
Daily Telegraph
Saturday, April 20, 1912
Chinese Stowaways
Remarkable Rescue
From Our Correspondent
New York, Friday
Among the rescued from the sinking titanic were six Chinese, who stowed themselves away in one of the vessel's boats before she left England. When the crash came the Chinese did not become excited. They knew the lifeboat would be lowered if there was any danger of the Titanic going down. All had shawls, and when they heard the shouts of those on board, "Women to be saved first" they covered themselves with the shawls, leading the crew to believe that they were women.
In the darkness they escaped detection. It was not known that they were Chinese until they were taken on board the Carpathia. Then some of the Carpathia's crew wanted to toss them into the sea, it was said, but the officers of the Cunard vessel put them in irons instead. How the Chinese escaped being discovered by the crew of the "Titanic or some of her passengers puzzled those on board the Carpathia.
Today the Federal officials took the imprisoned Chinese while they necessary arrangements prepartory to sending them back to their native country are being made.
*********************************************************
New York Times
Survivors Add to Disaster Tales (third column from the left)
April 20, 1912
When the revised list of survivors was made up at the White Star Line office yesterday it became known that among those saved from the Titanic were six of the eight Chinamen who were among the steerage passengers on the big liner.It seems that they climbed into one of the lifeboats without anybody making objection, despite the fact that many of the women in the steerage of the Titanic went down with the ship.
The Chinamen were taken in hand by the immigration authorities and were placed in charge of one of the Inspectors of the Chinese Bureau of the service. They are all said to be in transit, and will be constantly under the eye of immigration officials during their journey across the country. For the present they are guests of the Government on Ellis Island.
****************************************************************
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
19 April 1912, Page 2
Heroism of Anglo-Saxon Sailors Stands Out in Disaster
The one thing upon which Anglo-Saxon sailors pride themselves today, the single leaven in the bitter loaf, is the fact that heroism was paramount at the climax of this greatest of marine disasters.
The one dark spot is the fact that in the bottom of one lifeboat which left the Titanic were found, wedged beneath the seats, the bodies of two dead Chinese coolies and eight living ones. These were creatures on their way to New York to join a sailing ship for the Orient, and who, at the first sign of danger, had sprung into the lifeboats before they had left their davits and concealed themselves beneath the seats. They were trampled upon by the women who were lowered into the boats later, and two of them crushed to death.
Not until this boatload had been taken aboard the Carpathia were the bodies of these dead and living Chinese discovered.
**************************************************************
In Debbie Beavis' book 'Who Sailed on Titanic?', the eight are listed as:
Lee Bing, 32;
Chang Chip, 32;
Choong Foo; 32;
Ling Hee, 24;
A H Lam, 37;
Len Lam, 23
Fong Lang, 26;
Lee Ling, 28.
Nobody knows who survived and who didn't.
***********************************************
The Titanic carried eight Chinese men. Six survived. Four hid on the bottom of Collapsible C before women were allowed in. One wound up in Lifeboat No. 13. And one was picked up by Lifeboat No. 4 as he drifted, nearly frozen to death, atop a door.
Unlike most of the other survivors, details about the Chinese passengers is sparse to none. They were travelling on the same ticket. How they got split up nobody knows. They were sailors, connected somehow to the ship Anetta. They may have all been from Hong Kong, with the emphasis on 'may'. Where they were going has never been explained. One source says the survivors were put on a ship headed for Cuba, but without sourcing that information. No interviews with any of the men has surfaced. Or of any of their relatives. Or of anyone from the Anetta.
The Anglo-American crew and passengers on the Titanic sneered at "Italians"for showing panic, but that was nothing compared to the attitude shown to the Chinese who were literally threatened with death by their rescuers, thrown into irons, held incommunicado, and expelled from the United States as soon as humanly possible.
Camden Post-Telegram
ISMAY PRAISED BY TITANIC SURVIVOR
Wednesday 15th May 1912
Ship's Head Barber Tells Camden Elks of His Thrilling Experience.
Unfortunately, all Weikman has to say is as follows:
"In loading the boats they aimed to put one man to every four women, and in this work Mr. Ismay lent valuable aid. Mr. Weikman says that the managing director of the company was attired then only in his pajamas and was barefooted. He gave orders quickly and coolly and did not go below to fully dress until after several of the lifeboats had been filled and lowered into the ocean.
"There was no finer man on the boat than Ismay," said Mr. Weikman. "He is a brick, a white man, and did not get a square deal in the papers. He was in one of the last boats to be lowered because I was right there helping to get them overboard."
****************************************************************
Senate Inquiry.
Senator FLETCHER. How many men were in the boat?
Mr. ISMAY. Three - four. We found four Chinamen stowed away under the thwarts after we got away. I think they were Filipinos, perhaps. There were four of them.
Senate Inquiry
Senator BURTON. The passengers, aside from your sailors, were all women and children?
Mr. ROWE. Except Mr. Ismay and another gentleman. When daylight broke, we found four men, Chinamen, I think they were, or Filipinos.
Senator BURTON. When day broke, you found four Chinamen or Filipinos under the seats?
Mr. ROWE. Not under the seats then, sir. They came up between the seats.
*********************************************************
Daily Enterprise (Burlington, New Jersey), April 20, 1912
Liner's Last Moments Graphically Described
- ----------
Palmyra Resident, Titantic's [sic] Barber, Tells of Thrilling Experience; Shock on Striking Iceberg was Slight; Saw Officer Shoot Man Who Tried to Climb Into Life Boat; Two Explosions Occurred
- ----------
August H. Weikman, of Palmyra, ship's barber on the Titanic, who was among those rescued, graphically described at his home yesterday the wrecking and sinking of the Titanic.
In speaking of what happened on board the Titanic Weikman said: ...
"They put the women and the children in the lifeboats and then they started to put in the crew with them. One man to every five women. When no women were near the boats they took the men, whether they were passengers or crew, anybody who stood nearest, and this accounts for the three Chinamen who were taken off.
**************************************************************
HARROWING TALE OF SCENES ON TITANIC BY MISS DOWDELL
Hudson Dispatch
Saturday 20th April 1912
Miss Elizabeth Dowdell, of 215 Park avenue, Union Hill, one of the Titanic's passengers mentioned in yesterday's issue of the Hudson Dispatch, was willing to relate some of the stories connected with her experience in the greatest sea tragedy of the world's history to one of the Dispatch reporters last evening after recovering from her nervous condition...
"Several Chinamen were clever in wrapping themselves snugly into blankets and thereby escaping and joined the women and children who had been saved..."
*********************************************************
A Limberickwoman's Account of the Titanic Disaster
http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/limerickwoman's%20account.pdf
Nellie O'Dwyer was rescued from the
sinking of the Titanic by the liner
Carpathia. She had been living in
Brooklyn, New York, for six years, and
was returning to America after visiting her
parents in Limerick. She gave a dramatic
account of the nightmare to the Brooklyn
Daily Times, and the Limerick Chronicle
reprinted it at the time:
...
Five or six Chinamen were found at the bottom
of one boat. The way they were saved
was by fixing their hair down their
backs, and putting their blankets about
them. They were taken for women when
the boats were leaving the ship.
*********************************************************
Titanic Ship of Dreams
http://titanic-shipofdreams.tumblr.com/post/4565189272/recalled-by-millvina-dean
Recalled by Millvina Dean:
"My mother didn’t talk about the disaster very much. She only said one or two things… I don’t think she wanted to think much about it
She told me of one or two episodes, that my father heard something had happened and came down and said ‘You’d better put something on the children and get dressed because apparently we have struck an iceberg.’ So we hurried on deck and my mother was put in a lifeboat, and my brother, and I of course went in a sack and went over… that was the last my mother saw of my father.
I remember her telling me in the lifeboat was a Chinaman and the other women there were so annoyed that a Chinaman was in there when their own men couldn’t get on that they said they would throw him overboard, but they didn’t, they thought better of it."
*********************************************************
The Denver Post, April 19, 1912:
Two Chinamen Hidden in Lifeboat Killed by Members of the Crew.
In one of the last lifeboats launched, two Chinamen, employed in the galley, had hidden themselves. They were stretched in the bottom of the boat, faced downward, and made no sound. So excited were the women that they did not notice the presence of the Chinese until the boat had put off the liner. The Chinamen were found. The officer in charge of the boat drew his revolver and in the presence of the already horror-stricken women shot both to death. The bodies were thrown overboard.
(No survivor ever described an incident such as this in any lifeboat.)
********************************************************
Daily Telegraph
Saturday, April 20, 1912
Chinese Stowaways
Remarkable Rescue
From Our Correspondent
New York, Friday
Among the rescued from the sinking titanic were six Chinese, who stowed themselves away in one of the vessel's boats before she left England. When the crash came the Chinese did not become excited. They knew the lifeboat would be lowered if there was any danger of the Titanic going down. All had shawls, and when they heard the shouts of those on board, "Women to be saved first" they covered themselves with the shawls, leading the crew to believe that they were women.
In the darkness they escaped detection. It was not known that they were Chinese until they were taken on board the Carpathia. Then some of the Carpathia's crew wanted to toss them into the sea, it was said, but the officers of the Cunard vessel put them in irons instead. How the Chinese escaped being discovered by the crew of the "Titanic or some of her passengers puzzled those on board the Carpathia.
Today the Federal officials took the imprisoned Chinese while they necessary arrangements prepartory to sending them back to their native country are being made.
*********************************************************
New York Times
Survivors Add to Disaster Tales (third column from the left)
April 20, 1912
When the revised list of survivors was made up at the White Star Line office yesterday it became known that among those saved from the Titanic were six of the eight Chinamen who were among the steerage passengers on the big liner.It seems that they climbed into one of the lifeboats without anybody making objection, despite the fact that many of the women in the steerage of the Titanic went down with the ship.
The Chinamen were taken in hand by the immigration authorities and were placed in charge of one of the Inspectors of the Chinese Bureau of the service. They are all said to be in transit, and will be constantly under the eye of immigration officials during their journey across the country. For the present they are guests of the Government on Ellis Island.
****************************************************************
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
19 April 1912, Page 2
Heroism of Anglo-Saxon Sailors Stands Out in Disaster
The one thing upon which Anglo-Saxon sailors pride themselves today, the single leaven in the bitter loaf, is the fact that heroism was paramount at the climax of this greatest of marine disasters.
The one dark spot is the fact that in the bottom of one lifeboat which left the Titanic were found, wedged beneath the seats, the bodies of two dead Chinese coolies and eight living ones. These were creatures on their way to New York to join a sailing ship for the Orient, and who, at the first sign of danger, had sprung into the lifeboats before they had left their davits and concealed themselves beneath the seats. They were trampled upon by the women who were lowered into the boats later, and two of them crushed to death.
Not until this boatload had been taken aboard the Carpathia were the bodies of these dead and living Chinese discovered.
**************************************************************
In Debbie Beavis' book 'Who Sailed on Titanic?', the eight are listed as:
Lee Bing, 32;
Chang Chip, 32;
Choong Foo; 32;
Ling Hee, 24;
A H Lam, 37;
Len Lam, 23
Fong Lang, 26;
Lee Ling, 28.
Nobody knows who survived and who didn't.
***********************************************
Chinese
Save Men First, Not Women
This
story as it originally appeared in The Denver Post, April 17, 1912.
Cleveland,
April 17.–Had the Titanic been a Chinese vessel, manned by Chinese sailors, not
a woman or child would have been saved, according to Henry Moy Fot, special
agent for the Chinese Merchants’ Association of America, who was in Cleveland
today. “It is the duty of sailors when a Chinese vessel goes down to save men
first, children next and women last,” said the agent. “This is on the theory
that men are most valuable to the state, that adoptive parents can be found for
children and that women without husbands are destitute.
East vs. West aside, Titanic tragedy
highlights only stupidity
By
Susanna Speier, Special to The Denver Post
Had
the doomed vessel been Chinese, according to an article published in the April
17, 1912, edition of The Denver Post, the Titanic’s limited supply of lifeboats
would have spelled imminent doom for every woman and child aboard the ship.
If
the report’s author was aware that then 19-year-old On Leong Chinese Merchants’ Association of America
that sourced the statement was New York’s “brains behind the gangs,” there was no mention.
The writer appeared unphased also by the fact that the organization’s apparent
spokesperson, Henry Moy Fot, went by the title “Special Agent.”
A
look at Frances Wayne’s April 18, 1912, editorial Women Must Explain Why They Abandoned Mates in Death
offers a potential clue as to why that April 17th story was placed. Frances
“Pinky” Wayne was one of Denver’s top reporters at the time. In addition to
writing for The Post, she served as Denver Women’s Press Club President and organized
big annual gala charitable fundraisers. She had her pick of the scoops
traditionally reserved for men and the individual byline was a less common
distinction, then.
Susanna
Speier works in social media and digital journalism. Her writing credits
include Scientific American, The Huffington Post, Newsweek/The Daily Beast and
Colorado Biz Magazine.
As
Special Agent Moy was contextualizing “men are most valuable to the state,” to
his uncredited interviewer, Pinky was probably running around Denver grilling
prominent socialites on what-if scenarios. Knowing her outspoken disdain for
the “unwritten law of the sea” might ruffle some feathers also could have
prompted the editors to publish the Chinese maritime article. It is unlikely
Chinese maritime code was driving the keystrokes of someone who spent most of
her life in Colorado.
At
the same time, Wayne took to the concept that the Chinese code, “which holds
that the good of all society, and not of the individual is the thing that is to
be considered.” She even defends the perspective “that adoptive parents can be
found for children and that women without husbands are destitute.”
“Children,
if cared for, will grow into worthy citizens–wherefore, they must be saved in
times of peril and the state becomes their mother. Men are necessary to the
world’s work and human advancement; they, too, must be pushed forward. As for
the women–their service in child bearing accomplished, they may be dispensed
with.”
Wayne’s
simultaneous call to ”follow the saner, more just way” does not hold back from
specifying, “those nations which we regard as ‘heathen’” or from lamenting the
fact that “widows and orphans are all that remain of that ship’s goodly cargo.”
Was
this simply another instance of Asian cultures and stereotypes being nurtured
abroad? Puccini’s Madame Butterfly — probably the West’s
most iconic interpolation of Eastern self sacrifice — had premiered in Europe
eight years prior to Titanic and would have been staged in London, Paris and
New York by that point.
In
1948, China had an infamous maritime disaster of its own to contend with. The
available rescue coverage and surviving film footage show no evidence of a
gender-based preferential evacuation being enforced by SS Kiangya’s crew
members or by its rescue teams.
“Passengers
on the lower decks had little chance for escape. Some 700 who managed to reach
the safety of the top deck stood in cold water waisthigh, screaming for help.
One hysterical woman threw her child overboard because her husband was lost;
others were pushed off in the struggle for standing room,” according to the
Time Magazine account of the tragedy.
While
the Time report of the Kiangya’s evacuation could
also be riddled with inaccuracies due to cultural stereotyping, it is
nevertheless worth noting that many women and children did not make it off the
Titanic. Technically speaking, more 1st class men were saved than 3rd class
children, and many of the men who forfeited their lives did so by choice — not
by necessity.
According
to The Denver Post’s April 19th article Astor spurned chance to escape and died as hero,
both John Jacob Astor and Captain Smith were offered and refused seats on
lifeboats that ended up leaving only half full.
The
Titanic disaster was one of few events in US History that single-handedly
swallowed the most accomplished engineers, philanthropists, industrialists and
business entrepreneurs of their day. Wayne’s choice to condemn the West’s
maritime evacuation code and venerate the perceived Chinese code probably
served as a conveniently cogent way to anesthetize the sting of the actual
tragedy. It also might have helped defuse a harder, colder truth beneath the
surface — one that Wayne and her readers might not have been ready to identify,
let alone confront: Titanic had more to do with stupidity than with heroism.
–Susanna
Speier,
April 11, 2012
Susanna
Speier works in social media and digital journalism. Her writing credits
include Scientific American, The Huffington Post, Newsweek/The Daily Beast and
Colorado Biz Magazine. Her plays have been produced at HERE Arts Center, The
Cocteau, The World Financial Center, The Tenri and Galapagos Arts Space. She
has a Masters in Playwriting from Brooklyn College, C.U.N.Y., and wrote and
produced her first play, Under Titanic, as her undergraduate thesis at
Hampshire College. Find her on Twitter:
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
The Frankfurt exonerated
Nashua Telegraph (New Hampshire)
April 27, 1912
Refused to Talk
Paris, April 27---Captain Vesco of the French liner La Provence made public the report of the wireless operator of his ship who states that the German steamship Frankfurt heard the Titanic's calls for help and responded to them, but was unable to get answers from the Titanic enabling aid to be rendered in time.
It seems the Titanic at first "wished to keep in communication only with ships of her own company", adds the French wireless operator.
The captain of La Provence, in transmitting the report, let the record speak for itself, merely stating the facts, but officers of the Campagnie Generale Transatlantique infer that those on the Titanic did not at first realize that she was going down almost immediately and wished to avoid paying the heavy salvage probably amounting to $2,000,000 to a foreign steamship line. Hence the German Llody steamer Frankfurt was not answered when she first proffered assistance.
Milwaukee Sentinel
April 25, 1912
Denies Refusal of Aid
Frankfort Captain Charges Carelessness Against
Those Running Titanic
BREMMERHAVEN, Germany, April 24---The liner Frankfort reached here on Wednesday with a story of a vain race toward the sinking Titanic. Capt Hattorf denied that he failed to make an effort to aid the sinking vessel. He said the Frankfort was 140 miles from the Titanic when he received the wireless call for help.
"We started immediately for the scene," he said, "and arrived there about 10 a.m. Monday. We saw the iceberg with which the Titanic collided, a huge bulk, about 100 feet long above the water and was 1,000 feet long. We photographed the berg and after cruising about searching vainly for survivors for several hours we resumed our course."
Officers on the Frankfort declared that as the Titanic must have passed through huge fields of ice before it struck the berg I should have proceeded cautiously."
Boston Evening Transcript
April 24, 1912
Frankfurt Rushed To Rescue
Was Too Late Though She Exceeded Normal Speed---Saw Iceberg That Sank Titanic---Berg 120 Feet High 900 Feet Long
Bremerhaven, Germany, April 24---The North German Line steamer Frankfurt, which, according to her commander, Capt. Hattorff, was the first vessel to receive the Titanic's appeal for help, arrived here today. Capt. Hattorff reports that he sighted the iceberg which sank the White Star steamer, bearing evidences of the collision, shortly before arrived on the scene of the catastrophe. The Frankfurt on receiving the appeal for help immediately headed at the utmost speed in the direction of the Titanic. The German vessel made 13 1/2 knots, though normally her speed was only 12 knots, but she did not reach the scene of the disaster until ten o'clock Monday morning.
Captain Hattorff states that his first message from the Titanic was received at 12:10 o'clock Monday morning. It asked him to communicate the Frankfurt's position, which was immediately done. The Titanic then communicated her own position as 41.54 latitude, 50.24 longitude and stated that she was fast in the ice and urgently needed assistance. The Frankfurt was then 140 nautical miles distant. Captain Hattorff informed the Titanic that the Frankfurt would reach her at eleven o'clock.
Captain Hattorff reports that at 12:15 A.M. the distress signal "C.Q.D." was receivied from the Titanic and that at five minutes past one the Titanic reported that her passengers were being loaded into the lifeboats. Wireless communication with the Titanic was interrupted at 1:15 A.M. and Captain Hattorff believes that the White Star ship then sank.
The Frankfurt, steaming at top speed, reached the scene of the disaster at ten o'clock in the morning, passing on the way three great icebergs, seventeen smaller ones, and great ice fields from ten to thirty miles in extent. The greatest iceberg was 120 feet high and 900 feet long.
April 27, 1912
Refused to Talk
Paris, April 27---Captain Vesco of the French liner La Provence made public the report of the wireless operator of his ship who states that the German steamship Frankfurt heard the Titanic's calls for help and responded to them, but was unable to get answers from the Titanic enabling aid to be rendered in time.
It seems the Titanic at first "wished to keep in communication only with ships of her own company", adds the French wireless operator.
The captain of La Provence, in transmitting the report, let the record speak for itself, merely stating the facts, but officers of the Campagnie Generale Transatlantique infer that those on the Titanic did not at first realize that she was going down almost immediately and wished to avoid paying the heavy salvage probably amounting to $2,000,000 to a foreign steamship line. Hence the German Llody steamer Frankfurt was not answered when she first proffered assistance.
Milwaukee Sentinel
April 25, 1912
Denies Refusal of Aid
Frankfort Captain Charges Carelessness Against
Those Running Titanic
BREMMERHAVEN, Germany, April 24---The liner Frankfort reached here on Wednesday with a story of a vain race toward the sinking Titanic. Capt Hattorf denied that he failed to make an effort to aid the sinking vessel. He said the Frankfort was 140 miles from the Titanic when he received the wireless call for help.
"We started immediately for the scene," he said, "and arrived there about 10 a.m. Monday. We saw the iceberg with which the Titanic collided, a huge bulk, about 100 feet long above the water and was 1,000 feet long. We photographed the berg and after cruising about searching vainly for survivors for several hours we resumed our course."
Officers on the Frankfort declared that as the Titanic must have passed through huge fields of ice before it struck the berg I should have proceeded cautiously."
Boston Evening Transcript
April 24, 1912
Frankfurt Rushed To Rescue
Was Too Late Though She Exceeded Normal Speed---Saw Iceberg That Sank Titanic---Berg 120 Feet High 900 Feet Long
Bremerhaven, Germany, April 24---The North German Line steamer Frankfurt, which, according to her commander, Capt. Hattorff, was the first vessel to receive the Titanic's appeal for help, arrived here today. Capt. Hattorff reports that he sighted the iceberg which sank the White Star steamer, bearing evidences of the collision, shortly before arrived on the scene of the catastrophe. The Frankfurt on receiving the appeal for help immediately headed at the utmost speed in the direction of the Titanic. The German vessel made 13 1/2 knots, though normally her speed was only 12 knots, but she did not reach the scene of the disaster until ten o'clock Monday morning.
Captain Hattorff states that his first message from the Titanic was received at 12:10 o'clock Monday morning. It asked him to communicate the Frankfurt's position, which was immediately done. The Titanic then communicated her own position as 41.54 latitude, 50.24 longitude and stated that she was fast in the ice and urgently needed assistance. The Frankfurt was then 140 nautical miles distant. Captain Hattorff informed the Titanic that the Frankfurt would reach her at eleven o'clock.
Captain Hattorff reports that at 12:15 A.M. the distress signal "C.Q.D." was receivied from the Titanic and that at five minutes past one the Titanic reported that her passengers were being loaded into the lifeboats. Wireless communication with the Titanic was interrupted at 1:15 A.M. and Captain Hattorff believes that the White Star ship then sank.
The Frankfurt, steaming at top speed, reached the scene of the disaster at ten o'clock in the morning, passing on the way three great icebergs, seventeen smaller ones, and great ice fields from ten to thirty miles in extent. The greatest iceberg was 120 feet high and 900 feet long.
Monday, February 3, 2014
William S. Sloper, Titanic survivor and polished tangoist
Restless and sickly. Highly strung. Those are the adjectives attached to 28-year-old Titanic survivor William Sloper by newspapers in his home state of Connecticut following his rescue.
But they must have caught him at a bad time because other accounts suggest he acquitted himself well during the sinking of the Titanic, including helping to row his lifeboat away from the (non-existent) suction that everyone feared.
Sloper was, by all accounts, the quintessential rich playboy. His bio says he was a stockbroker, but a stockbroker who took a three-month holiday to Europe just before booking passage home on the Titanic.
Newspaper accounts invariably mention that Sloper was the son of a banker, hinting perhaps that it was his family money that supported his lifestyle and not his acumen with the stock market. One thing that jumps out from the limited public information about William Sloper is that he was a real ladies man.
In his memoirs, he spoke about meeting Winnipegger Alice Fortune, 24, "a very pretty girl and an excellent dancing partner", on the ship taking them to Europe in January, 1912. It's obvious that Sloper knew how to cut a rug and he was impressed by Alice's moves on the dance floor. They shared a "moment", as Sloper wrote he "became very well acquainted" with the young lady.
Three months later, in London, Alice and her family were "gathered under the shade of a sheltering palm" in the courtyard of the Carleton Hotel when along came William Sloper. "At once the young people started calling me to join them for tea," he wrote. At least Alice did, we can be sure.
She convinced him to switch passage from the Mauretania to the Titanic, which she was taking home. He promised her he would. "If Alice herself was not inducement, her assurance that she knew of 20 people who would be passengers on the titanic who had been on our steamer in January." Yeah, he was interested in them, you bet.
He says no more about Alice Fortune, possibly because on the night the Titanic hit an iceberg, he had a new girl friend---a movie actress. Or possibly because Alice had a fiance waiting for her at home.
Alice and her family had gone to bed, but Sloper stayed up, going to the library to write letters to friends, he said. "A very pretty young woman approached my desk and introduced herself as Miss Dorothy Gibson."
Ahh, that would be Dorothy Gibson, 23, who had already acted in about 20 silent movies, and who, as it happened, was searching for a fourth for bridge. She saw this charming young man and decided to invite him to join her and her mother in a game, even though Sloper sucked at cards, by his own account. Frederick Seward, a 35-year-old New York lawyer was the other player, at bridge.
After the library steward broke up the game so he could finally go to bed, Dorothy was up for a moonlight stroll. First seeing Dorothy's mother and Mr. Seward to their rooms, Sloper went to his own cabin to throw on some warmer clothing before taking that stroll.
Just then, the ship lurched. It had hit the iceberg. Dorothy came running up and they dashed to the top deck to see what happened. The rest was over in a blur. The lifeboats were cleared, the first class passengers were gathered and politely asked to get in, and Dorothy Gibson, her mother, and William Sloper found themselves on the Atlantic Ocean in Lifeboat No. 7, the first boat off the ship.
Two years later, Sloper was back in the news in a much smaller way. Despite his close call, he had resumed his globetrotting ways, and he had polished his reputation as a charming "bad boy."
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19140327&id=mCsuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_9QFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5451,4460795
The Miami News
March 27, 1914
Survivor of Titanic Meets Man Pictured As Himself As Lost
An unusual incident marked a casual introduction of two gentlemen at the Royal Palm several evenings ago. J.A. Moore of Seattle, Wash., was presenting W.S. Sloper of New Britain, Conn.,to a young woman and recommending him to her as a polished tangoist.
When the dance was over the two men felt a strange unusual attraction for each other. They sought each other and Mr. Moore began inquiries concerning Mr. Sloper's family, home travels, etc. Mr. Sloper likewise began to unravel the mystery that he felt enshrouded Mr. Moore. Finally, the latter asked Mr. Sloper if he had not sailed on the ill-fated Titanic. Mr. Sloper replied that he was on that vessel and was reported among those lost,.
The mystery was solved. The two men looked at each other, the tears came to their eyes, and they clasped hands.
Mr. Moore also was booked to sail on the Titanic but missed the boat. and was reported as lost. The strange and unusual interest these men had for each other was now explained. Both Mr. Moore and Mr. Sloper were reported in the papers as being lost but Mr. Moore's picture was published as that of Mr. Sloper. Mr. Moore had met the man who had been lost photographically as himself.
There was our man, on the dancefloor again. And described as "a polished tangoist."
It's important to know how daring and wicked the tango was in 1914.
The Pope issued a pastoral letter denouncing the tango as "new paganism." "It is everything that can be imagined. It is revolting and disgusting. Only those persons who have lost all moral sense can endure it. It is the shame of our days. Whoever persists in it commits a sin", he wrote in his episcopal letter
The Kaiser, the King of Italy, the King of Bavaria, and the Queen of England denounced the tango. Archbiships throughout France condemned the dance as "profoundly dangerous to morals", and tried to get the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris on side, although, declared the New York Times, " if his Eminence decides, as he probably will do, to take such a step, it will prove a death blow to the tango in real Parisian society, although it may not affect the somewhat nondescript cosmopolitan agglomeration which forms its fringe and seeks to pass itself off as the real thing."
William Sloper would have been a member of that "cosmopolitan agglomeration." Where else would he have learned the dance well enough to be called "polished", but in Europe. And here he was in a Florida resort for the uber-rich, showing off his fancy footwork.
You probably picked up on the homo-erotic expression in the Miami News story where the reporter wrote of the "strange and unusual attraction for each other" that passed between the two men.
Was this just an innocent choice of words which meant nothing in the day other than the obvious? Or was it subtle code by the reporter to tip off his readers that the men were gay?
It's not unheard of for reporters even today to hint that a celebrity who hasn't been outted is homosexual by noting he's a confirmed bachelor, has a gift for interior decorating or enjoys singing along to musicals.
If, indeed, the story was intended to give readers that extra bit of titillation, then it might put a new spin on the story that Sloper blamed for ruining his life.
He was haunted throughout his life after the Titanic by a story in the New York Journal-American which was headlined,"William T. Sloper, son of a prominent Connecticut banker, was rescued from the Titanic disguised in a woman's nightgown."
Sloper said it was a vengeful act by a reporter who had been strong-armed by Sloper's father and elder brother when the reporter tried to get an interview as Sloper was eating a meal at 11 p.m. the night the rescue ship arrived in New York.
He always said his father talked him out of suing the wire service that distributed the story. Was there another reason Sloper's father didn't want publicity? Was the reference to being disguised in a woman's nightgown another coded allusion?
But there's still another angle to consider.
Whenever a book, newspaper article or Titanic website has mentioned Sloper, it has included the dressed-like-a-woman newspaper story. But the book Shadow of the Titanic: The Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived (Andrew Wilson, Atria Books, 2011) says the offending allegation was in the headline, not the body of the story. Reporters don't write the headlines; editors do.
And sometimes editors try to amuse their colleagues by writing dummy headlines which are not intended for publication. And sometimes they make it into print. Another editor laying out a page fails to read the story the headline is based on and assumes it is correct, sends it to the typesetter without changes and it's printed. The hurly burly surrounding the arrival of the Carpathia made for conditions that were perfect for such a boneheaded mistake.
Why would an editor even write such a dummy headline? The answer may lie in a newspaper story reprinted in Encyclopedia Titanica:
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/mistaken-for-woman-forced-into-lifeboat.html
MISTAKEN FOR WOMAN; FORCED INTO LIFEBOAT
Chicago Examiner
Friday 19th April 1912
MISTAKEN FOR WOMAN; SAVED
Councilman Sloper of Boston Is Forced
Into Lifeboat and Is Rescued
From Death.
Hartford, Conn., April 19.—Resolved to die after having done his utmost to
aid in placing the women and children of the Titanic aboard the lifeboats.
Councilman William T. Sloper, clad in a white nightrobe, was himself taken for a woman and thrust
into one of the last lifeboats lowered away.
His father, Senator Andrew J. Sloper of New Britain, received a
message telling of his son's rescue and departed at once for New York.
His father, Senator Andrew J. Sloper of New Britain, received a message today telling of his son's rescue and departed at once for New York. With him went Mrs. Albert S. Cook of this city to meet her brother, Richard L. Beckwith, who with his wife and stepdaughter, was also saved.
The Chicago Examiner was a Hearst newspaper. And as such it likely got the same Hearst news service story on Sloper that the New York Journal-American did. This was likely it. The difference is that the New York headline, dummy or not, made fun of Sloper while the Chicago headline did not.
Was it because the aggrieved reporter badmouthed Sloper when he phoned in his story to a New York rewrite man? Or because an editor thought he would be funny in the New York newsroom?
But they must have caught him at a bad time because other accounts suggest he acquitted himself well during the sinking of the Titanic, including helping to row his lifeboat away from the (non-existent) suction that everyone feared.
Sloper was, by all accounts, the quintessential rich playboy. His bio says he was a stockbroker, but a stockbroker who took a three-month holiday to Europe just before booking passage home on the Titanic.
Newspaper accounts invariably mention that Sloper was the son of a banker, hinting perhaps that it was his family money that supported his lifestyle and not his acumen with the stock market. One thing that jumps out from the limited public information about William Sloper is that he was a real ladies man.
In his memoirs, he spoke about meeting Winnipegger Alice Fortune, 24, "a very pretty girl and an excellent dancing partner", on the ship taking them to Europe in January, 1912. It's obvious that Sloper knew how to cut a rug and he was impressed by Alice's moves on the dance floor. They shared a "moment", as Sloper wrote he "became very well acquainted" with the young lady.
Three months later, in London, Alice and her family were "gathered under the shade of a sheltering palm" in the courtyard of the Carleton Hotel when along came William Sloper. "At once the young people started calling me to join them for tea," he wrote. At least Alice did, we can be sure.
She convinced him to switch passage from the Mauretania to the Titanic, which she was taking home. He promised her he would. "If Alice herself was not inducement, her assurance that she knew of 20 people who would be passengers on the titanic who had been on our steamer in January." Yeah, he was interested in them, you bet.
He says no more about Alice Fortune, possibly because on the night the Titanic hit an iceberg, he had a new girl friend---a movie actress. Or possibly because Alice had a fiance waiting for her at home.
Alice and her family had gone to bed, but Sloper stayed up, going to the library to write letters to friends, he said. "A very pretty young woman approached my desk and introduced herself as Miss Dorothy Gibson."
Ahh, that would be Dorothy Gibson, 23, who had already acted in about 20 silent movies, and who, as it happened, was searching for a fourth for bridge. She saw this charming young man and decided to invite him to join her and her mother in a game, even though Sloper sucked at cards, by his own account. Frederick Seward, a 35-year-old New York lawyer was the other player, at bridge.
After the library steward broke up the game so he could finally go to bed, Dorothy was up for a moonlight stroll. First seeing Dorothy's mother and Mr. Seward to their rooms, Sloper went to his own cabin to throw on some warmer clothing before taking that stroll.
Just then, the ship lurched. It had hit the iceberg. Dorothy came running up and they dashed to the top deck to see what happened. The rest was over in a blur. The lifeboats were cleared, the first class passengers were gathered and politely asked to get in, and Dorothy Gibson, her mother, and William Sloper found themselves on the Atlantic Ocean in Lifeboat No. 7, the first boat off the ship.
Two years later, Sloper was back in the news in a much smaller way. Despite his close call, he had resumed his globetrotting ways, and he had polished his reputation as a charming "bad boy."
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19140327&id=mCsuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_9QFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5451,4460795
The Miami News
March 27, 1914
Survivor of Titanic Meets Man Pictured As Himself As Lost
An unusual incident marked a casual introduction of two gentlemen at the Royal Palm several evenings ago. J.A. Moore of Seattle, Wash., was presenting W.S. Sloper of New Britain, Conn.,to a young woman and recommending him to her as a polished tangoist.
When the dance was over the two men felt a strange unusual attraction for each other. They sought each other and Mr. Moore began inquiries concerning Mr. Sloper's family, home travels, etc. Mr. Sloper likewise began to unravel the mystery that he felt enshrouded Mr. Moore. Finally, the latter asked Mr. Sloper if he had not sailed on the ill-fated Titanic. Mr. Sloper replied that he was on that vessel and was reported among those lost,.
The mystery was solved. The two men looked at each other, the tears came to their eyes, and they clasped hands.
Mr. Moore also was booked to sail on the Titanic but missed the boat. and was reported as lost. The strange and unusual interest these men had for each other was now explained. Both Mr. Moore and Mr. Sloper were reported in the papers as being lost but Mr. Moore's picture was published as that of Mr. Sloper. Mr. Moore had met the man who had been lost photographically as himself.
There was our man, on the dancefloor again. And described as "a polished tangoist."
It's important to know how daring and wicked the tango was in 1914.
The Pope issued a pastoral letter denouncing the tango as "new paganism." "It is everything that can be imagined. It is revolting and disgusting. Only those persons who have lost all moral sense can endure it. It is the shame of our days. Whoever persists in it commits a sin", he wrote in his episcopal letter
The Kaiser, the King of Italy, the King of Bavaria, and the Queen of England denounced the tango. Archbiships throughout France condemned the dance as "profoundly dangerous to morals", and tried to get the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris on side, although, declared the New York Times, " if his Eminence decides, as he probably will do, to take such a step, it will prove a death blow to the tango in real Parisian society, although it may not affect the somewhat nondescript cosmopolitan agglomeration which forms its fringe and seeks to pass itself off as the real thing."
William Sloper would have been a member of that "cosmopolitan agglomeration." Where else would he have learned the dance well enough to be called "polished", but in Europe. And here he was in a Florida resort for the uber-rich, showing off his fancy footwork.
You probably picked up on the homo-erotic expression in the Miami News story where the reporter wrote of the "strange and unusual attraction for each other" that passed between the two men.
Was this just an innocent choice of words which meant nothing in the day other than the obvious? Or was it subtle code by the reporter to tip off his readers that the men were gay?
It's not unheard of for reporters even today to hint that a celebrity who hasn't been outted is homosexual by noting he's a confirmed bachelor, has a gift for interior decorating or enjoys singing along to musicals.
If, indeed, the story was intended to give readers that extra bit of titillation, then it might put a new spin on the story that Sloper blamed for ruining his life.
He was haunted throughout his life after the Titanic by a story in the New York Journal-American which was headlined,"William T. Sloper, son of a prominent Connecticut banker, was rescued from the Titanic disguised in a woman's nightgown."
Sloper said it was a vengeful act by a reporter who had been strong-armed by Sloper's father and elder brother when the reporter tried to get an interview as Sloper was eating a meal at 11 p.m. the night the rescue ship arrived in New York.
He always said his father talked him out of suing the wire service that distributed the story. Was there another reason Sloper's father didn't want publicity? Was the reference to being disguised in a woman's nightgown another coded allusion?
But there's still another angle to consider.
Whenever a book, newspaper article or Titanic website has mentioned Sloper, it has included the dressed-like-a-woman newspaper story. But the book Shadow of the Titanic: The Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived (Andrew Wilson, Atria Books, 2011) says the offending allegation was in the headline, not the body of the story. Reporters don't write the headlines; editors do.
And sometimes editors try to amuse their colleagues by writing dummy headlines which are not intended for publication. And sometimes they make it into print. Another editor laying out a page fails to read the story the headline is based on and assumes it is correct, sends it to the typesetter without changes and it's printed. The hurly burly surrounding the arrival of the Carpathia made for conditions that were perfect for such a boneheaded mistake.
Why would an editor even write such a dummy headline? The answer may lie in a newspaper story reprinted in Encyclopedia Titanica:
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/mistaken-for-woman-forced-into-lifeboat.html
MISTAKEN FOR WOMAN; FORCED INTO LIFEBOAT
Chicago Examiner
Friday 19th April 1912
MISTAKEN FOR WOMAN; SAVED
Councilman Sloper of Boston Is Forced
Into Lifeboat and Is Rescued
From Death.
Hartford, Conn., April 19.—Resolved to die after having done his utmost to
aid in placing the women and children of the Titanic aboard the lifeboats.
Councilman William T. Sloper, clad in a white nightrobe, was himself taken for a woman and thrust
into one of the last lifeboats lowered away.
His father, Senator Andrew J. Sloper of New Britain, received a
message telling of his son's rescue and departed at once for New York.
His father, Senator Andrew J. Sloper of New Britain, received a message today telling of his son's rescue and departed at once for New York. With him went Mrs. Albert S. Cook of this city to meet her brother, Richard L. Beckwith, who with his wife and stepdaughter, was also saved.
The Chicago Examiner was a Hearst newspaper. And as such it likely got the same Hearst news service story on Sloper that the New York Journal-American did. This was likely it. The difference is that the New York headline, dummy or not, made fun of Sloper while the Chicago headline did not.
Was it because the aggrieved reporter badmouthed Sloper when he phoned in his story to a New York rewrite man? Or because an editor thought he would be funny in the New York newsroom?
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
The Final Shootings on the Titanic
The story of the final moments of the Titanic---and the last shootings of frantic passengers--- cannot be told as a straightforward narrative the way the rest of the story was laid out. The final shooting incidents are so inextricably entwined with the movements of the ship's senior officers as they struggled to load the remaining lifeboats that you can't tell one story without the other.
The problem is that the best witnesses, Chief Officer Henry Wilde and First Officer William Murdoch, did not survive. So we're left with a historic connect-the-dots exercise where we have to fill in the gaps between incidents which were reported by others.
But with a strong application of logic and common sense, the exercise is not as hard as it appears at first blush.
Using eyewitness accounts of where Titanic's officers were seen, the few time references that are available, and the known responsibilities of the senior officers it is possible to reconstruct how the loading of the last lifeboats progressed---and where problems arose.
To start this story properly, I needed to rewind the clock a bit.
* First officer William Murdoch ordered Lifeboat No. 13 lowered from A Deck. He then crossed over to the port where Chief Officer Henry Wilde was in charge of loading lifeboats. It's not hard to see why.
Murdoch had only one aft starboard boat left to load (No. 15). What then?
He needed to discuss the next course of action with his superior officer.
The situation facing them was clear. There were still 7 lifeboats left on the ship---more than a third of the ship's complement---and the Titanic was sinking fast. They may even have been informed by Capt. Smith that the boiler rooms were flooding and about to be abandoned. Read:
http://titanicsecrets.blogspot.com/2013/01/abandon-ship-said-captain-to-boiler.html
Wilde and Third Officer Charles Lightoller were handling the loading on the rear port boats while Murdoch and Sixth Officer James Moody were doing the job with the aft starboard boats. But Wilde's ability to go forward to start loading the remaining lifeboats was hampered because of his decision to load the rearmost port boats (Nos. 12, 14 and 16) simultaneously instead of one after another as Murdoch had done with the starboard boats.
Because of a lot of disorder during the loading of the port boats, resulting in the shooting of a number of passengers, it would be risky to leave Lightoller behind to lower them alone while keeping panicky men at bay at the same time.
The likely consensus was that the first senior officer to finish loading the boats on his side of the ship would go forward and get started loading the last boats.
* Murdoch returned to starboard, only to find that No. 13 was still on A Deck. It hadn't been lowered, as he had ordered, because straggling passengers had been showing up and delaying its departure. He ordered it down immediately. He then turned his attention to Lifeboat No. 15.
* While this was going on, Sixth Officer James Moody arrived at the port boats. He was last seen helping load the starboard boats from A Deck. But once No. 13 was ordered down, his job was done. There were no more women on A Deck that he could find; he had sent search parties looking for any, and they returned empty-handed. We'll never know if he was ordered to port by Murdoch because Moody, along with Murdoch and Wilde all died in the disaster.
But Moody's presence at port would have given Wilde the opportunity he needed. Moody would take his place supervising the lowering of the aft port boats, while he, Wilde, went forward to get the lifeboats there loaded.
* After Wilde left, Fifth Officer Lowe showed up. He testified at the Senate Inquiry that he spoke with Moody and they agreed that an officer should go with one of the port lifeboats. Lowe never mentioned seeing Wilde, so it's obvious he arrived when Wilde was already gone. He, Lowe, finished loading No.14 while Moody did the same with No. 16. Lightoller, who had been helping passengers into No. 16 returned to No.12, and was spotted by Lowe passing by.
* Wilde would undoubtedly have first spoken with Capt. Smith. We know the next thing he did was to order the men who were firing rockets to stop and to get started clearing Collapsible C to get it ready to take passengers.
* At the rear of the ship, Murdoch loaded No. 15 at the boat deck, then ordered it lowered to A Deck.
* As No. 15 loaded on A Deck (there were at least 5 people waiting to get on), No. 16 was lowered by Moody. He then went over to No. 14. Although Lowe was in No. 14, preparing to leave with the lifeboat, an officer was still needed on the boat deck to make sure the craft was lowered evenly.
* Murdoch ordered No. 15 lowered from A Deck. He then left the supervision to someone else---the master-at-arms perhaps---as he went forward. Remember, that's what he did at No. 13---ordered the boat down under someone else's supervision while he went to port. By this time he would have been in even a greater rush to get forward.
* As both lifeboats No. 15 and No. 14 were being lowered, a shout "Stop lowering No. 14" was heard. For details see: http://titanicsecrets.blogspot.com/2013/01/stop-lowering-no-14.html
* Murdoch, in charge of starboard boats, would have proceeded first to Collapsible C, only to find it wasn't ready to take passengers. He most likely would have crossed the bridge to find either the Captain or Wilde to discuss what to do next. We know he started loading Lifeboat No. 2.
* Moody, after seeing No. 14 down, would have gone to No. 12. There, Lightoller would have left him in charge of lowering the boat while he, Lightoller, went forward. There would be no reason for two officers to stand around to lower one lifeboat.
Arriving at the forward port boats, he, after speaking with the Captain or the superior officers there, likely was ordered to start loading No. 4. The loading would take place on A Deck just as Lightoller originally intended more than an hour earlier only to realize A Deck was enclosed by glass windows, these having been removed since.
In going forward, Lightoller bypassed No. 10, which suggests he, too, was aware of the urgent need for officers at the front of the ship.
* Moody lowered No.12. Murdoch was loading No. 2 when he was ordered to go aft and see that a lifeboat was being properly loaded, an order that could only apply to Lifeboat No. 10. Wilde took over the loading of No. 2 with the help of the Captain.
Boat No. 10 was not ready to load. Read: http://titanicsecrets.blogspot.com/2009/08/launching-rear-boats.html
* Murdoch arrived at No. 10 shortly before No. 12 reached the sea. The crewmen who lowered No. 12 testified that went they went to No. 10 they found Murdoch there already. He had them attach the falls, and lift the boat on the davits.
* No. 2 was lowered. Where I once thought Wilde then went to No. 10, where one witness testified he saw the Chief Officer, I'm now of the opinion that witness was mistaken, and Wilde more likely stayed forward and turned his attention to getting Collapsible D into the davits vacated by Lifeboat No.2. It makes more sense.
* No. 4 was lowered. Lightoller testified he then went immediately up to Collapsible D. With the additional manpower, the lifeboat was lifted over the railing and made ready for loading.
* Murdoch got No. 10 off the ship, then went to Collapsible C. There he fought off a rush by desperate men, before loading the lifeboat and ordering it down. Wilde crossed over from Collapsible D with Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, in tow and pushed him into C before it left the boat deck.
* At Collapsible D, Lightoller stopped a rush of men, then ordered members of the crew to form a cordon to stop all male passengers from approaching the boat.
* Collapsible D was lowered under Lightoller's supervision. It was the last boat to get off the ship.
***********************************************************
With that preamble done, we can pick up the story of the final shootings on the Titanic.
Many passengers had gathered at Lifeboat No. 10 after failing to find places in other aft boats. Read:
http://titanicsecrets.blogspot.com/2013/01/fate-saves-colleen-from-watery-grave-of_4529.html
One of them was Margaret Murphy. She was quoted in the New York American (April 29, "Women and Children Locked in Steerage of Sinking Titanic"):
"Just as the davits were being swung outward a Chinaman pushed a woman out of the boat and took her place. Sailors grabbed him and handed him back to the deck. Then someone shot him and his body tumbled into the water," she said."
But that doesn't make sense. When the davits were swung out there would have been nobody in the boat; loading hadn't started until the lifeboat was secured level with the boat deck. She obviously meant that when the boat was full and about to be lowered, she saw the incident she described. Should we believe that a 24-year-old shopkeeper's daughter would know the relevant nautical terms? Or did a reporter try to "clarify" her account only to wind up making it even more obtuse?
In any case, Margaret Murphy's main point is clear---she saw a man shot as the boat was filled with passengers and about to be let down to the ocean.
In this case, First Officer Murdoch is not a suspect in the shooting. The witness notably fails to say the passenger was shot by an officer. And shooting accounts from other rear port boats blamed sailors or stewards for the gunplay.
In addition, the crewmen loading No. 10 were, by many survivor accounts, more aggressive than ever in loading women and children into the boat. They didn't just help them in any more; they were literally tossing women in. Children were thrown into the boat like footballs. The shooting of one man cowed most of the male passengers who might have considered jumping into the boat to save themselves, but others didn't rule out what might be their only opportunity to live.
Before the lifeboat cleared the ship, both Armenian immigrant Neshan Krekorian and Japanese passenger Masabumi Hosono took their chances and leapt into the boat, hiding among the women to prevent being tossed out. The sight of grown men jumping into fully-loaded boats could have stiffened the resolve of crewmen still on the Titanic to prevent a repeat on the few boats left.
After loading No.10, Murdoch made his way across the ship to Collapsible C, the only boat left on the starboard side of the ship.
The boat was in the davits when he arrived, but had been sitting there unattended for a while because there was no officer to load it.
"There was a terrible crowd standing around." recalled Irishman Eugene Daly in a letter to his sister. ( The letter was published in the London Daily Telegraph, May 4, 1912.)
Murdoch had barely arrived when there was a rush on the boat.
"At the first cabin [deck] when a boat was being lowered an officer pointed a revolver and said if any man tried to get in, he would shoot him on the spot. I saw the officer shoot two men dead because they tried to get in the boat." wrote Daly.
"Two men tried to break through and he shot them both. I saw him shoot them. I saw them lying there after they were shot. One seemed to be dead. The other was trying to pull himself up at the side of the deck, but he could not. I tried to get to the boat also, but was afraid I would be shot and stayed back."
Walter Hurst, a greaser, witnessed the same incident and wrote about it in a letter years later to Walter Lord.
"...all the boats were gone now except No. 9 (from the context of the rest of his letter it's clear he's referring to Collapsible C) and there was a bit of trouble there the Chief Officer was threatening someone and fired two revolver shots shouting now will you get back. I was not near enough to see if anyone was shot..."
The commotion at Collapsible C was loud enough to be heard on the other side of the ship by men helping load Collapsible D. Passenger Hugh Woolner, for one, was drawn to the noise and turned the corner of the bridge in time to see Murdoch shoot his gun.
"We saw the first officer twice fire a pistol in the air ordering a crowd of the crew out of the boat. We ran in and helped bundle the men onto the deck and then we got a lot, about ten, Italian and other foreign women into that boat and when we saw it was being safely lowered we went away and made a final search on the deck below." said Woolner. (Extract from Mr. Woolner's letter written on board the S.S. Carpathia.)
He said they were warning shots fired in the air so as not to hit anyone. But did Murdoch fire four shots or only two? Note that Woolner says the shots were fired as Murdoch ordered crewmen out of the lifeboat.
Daly and Hurst saw him shoot to prevent men from climbing into the boat. This suggests two sets of gunfire.
But the shots did the trick. Murdoch was able to load Collapsible C without any more problems and see it off before the Titanic sank.
That left Collapsible D as the only lifeboat remaining. It truly was the "last boat."
Shortly after C went down, officers around Collapsible D ordered the men gathering there to go to starboard to try and counter the heavy list to port that the ship had developed.
Not all the men were willing to abandon the only lifeboat left. There was a rush on D.
Survivor Archibald Gracie told the story to the U.S.Senate Inquiry:
Mr. Gracie. As to what happened on the other side during our departure, the information I was given by the second officer was that some of the steerage passengers tried to rush the boat, and he fired off a pistol to make them get out, and they did get out."
"Senator SMITH.
Who fired that pistol?"
"Mr. GRACIE.
Lightoller. That is what he told me. He is the second officer."
Lightoller, himself, said he only waved his gun to ward off the mob. But there is confirmation from another passenger that a shot was fired.
Still Playing As Water Creeps Up
Worcester Evening Gazette
Saturday 20 April 1912
New York, April 19- Mrs. John Murray Brown of Acton, Mass, who with her sister, Mrs. Robert C. Cornell and Mrs. E.D. Appleton, was saved, was in the last life-boat to get safely away from the Titanic.
snip
When asked if she had heard any shots on the Titanic as she was leaving
the vessel, Mrs Brown said "I heard nothing of the kind. When were (sic)
leaving the steamship, an officer did display a revolver and threatened
to shoot anybody who dared to try to leap into our boat. He did fire one
shot into the air to back up what he said. But there was no actual
shooting then or at any other time that I know anything about."
Lightoller proceeded to load the boat, but as he told the Senate Inquiry, it was harder than any other boat he worked on.
Senator SMITH.
Did you have any difficulty in filling it?
Mr. LIGHTOLLER.
With women; yes, sir; great difficulty.
Senator SMITH.
But you filled it to its capacity?
Mr. LIGHTOLLER.
I filled it with about 15 or 20 eventually mustered up. It took longer to fill that boat than it did any other boat, notwithstanding that the others had more in them. On two occasions the men thought there were no more women and commenced to get in and then found one or two more and then got out again.
Finally, though, he gave the order to lower the boat. There was no more time left. The boat deck was already barely 10 feet above the ocean.
First class passenger George Rheims described what happened next in a letter to his wife.
http://wormstedt.com/Titanic/shots/rheims.html
"As the last lifeboat was leaving I saw an officer kill a man with one gun shot. The man was trying to climb aboard that last lifeboat. Since there was nothing left to do, the officer told us, “Gentlemen, each man for himself, goodbye.” He gave us a military salute and shot himself. This was a man!!
Some researchers have conflated what Rheims saw with the shootings seen by Eugene Daly and Walter Hurst. But the details of what Rheims saw disprove that idea.
The shootings at Collapsible C were to prevent men from rushing the boat before it was loaded. The shooting at Collapsible D was to stop one man from leaping into the boat as it was being lowered.
Daly said that after seeing Murdoch shoot into the crowd of men, he (Daly) fled the area and crossed to port where he tried to get another collapsible (A) ready. While there he heard another shot and saw the body of an officer in the water flowing over the boat deck. He believed the officer who fired the gun at C was the one who shot himself later.
Rheims, on the other hand, saw an officer shoot a man and then, immediately afterward, shoot himself. There was no delay between the shooting and the suicide, compared to Daly's account.
But the shooting seen by Rheims was still not the end of the story.
Irish steerage passenge Annie Jermyn made it into Collapsible D at almost the last minute. To the trauma of escaping a sinking ship was added the horrible sight of a man shot to death in front of her eyes.
GIRL SAW MAN SHOT ON ONE OF THE LIFEBOATS FROM TITANIC
Source Media:
Titanic.182 - 1912Apr30p2.pdf
Original Publish Date: April 30, 1912
Terrifying Experience of Miss Annie Jermyn, Not at Her Sister’s Home in Lynn, Mass.
APRIL 29, 1912
BOSTON, April 29 – Annie Jermyn, a pretty 22-year-old girl Titanic survivor now staying with her sister at 21 Webster Street, Lynn, told last a story of her experiences. She declared that hundreds of steerage passengers were trapped in the third cabin, and never reached the boat deck; that there was panic and fierce struggling below decks and that on the lifeboat she secured – she believes it was the last to leave the vessel – one man was shot by an officer and fell overboard.
Miss Jermyn comes from County Cork, Ireland, on a visit.
“When the Titanic struck the iceberg,” she said, “there was tumult in the steerage. A crowd gathered about the high iron gates barring the third-class from other parts of the ship, and beat madly against the locked gates.”
“‘The ship is sinking. The floor is covered with water!’ shouted someone. Looking down, I found that water was indeed beginning to creep across the floor. From then on there was panic unrestrained.”
RECEIVED BLOW ON THE BACK
Miss Jermyn was in the front of the crowd at the gate. She saw a man lean up, grasp the top of the gate, pull himself up and drop down, others followed and she herself finally got over.
She ran up flight after flight of stairs and then dashed out on the boat deck. Then she leaped and landed in a lifeboat, injuring her side severely.
Before she could pick herself up, she says she received a terrific blow on the back as if a man had kicked her. She turned her head and saw a man almost directly over her.
Then she caught the gleam of steel in the hands of an officer in the stern. There was a flash and a report. The man who had struck her, or leaped down upon her – she never found out which – uttered a little cry and then slumped overboard.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/sites/default/files/archive_article_source_media/Titanic.182%20-%201912Apr30p2.pdf
Chicago American, Friday, April 26, 1912, p . 2, c. 2:
TEN FOOT GATE HELD TITANIC STEERAGE FOLES IN DEATH TRAP
____________________
Lynn, Mass., April 26—Third cabin passengers aboard the Titanic were made prisoners by a heavy gate ten feet high which was locked, according to a story told here by Annie Jermyn, twenty-two years old, who came over third class in the Titanic. Miss Jermyn says it took her two hours to get over the gate, which barred the only exit. Nobody asked her to get into a boat, she asserts, although she stood on the deck near the davits in her night dress and bare feet.
“The last boat was about to start from the ship with only about fifteen aboard,” she said. “Realizing that it was my only chance, I sprang from the upper deck of the vessel into the boat, falling nearly thirty feet and landing on my chest. A second later a man fell beside me, but he had no sooner got up and taken a seat in the boat than an officer drew this revolver and shot him in the head. I fainted as they pitched the lifeless body of the poor fellow into the sea.”
The identify of the man who was shot will never be known. But at the Senate Inquiry, Steward John Hardy identified the "officer in the stern" who fired the final shot:
Mr. HARDY.
Yes; there were two firemen in the forward end that could row, myself and a passenger rowed from the middle, and this quartermaster was at the stern to keep her head on. The sea got up early in the morning.
There was only one quartermaster in the boat---Arthur Bright.
The Titanic was only minutes away from sinking. Frantic efforts failed to get two collapsible lifeboats ready to take what passengers they could. The two ship's wireless operators beat a stoker to death when he tried to steal a lifebelt from them, but his death is separate and apart from the shootings explored here.
A few intriguing shooting stories are still floating out there, but they weren't incorporated in this series because there just too many problems with them to judge them credible.
The Minneapolis Morning Tribune carried a story dated April 20, headlined "Mr. Snyder Tells of Ship Disaster, Thee Men Shot".
The story was "related by John Pilsbury Snyder, of Minneapolis, at the Waldorf Hotel", said the paper.
"Three of our passengers were shot by the crew and thrown overboard," continued Mr. Snyder. "I did not see the act committed, but I heard the shots and afterward saw the bodies dumped over the side of the boat. Perhaps the crew thought the men were rocking the boat too much and were crazed---with fear. There was no reason for the shooting."
But the Minneapolis Journal carried its own interview with Mr. Snyder April 19, 1912, also conducted "(i)n the apartments at the Waldorf" where "a dozen or more friends awaited to shower congratulations upon them."
"Bronzed and robust, Mr. Snyder showed no trace of the ordeal he had gone through." He also made no mention of any shooting. Not until days later when he specifically denied the story.
"The story that three men in our lifeboat were shot and their bodies thrown overboard was untrue," Mr. Snyder said. "The only authorized interview that I gave out was given to the Journal representative and printed in The Journal of last Friday. There were no men shot."
Snyder escaped in Lifeboat No. 7. Also in the boat was Alfred Nourney, 20, travelling under the pseudonym of Baron von Drachstedt. Nourney was armed with a handgun and did fire shots, supposedly to attract the attention of rescuers. Snyder couldn't have missed those shots which were indeed fired in his lifeboat, yet he doesn't mention them.
And, as a news reporter, I notice how Snyder carefully mentions he only gave one "authorized" interview. Could the Morning Tribune story be based on an overheard private conversation or an interview of one of those wellwishers transposed into a first-hand interview with Snyder?
At the same time, nobody else in the lifeboat mentions anyone being shot by crew members. Surely someone would have let something that big slip out. Could the bodies pushed overboard have been suicides, of which society people were loath to discuss? Too many "ifs" to include this story.
There was the story, reported widely, quoting "Jack Williams and William French, able seamen" who saw a mass shooting right in front of them.
"When the first of the 56- foot lifeboats were being filled," explained Williams, "the first stampede of panic-stricken men occurred. Within a dozen feet of where I stood I saw fully, ten men throw themselves into the boats already crowded with women and children.
"These men were dragged back and hurled sprawling across the deck. Six of them, screaming with fear, struggled to their feet and made a second attempt to rush the boats.
"About ten shots sounded in quick succession. The six cowardly men were stopped in their tracks, staggered and collapsed one after another. At least two of them vainly attempted to creep toward the boats again. The others lay quite still. This scene of bloodshed served its purpose. In that particular section of the deck there was no further attempt to violate the 'women and children first' rule."
The first problem was that nobody named Jack Williams or William French were listed as members of the crew of the Titanic. The incident they describe was obviously based on the rush at Lifeboat No. 13 which I discussed here http://titanicsecrets.blogspot.com/2013/04/on-titanic.html
I was even prepared to say I had identified "William French". Among the crewmen who survived in No. 13 was fireman George William Beauchamp. Beauchamp. French, get it? It's not uncommon for a reporter to identify someone he's interviewed by a characteristic if he didn't get a name. French for someone, well, French. Red Shirt. Fat Guy. You're always thinking you'll come back and get the name, but sometimes that doesn't happen.
And Jack Williams? There was a fireman named William John Murdoch. William John. Jack Williams. Surviving firemen would hang around together. But why use false names? Because shooting was still a sensitive topic.
But too many details were too fuzzy. The "source" of the story might have been using a false name. They were identified as "able seamen"; the possible suspects were firemen. Williams was supposedly 36; William Murdoch was 34, close but no cigar. Williams was quoted saying "French and I stood by as the two emergency boats---those that are always kept ready for rescue purposes at sea---were made ready." But Beauchamp got off on Lifeboat 13 at the back of the ship (although William John Murdoch said he helped lower Collapsible D from the davits of Boat 2, one of the emergency boats). Still, too many points that couldn't be nailed down. Pass.
And finally there was the Page One story in the St. Paul Dispatch on April 23, 1912: "Saw 4 Men Shot on The Titanic".
"Iian (sic) Cavontina, an Austrian miner from Hibbing, sole survivor of a colony of thirty-six Austrians who engaged steerage passage on the Titanic to come to this country, today related a dramatic story of the wreck of the big steamer to an interested crowd at the Union Depot, among them being Detective J.P. Williams and Officer J. Dailey, on duty at the station. He left late this morning for Hibbing where he will work."
"A German who had his wife and three children with him, all steerage passengers, begged one of the crew to make room on one of the boats for the latter. He said he was willing to take his chances on the Titanic. The officer replied by shooting the German and three other men, declaring 'Certainly, I'll make room for them'."
An Austrian miner headed for Minnesota? Nikola Lulic, obviously. Why the false name? The "German" would have been one of the Austrian/Croatians in Lulic's party. But shooting him for his query sounds extreme. Was it a holdover sentiment from the Boer war between England and Germany which only ended a decade before?
Apart from deciphering Cavontina's true name, all the rest is speculation. So, out went this anecdote, too. But while it couldn't be substantiated, the eyewitness accounts of the vast majority of people who saw shooting on the Titanic could.
In conclusion, more than 50 people stated publicly that they saw officers and crewmen of the Titanic shoot passengers, and in some cases other crew members, who tried to get into lifeboats ahead of women and children. By correlating the accounts, it's possible to determine where the shootings took place. By building timelines, when. And by mining the accounts, it's often possible to determine who did the shooting, and occasionally who was shot.
The fact of the shooting was never in doubt. Interviews with survivors who saw shooting were printed in newspapers throughout North America. But until now nobody collected the accounts or analyzed them in detail.
The journalism of the day was quite different from now.
Even if a reporter wanted to follow up the story of passenger shootings, how would he go about it? The passengers were scattered to the wind and not around to be interviewed, even if you spoke whatever language they spoke or could find an interpreter you could trust. And who were you looking for? Strange names, strange spellings, frightened immigrants who didn't want to offend anyone. Relying on trains and telegraphs, how to track people down? And why? Nobody knew the people who were allegedly shot. They were nobodies. Worse, they were foreign nobodies. Why bother?
Today, there's a simple answer. We're interested in the lives of immigrants. We're fascinated by historical disasters. And news stories don't get any bigger than the sinking of the Titanic.
The problem is that the best witnesses, Chief Officer Henry Wilde and First Officer William Murdoch, did not survive. So we're left with a historic connect-the-dots exercise where we have to fill in the gaps between incidents which were reported by others.
But with a strong application of logic and common sense, the exercise is not as hard as it appears at first blush.
Using eyewitness accounts of where Titanic's officers were seen, the few time references that are available, and the known responsibilities of the senior officers it is possible to reconstruct how the loading of the last lifeboats progressed---and where problems arose.
To start this story properly, I needed to rewind the clock a bit.
* First officer William Murdoch ordered Lifeboat No. 13 lowered from A Deck. He then crossed over to the port where Chief Officer Henry Wilde was in charge of loading lifeboats. It's not hard to see why.
Murdoch had only one aft starboard boat left to load (No. 15). What then?
He needed to discuss the next course of action with his superior officer.
The situation facing them was clear. There were still 7 lifeboats left on the ship---more than a third of the ship's complement---and the Titanic was sinking fast. They may even have been informed by Capt. Smith that the boiler rooms were flooding and about to be abandoned. Read:
http://titanicsecrets.blogspot.com/2013/01/abandon-ship-said-captain-to-boiler.html
Wilde and Third Officer Charles Lightoller were handling the loading on the rear port boats while Murdoch and Sixth Officer James Moody were doing the job with the aft starboard boats. But Wilde's ability to go forward to start loading the remaining lifeboats was hampered because of his decision to load the rearmost port boats (Nos. 12, 14 and 16) simultaneously instead of one after another as Murdoch had done with the starboard boats.
Because of a lot of disorder during the loading of the port boats, resulting in the shooting of a number of passengers, it would be risky to leave Lightoller behind to lower them alone while keeping panicky men at bay at the same time.
The likely consensus was that the first senior officer to finish loading the boats on his side of the ship would go forward and get started loading the last boats.
* Murdoch returned to starboard, only to find that No. 13 was still on A Deck. It hadn't been lowered, as he had ordered, because straggling passengers had been showing up and delaying its departure. He ordered it down immediately. He then turned his attention to Lifeboat No. 15.
* While this was going on, Sixth Officer James Moody arrived at the port boats. He was last seen helping load the starboard boats from A Deck. But once No. 13 was ordered down, his job was done. There were no more women on A Deck that he could find; he had sent search parties looking for any, and they returned empty-handed. We'll never know if he was ordered to port by Murdoch because Moody, along with Murdoch and Wilde all died in the disaster.
But Moody's presence at port would have given Wilde the opportunity he needed. Moody would take his place supervising the lowering of the aft port boats, while he, Wilde, went forward to get the lifeboats there loaded.
* After Wilde left, Fifth Officer Lowe showed up. He testified at the Senate Inquiry that he spoke with Moody and they agreed that an officer should go with one of the port lifeboats. Lowe never mentioned seeing Wilde, so it's obvious he arrived when Wilde was already gone. He, Lowe, finished loading No.14 while Moody did the same with No. 16. Lightoller, who had been helping passengers into No. 16 returned to No.12, and was spotted by Lowe passing by.
* Wilde would undoubtedly have first spoken with Capt. Smith. We know the next thing he did was to order the men who were firing rockets to stop and to get started clearing Collapsible C to get it ready to take passengers.
* At the rear of the ship, Murdoch loaded No. 15 at the boat deck, then ordered it lowered to A Deck.
* As No. 15 loaded on A Deck (there were at least 5 people waiting to get on), No. 16 was lowered by Moody. He then went over to No. 14. Although Lowe was in No. 14, preparing to leave with the lifeboat, an officer was still needed on the boat deck to make sure the craft was lowered evenly.
* Murdoch ordered No. 15 lowered from A Deck. He then left the supervision to someone else---the master-at-arms perhaps---as he went forward. Remember, that's what he did at No. 13---ordered the boat down under someone else's supervision while he went to port. By this time he would have been in even a greater rush to get forward.
* As both lifeboats No. 15 and No. 14 were being lowered, a shout "Stop lowering No. 14" was heard. For details see: http://titanicsecrets.blogspot.com/2013/01/stop-lowering-no-14.html
* Murdoch, in charge of starboard boats, would have proceeded first to Collapsible C, only to find it wasn't ready to take passengers. He most likely would have crossed the bridge to find either the Captain or Wilde to discuss what to do next. We know he started loading Lifeboat No. 2.
* Moody, after seeing No. 14 down, would have gone to No. 12. There, Lightoller would have left him in charge of lowering the boat while he, Lightoller, went forward. There would be no reason for two officers to stand around to lower one lifeboat.
Arriving at the forward port boats, he, after speaking with the Captain or the superior officers there, likely was ordered to start loading No. 4. The loading would take place on A Deck just as Lightoller originally intended more than an hour earlier only to realize A Deck was enclosed by glass windows, these having been removed since.
In going forward, Lightoller bypassed No. 10, which suggests he, too, was aware of the urgent need for officers at the front of the ship.
* Moody lowered No.12. Murdoch was loading No. 2 when he was ordered to go aft and see that a lifeboat was being properly loaded, an order that could only apply to Lifeboat No. 10. Wilde took over the loading of No. 2 with the help of the Captain.
Boat No. 10 was not ready to load. Read: http://titanicsecrets.blogspot.com/2009/08/launching-rear-boats.html
* Murdoch arrived at No. 10 shortly before No. 12 reached the sea. The crewmen who lowered No. 12 testified that went they went to No. 10 they found Murdoch there already. He had them attach the falls, and lift the boat on the davits.
* No. 2 was lowered. Where I once thought Wilde then went to No. 10, where one witness testified he saw the Chief Officer, I'm now of the opinion that witness was mistaken, and Wilde more likely stayed forward and turned his attention to getting Collapsible D into the davits vacated by Lifeboat No.2. It makes more sense.
* No. 4 was lowered. Lightoller testified he then went immediately up to Collapsible D. With the additional manpower, the lifeboat was lifted over the railing and made ready for loading.
* Murdoch got No. 10 off the ship, then went to Collapsible C. There he fought off a rush by desperate men, before loading the lifeboat and ordering it down. Wilde crossed over from Collapsible D with Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, in tow and pushed him into C before it left the boat deck.
* At Collapsible D, Lightoller stopped a rush of men, then ordered members of the crew to form a cordon to stop all male passengers from approaching the boat.
* Collapsible D was lowered under Lightoller's supervision. It was the last boat to get off the ship.
***********************************************************
With that preamble done, we can pick up the story of the final shootings on the Titanic.
Many passengers had gathered at Lifeboat No. 10 after failing to find places in other aft boats. Read:
http://titanicsecrets.blogspot.com/2013/01/fate-saves-colleen-from-watery-grave-of_4529.html
One of them was Margaret Murphy. She was quoted in the New York American (April 29, "Women and Children Locked in Steerage of Sinking Titanic"):
"Just as the davits were being swung outward a Chinaman pushed a woman out of the boat and took her place. Sailors grabbed him and handed him back to the deck. Then someone shot him and his body tumbled into the water," she said."
But that doesn't make sense. When the davits were swung out there would have been nobody in the boat; loading hadn't started until the lifeboat was secured level with the boat deck. She obviously meant that when the boat was full and about to be lowered, she saw the incident she described. Should we believe that a 24-year-old shopkeeper's daughter would know the relevant nautical terms? Or did a reporter try to "clarify" her account only to wind up making it even more obtuse?
In any case, Margaret Murphy's main point is clear---she saw a man shot as the boat was filled with passengers and about to be let down to the ocean.
In this case, First Officer Murdoch is not a suspect in the shooting. The witness notably fails to say the passenger was shot by an officer. And shooting accounts from other rear port boats blamed sailors or stewards for the gunplay.
In addition, the crewmen loading No. 10 were, by many survivor accounts, more aggressive than ever in loading women and children into the boat. They didn't just help them in any more; they were literally tossing women in. Children were thrown into the boat like footballs. The shooting of one man cowed most of the male passengers who might have considered jumping into the boat to save themselves, but others didn't rule out what might be their only opportunity to live.
Before the lifeboat cleared the ship, both Armenian immigrant Neshan Krekorian and Japanese passenger Masabumi Hosono took their chances and leapt into the boat, hiding among the women to prevent being tossed out. The sight of grown men jumping into fully-loaded boats could have stiffened the resolve of crewmen still on the Titanic to prevent a repeat on the few boats left.
After loading No.10, Murdoch made his way across the ship to Collapsible C, the only boat left on the starboard side of the ship.
The boat was in the davits when he arrived, but had been sitting there unattended for a while because there was no officer to load it.
"There was a terrible crowd standing around." recalled Irishman Eugene Daly in a letter to his sister. ( The letter was published in the London Daily Telegraph, May 4, 1912.)
Murdoch had barely arrived when there was a rush on the boat.
"At the first cabin [deck] when a boat was being lowered an officer pointed a revolver and said if any man tried to get in, he would shoot him on the spot. I saw the officer shoot two men dead because they tried to get in the boat." wrote Daly.
"Two men tried to break through and he shot them both. I saw him shoot them. I saw them lying there after they were shot. One seemed to be dead. The other was trying to pull himself up at the side of the deck, but he could not. I tried to get to the boat also, but was afraid I would be shot and stayed back."
Walter Hurst, a greaser, witnessed the same incident and wrote about it in a letter years later to Walter Lord.
"...all the boats were gone now except No. 9 (from the context of the rest of his letter it's clear he's referring to Collapsible C) and there was a bit of trouble there the Chief Officer was threatening someone and fired two revolver shots shouting now will you get back. I was not near enough to see if anyone was shot..."
The commotion at Collapsible C was loud enough to be heard on the other side of the ship by men helping load Collapsible D. Passenger Hugh Woolner, for one, was drawn to the noise and turned the corner of the bridge in time to see Murdoch shoot his gun.
"We saw the first officer twice fire a pistol in the air ordering a crowd of the crew out of the boat. We ran in and helped bundle the men onto the deck and then we got a lot, about ten, Italian and other foreign women into that boat and when we saw it was being safely lowered we went away and made a final search on the deck below." said Woolner. (Extract from Mr. Woolner's letter written on board the S.S. Carpathia.)
He said they were warning shots fired in the air so as not to hit anyone. But did Murdoch fire four shots or only two? Note that Woolner says the shots were fired as Murdoch ordered crewmen out of the lifeboat.
Daly and Hurst saw him shoot to prevent men from climbing into the boat. This suggests two sets of gunfire.
But the shots did the trick. Murdoch was able to load Collapsible C without any more problems and see it off before the Titanic sank.
That left Collapsible D as the only lifeboat remaining. It truly was the "last boat."
Shortly after C went down, officers around Collapsible D ordered the men gathering there to go to starboard to try and counter the heavy list to port that the ship had developed.
Not all the men were willing to abandon the only lifeboat left. There was a rush on D.
Survivor Archibald Gracie told the story to the U.S.Senate Inquiry:
Mr. Gracie. As to what happened on the other side during our departure, the information I was given by the second officer was that some of the steerage passengers tried to rush the boat, and he fired off a pistol to make them get out, and they did get out."
"Senator SMITH.
Who fired that pistol?"
"Mr. GRACIE.
Lightoller. That is what he told me. He is the second officer."
Lightoller, himself, said he only waved his gun to ward off the mob. But there is confirmation from another passenger that a shot was fired.
Still Playing As Water Creeps Up
Worcester Evening Gazette
Saturday 20 April 1912
New York, April 19- Mrs. John Murray Brown of Acton, Mass, who with her sister, Mrs. Robert C. Cornell and Mrs. E.D. Appleton, was saved, was in the last life-boat to get safely away from the Titanic.
snip
When asked if she had heard any shots on the Titanic as she was leaving
the vessel, Mrs Brown said "I heard nothing of the kind. When were (sic)
leaving the steamship, an officer did display a revolver and threatened
to shoot anybody who dared to try to leap into our boat. He did fire one
shot into the air to back up what he said. But there was no actual
shooting then or at any other time that I know anything about."
Lightoller proceeded to load the boat, but as he told the Senate Inquiry, it was harder than any other boat he worked on.
Senator SMITH.
Did you have any difficulty in filling it?
Mr. LIGHTOLLER.
With women; yes, sir; great difficulty.
Senator SMITH.
But you filled it to its capacity?
Mr. LIGHTOLLER.
I filled it with about 15 or 20 eventually mustered up. It took longer to fill that boat than it did any other boat, notwithstanding that the others had more in them. On two occasions the men thought there were no more women and commenced to get in and then found one or two more and then got out again.
Finally, though, he gave the order to lower the boat. There was no more time left. The boat deck was already barely 10 feet above the ocean.
First class passenger George Rheims described what happened next in a letter to his wife.
http://wormstedt.com/Titanic/shots/rheims.html
"As the last lifeboat was leaving I saw an officer kill a man with one gun shot. The man was trying to climb aboard that last lifeboat. Since there was nothing left to do, the officer told us, “Gentlemen, each man for himself, goodbye.” He gave us a military salute and shot himself. This was a man!!
Some researchers have conflated what Rheims saw with the shootings seen by Eugene Daly and Walter Hurst. But the details of what Rheims saw disprove that idea.
The shootings at Collapsible C were to prevent men from rushing the boat before it was loaded. The shooting at Collapsible D was to stop one man from leaping into the boat as it was being lowered.
Daly said that after seeing Murdoch shoot into the crowd of men, he (Daly) fled the area and crossed to port where he tried to get another collapsible (A) ready. While there he heard another shot and saw the body of an officer in the water flowing over the boat deck. He believed the officer who fired the gun at C was the one who shot himself later.
Rheims, on the other hand, saw an officer shoot a man and then, immediately afterward, shoot himself. There was no delay between the shooting and the suicide, compared to Daly's account.
But the shooting seen by Rheims was still not the end of the story.
Irish steerage passenge Annie Jermyn made it into Collapsible D at almost the last minute. To the trauma of escaping a sinking ship was added the horrible sight of a man shot to death in front of her eyes.
GIRL SAW MAN SHOT ON ONE OF THE LIFEBOATS FROM TITANIC
Source Media:
Titanic.182 - 1912Apr30p2.pdf
Original Publish Date: April 30, 1912
Terrifying Experience of Miss Annie Jermyn, Not at Her Sister’s Home in Lynn, Mass.
APRIL 29, 1912
BOSTON, April 29 – Annie Jermyn, a pretty 22-year-old girl Titanic survivor now staying with her sister at 21 Webster Street, Lynn, told last a story of her experiences. She declared that hundreds of steerage passengers were trapped in the third cabin, and never reached the boat deck; that there was panic and fierce struggling below decks and that on the lifeboat she secured – she believes it was the last to leave the vessel – one man was shot by an officer and fell overboard.
Miss Jermyn comes from County Cork, Ireland, on a visit.
“When the Titanic struck the iceberg,” she said, “there was tumult in the steerage. A crowd gathered about the high iron gates barring the third-class from other parts of the ship, and beat madly against the locked gates.”
“‘The ship is sinking. The floor is covered with water!’ shouted someone. Looking down, I found that water was indeed beginning to creep across the floor. From then on there was panic unrestrained.”
RECEIVED BLOW ON THE BACK
Miss Jermyn was in the front of the crowd at the gate. She saw a man lean up, grasp the top of the gate, pull himself up and drop down, others followed and she herself finally got over.
She ran up flight after flight of stairs and then dashed out on the boat deck. Then she leaped and landed in a lifeboat, injuring her side severely.
Before she could pick herself up, she says she received a terrific blow on the back as if a man had kicked her. She turned her head and saw a man almost directly over her.
Then she caught the gleam of steel in the hands of an officer in the stern. There was a flash and a report. The man who had struck her, or leaped down upon her – she never found out which – uttered a little cry and then slumped overboard.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/sites/default/files/archive_article_source_media/Titanic.182%20-%201912Apr30p2.pdf
Chicago American, Friday, April 26, 1912, p . 2, c. 2:
TEN FOOT GATE HELD TITANIC STEERAGE FOLES IN DEATH TRAP
____________________
Lynn, Mass., April 26—Third cabin passengers aboard the Titanic were made prisoners by a heavy gate ten feet high which was locked, according to a story told here by Annie Jermyn, twenty-two years old, who came over third class in the Titanic. Miss Jermyn says it took her two hours to get over the gate, which barred the only exit. Nobody asked her to get into a boat, she asserts, although she stood on the deck near the davits in her night dress and bare feet.
“The last boat was about to start from the ship with only about fifteen aboard,” she said. “Realizing that it was my only chance, I sprang from the upper deck of the vessel into the boat, falling nearly thirty feet and landing on my chest. A second later a man fell beside me, but he had no sooner got up and taken a seat in the boat than an officer drew this revolver and shot him in the head. I fainted as they pitched the lifeless body of the poor fellow into the sea.”
The identify of the man who was shot will never be known. But at the Senate Inquiry, Steward John Hardy identified the "officer in the stern" who fired the final shot:
Mr. HARDY.
Yes; there were two firemen in the forward end that could row, myself and a passenger rowed from the middle, and this quartermaster was at the stern to keep her head on. The sea got up early in the morning.
There was only one quartermaster in the boat---Arthur Bright.
The Titanic was only minutes away from sinking. Frantic efforts failed to get two collapsible lifeboats ready to take what passengers they could. The two ship's wireless operators beat a stoker to death when he tried to steal a lifebelt from them, but his death is separate and apart from the shootings explored here.
A few intriguing shooting stories are still floating out there, but they weren't incorporated in this series because there just too many problems with them to judge them credible.
The Minneapolis Morning Tribune carried a story dated April 20, headlined "Mr. Snyder Tells of Ship Disaster, Thee Men Shot".
The story was "related by John Pilsbury Snyder, of Minneapolis, at the Waldorf Hotel", said the paper.
"Three of our passengers were shot by the crew and thrown overboard," continued Mr. Snyder. "I did not see the act committed, but I heard the shots and afterward saw the bodies dumped over the side of the boat. Perhaps the crew thought the men were rocking the boat too much and were crazed---with fear. There was no reason for the shooting."
But the Minneapolis Journal carried its own interview with Mr. Snyder April 19, 1912, also conducted "(i)n the apartments at the Waldorf" where "a dozen or more friends awaited to shower congratulations upon them."
"Bronzed and robust, Mr. Snyder showed no trace of the ordeal he had gone through." He also made no mention of any shooting. Not until days later when he specifically denied the story.
"The story that three men in our lifeboat were shot and their bodies thrown overboard was untrue," Mr. Snyder said. "The only authorized interview that I gave out was given to the Journal representative and printed in The Journal of last Friday. There were no men shot."
Snyder escaped in Lifeboat No. 7. Also in the boat was Alfred Nourney, 20, travelling under the pseudonym of Baron von Drachstedt. Nourney was armed with a handgun and did fire shots, supposedly to attract the attention of rescuers. Snyder couldn't have missed those shots which were indeed fired in his lifeboat, yet he doesn't mention them.
And, as a news reporter, I notice how Snyder carefully mentions he only gave one "authorized" interview. Could the Morning Tribune story be based on an overheard private conversation or an interview of one of those wellwishers transposed into a first-hand interview with Snyder?
At the same time, nobody else in the lifeboat mentions anyone being shot by crew members. Surely someone would have let something that big slip out. Could the bodies pushed overboard have been suicides, of which society people were loath to discuss? Too many "ifs" to include this story.
There was the story, reported widely, quoting "Jack Williams and William French, able seamen" who saw a mass shooting right in front of them.
"When the first of the 56- foot lifeboats were being filled," explained Williams, "the first stampede of panic-stricken men occurred. Within a dozen feet of where I stood I saw fully, ten men throw themselves into the boats already crowded with women and children.
"These men were dragged back and hurled sprawling across the deck. Six of them, screaming with fear, struggled to their feet and made a second attempt to rush the boats.
"About ten shots sounded in quick succession. The six cowardly men were stopped in their tracks, staggered and collapsed one after another. At least two of them vainly attempted to creep toward the boats again. The others lay quite still. This scene of bloodshed served its purpose. In that particular section of the deck there was no further attempt to violate the 'women and children first' rule."
The first problem was that nobody named Jack Williams or William French were listed as members of the crew of the Titanic. The incident they describe was obviously based on the rush at Lifeboat No. 13 which I discussed here http://titanicsecrets.blogspot.com/2013/04/on-titanic.html
I was even prepared to say I had identified "William French". Among the crewmen who survived in No. 13 was fireman George William Beauchamp. Beauchamp. French, get it? It's not uncommon for a reporter to identify someone he's interviewed by a characteristic if he didn't get a name. French for someone, well, French. Red Shirt. Fat Guy. You're always thinking you'll come back and get the name, but sometimes that doesn't happen.
And Jack Williams? There was a fireman named William John Murdoch. William John. Jack Williams. Surviving firemen would hang around together. But why use false names? Because shooting was still a sensitive topic.
But too many details were too fuzzy. The "source" of the story might have been using a false name. They were identified as "able seamen"; the possible suspects were firemen. Williams was supposedly 36; William Murdoch was 34, close but no cigar. Williams was quoted saying "French and I stood by as the two emergency boats---those that are always kept ready for rescue purposes at sea---were made ready." But Beauchamp got off on Lifeboat 13 at the back of the ship (although William John Murdoch said he helped lower Collapsible D from the davits of Boat 2, one of the emergency boats). Still, too many points that couldn't be nailed down. Pass.
And finally there was the Page One story in the St. Paul Dispatch on April 23, 1912: "Saw 4 Men Shot on The Titanic".
"Iian (sic) Cavontina, an Austrian miner from Hibbing, sole survivor of a colony of thirty-six Austrians who engaged steerage passage on the Titanic to come to this country, today related a dramatic story of the wreck of the big steamer to an interested crowd at the Union Depot, among them being Detective J.P. Williams and Officer J. Dailey, on duty at the station. He left late this morning for Hibbing where he will work."
"A German who had his wife and three children with him, all steerage passengers, begged one of the crew to make room on one of the boats for the latter. He said he was willing to take his chances on the Titanic. The officer replied by shooting the German and three other men, declaring 'Certainly, I'll make room for them'."
An Austrian miner headed for Minnesota? Nikola Lulic, obviously. Why the false name? The "German" would have been one of the Austrian/Croatians in Lulic's party. But shooting him for his query sounds extreme. Was it a holdover sentiment from the Boer war between England and Germany which only ended a decade before?
Apart from deciphering Cavontina's true name, all the rest is speculation. So, out went this anecdote, too. But while it couldn't be substantiated, the eyewitness accounts of the vast majority of people who saw shooting on the Titanic could.
In conclusion, more than 50 people stated publicly that they saw officers and crewmen of the Titanic shoot passengers, and in some cases other crew members, who tried to get into lifeboats ahead of women and children. By correlating the accounts, it's possible to determine where the shootings took place. By building timelines, when. And by mining the accounts, it's often possible to determine who did the shooting, and occasionally who was shot.
The fact of the shooting was never in doubt. Interviews with survivors who saw shooting were printed in newspapers throughout North America. But until now nobody collected the accounts or analyzed them in detail.
The journalism of the day was quite different from now.
Even if a reporter wanted to follow up the story of passenger shootings, how would he go about it? The passengers were scattered to the wind and not around to be interviewed, even if you spoke whatever language they spoke or could find an interpreter you could trust. And who were you looking for? Strange names, strange spellings, frightened immigrants who didn't want to offend anyone. Relying on trains and telegraphs, how to track people down? And why? Nobody knew the people who were allegedly shot. They were nobodies. Worse, they were foreign nobodies. Why bother?
Today, there's a simple answer. We're interested in the lives of immigrants. We're fascinated by historical disasters. And news stories don't get any bigger than the sinking of the Titanic.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Shootings on the Titanic: The Truth About Collapsible A
The final chapter to the story of the shootings on the Titanic was supposed to take about four days to write and post.
It's now been more than four months. A simple narrative that would involve stops at three lifeboats turned unexpectedly into an odyssey where conclusions depended on which of Titanic's officers committed suicide, and where, and when, and how confusion over what witnesses saw has led Titanic research down the wrong path for decades.
For the longest time researchers dismissed accounts of shootings on the Titanic as a myth, invented by reporters who wanted to spice up their interviews with survivors. Then, some researchers conceded there might have been one, and only one, shooting incident which happened just minutes before the great ship took its final plunge beneath the waters.
Their opinion was swayed by the discovery of a private letter from First Class passenger George Rheims to his wife in France in which he recounted seeing an officer on the Titanic shoot a man who was trying to climb into a lifeboat, and then, shoot himself. The letter was dated April 19, 1912, the day after the rescue ship, the Carpathia, reached New York City with the survivors of the Titanic.
The Rheims letter corroborated the known account of Irish steerage passenger Eugene Daly as told to a witness on the Carpathia, and subsequently in a letter to his sister in Ireland, of an officer who shot two men "because they tried to get in the boat", after which Daly heard another shot and saw the officer lying on the deck. He had, Daly was told, shot himself.
The consensus was that this event, if it happened, happened at Collapsible A, the last starboard lifeboat left on the ship before it sank, the lifeboat being swept off the deck without having been launched from the davits.
I had no reason to disbelieve that conclusion---until I looked at the evidence.
No passengers were shot at Collapsible A. An officer did shoot at passengers earlier at Collapsible C, which left the Titanic from the same set of davits that A was to use. Follow the evidence, as did I, to its inevitable conclusion...before doubling back to incorporate the result into the story of the final shootings on the Titanic.
The events at Collapsible A were witnessed by many people who managed to survive the disaster. It's possible to intertwine their accounts to build a strong web of observations that leaves no doubt to what happened in Titanic's final moments.
Greaser Walter Hurst starts the story (in a letter, lack of punctuation and all, that he wrote in 1955 to Walter Lord, the author of A Night to Remember):
http://www.paullee.com/titanic/whurst.html
"After no 9 (the reading of his letter leaves no doubt he means Collapsible C when he says No. 9) had left the Chief Officer shouted any crew here..."
Steerage passenger Olaus Abelseth, U.S. Inquiry
"So we walked over to the starboard side of the ship, and just as we were standing there, one of the officers came up and he said just as he walked by, "Are there any sailors here"?"
First Class passenger Archibald Gracie, in his 1913 book The Truth About the Titanic
"...I recall that an officer on the roof of the house called down to the crew at this quarter, "Are there any seamen down there among you?" "Aye, aye, sir," was the response., and quite a number left the Boat Deck to assist in what I supposed to have been the cutting loose of the other Englehardt boat up there on the roof."
Walter Hurst, letter to Walter Lord
"...and about 7-8 stepped forward and he said hurry men, up there and cut that boat adrift it was a collapsible on top of Smoke room we got it down to the deck..."
Steward Walter Brown, British Inquiry
10633. How many men did it take to get that collapsible boat off the house?
- I could not tell you the number; there were seven or eight on the top deck and two or three down below receiving it.
Wireless Operator Harold Bride, New York Times, April 19, 1912
I saw a collapsible boat near a funnel and went over to it. Twelve men were trying to boost it down to the boat deck. They were having an awful time. It was the last boat left. I looked at it longingly a few minutes. Then I gave them a hand, and over she went. They all started to scramble in on the boat deck, and I walked back to Phillips. I said the last raft had gone.
Archibald Gracie, The Truth About the Titanic
"Meanwhile, four or five long oars were placed aslant against the walls of the officers' house to break the fall of the boat, which was pushed from the roof and slipped with a crash down on the Boat Deck, smashing several of the oars."
First Class Steward Edward Brown, British Inquiry
10529. Did you get it down?
- Yes; we got two planks on the bow-end of the boat, and we slid it down on to the boat deck.
10530. Having got it down, the next thing, I suppose, would be to get it to the davits?
- We tried that, and we got it about halfway and then the ship got a list to port, and we had great difficulty. We could not get it right up to the davits, so we had to slacken the falls. The ship took a list to port, and we could not get it up the incline right up to the davits.
10532. You did make it fast?
- Yes, we did make it fast by slackening the falls, but we could not haul it away any further.
William Mellors, private letter
At this time it was almost impossible to walk on the deck without you caught hold of something owing to the ship heeling right over.
Edward Brown, British Inquiry
10534. Were there any women there whilst you were dealing with this boat that had come from the top of the Officers' quarters?
- There were four or five women that I could see there waiting to get into this boat if we got it under the davits.
10585. Whilst you were working down the last collapsible boat from the top of the Officer's quarters to the deck, did you notice Captain Smith?
- Yes, the Captain came past us while we were trying to get this boat away with a megaphone in his hand, and he spoke to us.
10586. What did he say?
- He said, "Well, boys, do your best for the women and children, and look out for yourselves." He walked on the bridge.
Harold Bride, New York Times
Then came the Captain's voice: "Men, you have done your full duty. You can do no more. Abandon your cabin. Now it's every man for himself. You can look out for yourselves. I release you. That's the way of it at this kind of a time. Every man for himself." I looked out. The boat deck was awash. Phillips clung on sending and sending.
Walter Hurst, British Inquiry
"... we got it down to the deck but could not overhaul boats falls as they were hanging down shipside in waters. The ships bows were now under water there was a group of officers in corner of the bridge and I never saw one move from there..."
Second Officer Charles Lightoller, U.S. Senate Inquiry
...shortly before the vessel sank I met a purser, Mr. McElroy, Mr. Barker, Dr. O'Loughlin and
Dr. Simpson, and the four assistants. They were just coming from the direction of the bridge. They were evidently just keeping out of everybody's way. They were keeping away from the crowd so, as not to interfere with the loading of the boats.
Samuel Hemming, Senate Inquiry
I rendered up the foremast fall, got the block on board, and held on to the block while a man equalized the parts of the fall. He said, "There is a futterfoot in the fall, which fouls the fall and the block." I says, "I have got it;" and took it out. I passed the block up to the officers' house, and Mr. Moody, the sixth officer, said: "We don't want the block. We will leave the boat on deck."
Edward Brown, British Inquiry
10535. Whilst you were trying to get this boat up the hill, as it were, to the davits, did anything happen to the ship?
- Yes, she put the bridge under then.
10536. She put the bridge right under water?
- Yes, she put the bridge right under water.
10540. What happened to you when she put the bridge under water?
- I found the water come right up to my legs here, and I jumped into the collapsible boat then. I cut the after fall, and I called out to the man on the forward end of the boat to cut her loose; she would float if we got the falls loose.
William Mellors, private letter
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/letter-from-william-mellors-dorothy-ockenden.html
We were trying to fix up a collapsible boat when she gave the first signs of going under.
There seemed to be a tremble run through the whole of the ship and the next thing we heard were loud reports inside which I think were the water-tight doors giving way and before you could say Jack Robinson there seemed to be mountains of water rushing through the doors, and I was swept away from where I was right against the collapsible boat,
Thomas Whiteley, lecture
www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/thomas-whiteleys-titanic-lecture.html
... the Titanic was listing. By that time her head broke and the water came rushing on to her boat deck where I was.
When I felt the water on my feet I rushed to get into a boat. The officer cut its davits one end but could not cut the other.
The rope got around my leg and pulled me on to the deck again, and a big wave came on deck and washed me into the sea about ten yards.
Edward Brown, British Inquiry
10652.- There was a lot scrambled into it then; when the sea came on to the deck they all scrambled into the boat.
10540 -I cut the after fall, and I called out to the man on the forward end of the boat to cut her loose; she would float if we got the falls loose.
10541. Did this other man do that?
- I could not say.
10542. Did she float?
- I cut the ropes and then I was washed right out of her.
10543. You cut both falls?
- No, only the after fall.
10544. What happened to the forward fall?
- I could not say. I was washed out of the boat then.
10653. -. The boat was practically full, when the sea came into it, and washed them all out.
Thomas Whiteley, New York Tribune, April 19, 1912
I got my leg caught in one of the ropes. The second officer was hacking at the rope with a knife.
I was being dragged around the deck by that rope, when I looked up and saw the boat filled with people turning end up on the davits.
The boat overturned like that.” He waved his hand to show just how it happened.
William Mellors, Private letter
I was swept away from where I was right against the collapsible boat, and I simply clung on for all I was worth, whilst all this was going on she was going under water and it seemed as if thousands of men were dragging me under with her, when suddenly her (the forward) nose on which I was seemed to suddenly rise from underneath the water and I and a few more that were close by cut the ropes that held the boat to the falls (davits).
So there it was. The story of Collapsible A. But something was obviously missing. Where in the timeline would the shooting take place?
There was no clear moment when you could point and say, there, that's it.
I resisted the inevitable conclusion until I couldn't resist it any more.
There was no shooting at Collapsible A!
There's an old adage that's used repeatedly in Titanic research: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But there's one exception to the rule: except when it is. And this was that exception.
First, no one working at Collapsible A reported seeing or hearing shots fired at that boat.
More specifically, is the evidence of Titanic greaser Walter Hurst. He wrote two letters to Walter Lord. He spoke of seeing the Chief Officer fire two shots at Collapsible C to warn men to stand back. But he never mentioned any shooting at Collapsible A. Why go to the trouble of highlighting shots fired at one lifeboat and fail to mention shots fired at the very next boat? Because there were none at the second boat.
And yet there are credible accounts of an officer shooting at passengers, then shooting himself just before the Titanic sank.
Well, if you're looking for a place where shots were fired, look for witnesses who saw someone shooting a gun or hearing shots fired. Witnesses like Hugh Woolner.
Woolner even testified at the U.S. Senate Hearing into the sinking of the Titanic that he saw with his own eyes First Officer William Murdoch fire two shots in the air at Collapsible C. Collapsible C left the ship minutes before men pushed Collapsible A off the roof of the officers' quarters to the deck and tried to launch it from the same falls that lowered C.
In one of his letters to Walter Lord, Hurst wrote about Collapsible C: "there was a bit of trouble there, the Chief officer was thretening [sic] someone and fired 2 Revolver shots shouting now will you get back I was not near enough to see if anyone was shot."
In the book 'Voices from the Titanic: The Epic Story of the Tragedy from the People Who Were There' by Geoff Tibbals, there's a newspaper account attributed only to "another seaman" (identified as one who jumped into the ocean with a baby in his arms) who relates (P. 369, Paperback edition) that "he saw the Chief Officer shoot at two Italians who were pushing women aside on the steamer in a frantic endeavour to reach the lifeboats. As the first shot fired above their heads did not serve as a warning, the officer shot one of them."
Three witnesses who saw shooting at Collapsible C and none who saw shooting at Collapsible A. Add to that the fact that the prime witnesses cited for a shooting at A, George Rheims and Eugene Daly, provided no details that can be used to isolate the lifeboat to which they were referring.
But they did provide some clues.
George Rheims, in a letter to his wife, dated April 19, 1912:
As the last lifeboat was leaving I saw an officer kill a man with one gun shot. The man was trying to climb aboard that last lifeboat.
A year and a half later he gave a deposition to the Limitation of Liability Hearings in New York in which he said:
DEPOSITION OF GEORGE RHEIMS.
Q. Did you hear any particular noise?
- Yes I heard two pistol shots.
Q. About how long before the ship sank?
- About 40 minutes before she sank.
Rheims saw an officer shoot a man "as the last lifeboat was leaving." Collapsible A was never "leaving". It was never in the davits. it was never launched properly. It floated off. And 40 minutes before the ship sank, it was still ensconsed on the roof of the officers' quarters.
Eugene Daly was even more vague in a letter he wrote to his sister who was still in Ireland and which was published in the London Daily Telegraph, May 4, 1912:
At the first cabin when a boat was being lowered an officer pointed a revolver and said if any man tried to get in, he would shoot him on the spot. I saw the officer shoot two men dead because they tried to get in the boat.
Not even the linchpin between the two accounts, the subsequent suicide of the officer who shot the men, helps identify where the shooting happened. Just the opposite, in fact.
Rheims gave this account:
"Since there was nothing left to do, the officer told us, “Gentlemen, each man for himself, goodbye.” He gave us a military salute and shot himself. This was a man!!"
I was intrigued by the reference to a military salute. I asked the obvious question. Which officer who was lost was in the military?
It wasn't First Officer William Murdoch. or Sixth Officer James Moody.
But Chief Officer Henry Tingle Wilde was a Lieutenant in the prestigious Royal Naval Reserve.
There's no doubt that Murdoch shot himself. Crewmen were talking about his committing suicide even as they clung to an overturned liferaft, hours before being rescued.
You can see where this is going. Two officers. Two suicides?
Mrs. Eleanor Widener, in Lifeboat No. 4, is quoted in the New York Times, April 20, 1912, giving her account of an officer's suicide:
“As the boat pulled away from the Titanic I saw one of the officers shoot himself in the head, and a few minutes later saw Capt. Smith jump from the bridge into the sea.”
Since the Captain jumped into the ocean literally moments before the Titanic sank, its clear this is not the suicide seen by Rheims 40 minutes earlier.
The unravelled story, then, appears to be that there was a shooting at Collapsible C not Collapsible A, that it was deadlier than warning shots fired in the air, that one or possibly two men were shot by an officer, and that that officer shot and killed himself.
George Rheims and Eugene Daly both saw the shooting. Rheims saw the officer, likely Chief Officer Wilde, shoot himself. Daly was only told that the officer who he saw firing his gun killed himself. The body he saw could have been either Wilde's or Murdoch's; it's impossible to tell from his accounts when the single suicide shot that he heard happened.
Deconstructing the account of a shooting a Collapsible A has taken a long time. But it lets me complete the story of the shootings on the Titanic. That's next.
It's now been more than four months. A simple narrative that would involve stops at three lifeboats turned unexpectedly into an odyssey where conclusions depended on which of Titanic's officers committed suicide, and where, and when, and how confusion over what witnesses saw has led Titanic research down the wrong path for decades.
For the longest time researchers dismissed accounts of shootings on the Titanic as a myth, invented by reporters who wanted to spice up their interviews with survivors. Then, some researchers conceded there might have been one, and only one, shooting incident which happened just minutes before the great ship took its final plunge beneath the waters.
Their opinion was swayed by the discovery of a private letter from First Class passenger George Rheims to his wife in France in which he recounted seeing an officer on the Titanic shoot a man who was trying to climb into a lifeboat, and then, shoot himself. The letter was dated April 19, 1912, the day after the rescue ship, the Carpathia, reached New York City with the survivors of the Titanic.
The Rheims letter corroborated the known account of Irish steerage passenger Eugene Daly as told to a witness on the Carpathia, and subsequently in a letter to his sister in Ireland, of an officer who shot two men "because they tried to get in the boat", after which Daly heard another shot and saw the officer lying on the deck. He had, Daly was told, shot himself.
The consensus was that this event, if it happened, happened at Collapsible A, the last starboard lifeboat left on the ship before it sank, the lifeboat being swept off the deck without having been launched from the davits.
I had no reason to disbelieve that conclusion---until I looked at the evidence.
No passengers were shot at Collapsible A. An officer did shoot at passengers earlier at Collapsible C, which left the Titanic from the same set of davits that A was to use. Follow the evidence, as did I, to its inevitable conclusion...before doubling back to incorporate the result into the story of the final shootings on the Titanic.
The events at Collapsible A were witnessed by many people who managed to survive the disaster. It's possible to intertwine their accounts to build a strong web of observations that leaves no doubt to what happened in Titanic's final moments.
Greaser Walter Hurst starts the story (in a letter, lack of punctuation and all, that he wrote in 1955 to Walter Lord, the author of A Night to Remember):
http://www.paullee.com/titanic/whurst.html
"After no 9 (the reading of his letter leaves no doubt he means Collapsible C when he says No. 9) had left the Chief Officer shouted any crew here..."
Steerage passenger Olaus Abelseth, U.S. Inquiry
"So we walked over to the starboard side of the ship, and just as we were standing there, one of the officers came up and he said just as he walked by, "Are there any sailors here"?"
First Class passenger Archibald Gracie, in his 1913 book The Truth About the Titanic
"...I recall that an officer on the roof of the house called down to the crew at this quarter, "Are there any seamen down there among you?" "Aye, aye, sir," was the response., and quite a number left the Boat Deck to assist in what I supposed to have been the cutting loose of the other Englehardt boat up there on the roof."
Walter Hurst, letter to Walter Lord
"...and about 7-8 stepped forward and he said hurry men, up there and cut that boat adrift it was a collapsible on top of Smoke room we got it down to the deck..."
Steward Walter Brown, British Inquiry
10633. How many men did it take to get that collapsible boat off the house?
- I could not tell you the number; there were seven or eight on the top deck and two or three down below receiving it.
Wireless Operator Harold Bride, New York Times, April 19, 1912
I saw a collapsible boat near a funnel and went over to it. Twelve men were trying to boost it down to the boat deck. They were having an awful time. It was the last boat left. I looked at it longingly a few minutes. Then I gave them a hand, and over she went. They all started to scramble in on the boat deck, and I walked back to Phillips. I said the last raft had gone.
Archibald Gracie, The Truth About the Titanic
"Meanwhile, four or five long oars were placed aslant against the walls of the officers' house to break the fall of the boat, which was pushed from the roof and slipped with a crash down on the Boat Deck, smashing several of the oars."
First Class Steward Edward Brown, British Inquiry
10529. Did you get it down?
- Yes; we got two planks on the bow-end of the boat, and we slid it down on to the boat deck.
10530. Having got it down, the next thing, I suppose, would be to get it to the davits?
- We tried that, and we got it about halfway and then the ship got a list to port, and we had great difficulty. We could not get it right up to the davits, so we had to slacken the falls. The ship took a list to port, and we could not get it up the incline right up to the davits.
10532. You did make it fast?
- Yes, we did make it fast by slackening the falls, but we could not haul it away any further.
William Mellors, private letter
At this time it was almost impossible to walk on the deck without you caught hold of something owing to the ship heeling right over.
Edward Brown, British Inquiry
10534. Were there any women there whilst you were dealing with this boat that had come from the top of the Officers' quarters?
- There were four or five women that I could see there waiting to get into this boat if we got it under the davits.
10585. Whilst you were working down the last collapsible boat from the top of the Officer's quarters to the deck, did you notice Captain Smith?
- Yes, the Captain came past us while we were trying to get this boat away with a megaphone in his hand, and he spoke to us.
10586. What did he say?
- He said, "Well, boys, do your best for the women and children, and look out for yourselves." He walked on the bridge.
Harold Bride, New York Times
Then came the Captain's voice: "Men, you have done your full duty. You can do no more. Abandon your cabin. Now it's every man for himself. You can look out for yourselves. I release you. That's the way of it at this kind of a time. Every man for himself." I looked out. The boat deck was awash. Phillips clung on sending and sending.
Walter Hurst, British Inquiry
"... we got it down to the deck but could not overhaul boats falls as they were hanging down shipside in waters. The ships bows were now under water there was a group of officers in corner of the bridge and I never saw one move from there..."
Second Officer Charles Lightoller, U.S. Senate Inquiry
...shortly before the vessel sank I met a purser, Mr. McElroy, Mr. Barker, Dr. O'Loughlin and
Dr. Simpson, and the four assistants. They were just coming from the direction of the bridge. They were evidently just keeping out of everybody's way. They were keeping away from the crowd so, as not to interfere with the loading of the boats.
Samuel Hemming, Senate Inquiry
I rendered up the foremast fall, got the block on board, and held on to the block while a man equalized the parts of the fall. He said, "There is a futterfoot in the fall, which fouls the fall and the block." I says, "I have got it;" and took it out. I passed the block up to the officers' house, and Mr. Moody, the sixth officer, said: "We don't want the block. We will leave the boat on deck."
Edward Brown, British Inquiry
10535. Whilst you were trying to get this boat up the hill, as it were, to the davits, did anything happen to the ship?
- Yes, she put the bridge under then.
10536. She put the bridge right under water?
- Yes, she put the bridge right under water.
10540. What happened to you when she put the bridge under water?
- I found the water come right up to my legs here, and I jumped into the collapsible boat then. I cut the after fall, and I called out to the man on the forward end of the boat to cut her loose; she would float if we got the falls loose.
William Mellors, private letter
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/letter-from-william-mellors-dorothy-ockenden.html
We were trying to fix up a collapsible boat when she gave the first signs of going under.
There seemed to be a tremble run through the whole of the ship and the next thing we heard were loud reports inside which I think were the water-tight doors giving way and before you could say Jack Robinson there seemed to be mountains of water rushing through the doors, and I was swept away from where I was right against the collapsible boat,
Thomas Whiteley, lecture
www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/thomas-whiteleys-titanic-lecture.html
... the Titanic was listing. By that time her head broke and the water came rushing on to her boat deck where I was.
When I felt the water on my feet I rushed to get into a boat. The officer cut its davits one end but could not cut the other.
The rope got around my leg and pulled me on to the deck again, and a big wave came on deck and washed me into the sea about ten yards.
Edward Brown, British Inquiry
10652.- There was a lot scrambled into it then; when the sea came on to the deck they all scrambled into the boat.
10540 -I cut the after fall, and I called out to the man on the forward end of the boat to cut her loose; she would float if we got the falls loose.
10541. Did this other man do that?
- I could not say.
10542. Did she float?
- I cut the ropes and then I was washed right out of her.
10543. You cut both falls?
- No, only the after fall.
10544. What happened to the forward fall?
- I could not say. I was washed out of the boat then.
10653. -. The boat was practically full, when the sea came into it, and washed them all out.
Thomas Whiteley, New York Tribune, April 19, 1912
I got my leg caught in one of the ropes. The second officer was hacking at the rope with a knife.
I was being dragged around the deck by that rope, when I looked up and saw the boat filled with people turning end up on the davits.
The boat overturned like that.” He waved his hand to show just how it happened.
William Mellors, Private letter
I was swept away from where I was right against the collapsible boat, and I simply clung on for all I was worth, whilst all this was going on she was going under water and it seemed as if thousands of men were dragging me under with her, when suddenly her (the forward) nose on which I was seemed to suddenly rise from underneath the water and I and a few more that were close by cut the ropes that held the boat to the falls (davits).
So there it was. The story of Collapsible A. But something was obviously missing. Where in the timeline would the shooting take place?
There was no clear moment when you could point and say, there, that's it.
I resisted the inevitable conclusion until I couldn't resist it any more.
There was no shooting at Collapsible A!
There's an old adage that's used repeatedly in Titanic research: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But there's one exception to the rule: except when it is. And this was that exception.
First, no one working at Collapsible A reported seeing or hearing shots fired at that boat.
More specifically, is the evidence of Titanic greaser Walter Hurst. He wrote two letters to Walter Lord. He spoke of seeing the Chief Officer fire two shots at Collapsible C to warn men to stand back. But he never mentioned any shooting at Collapsible A. Why go to the trouble of highlighting shots fired at one lifeboat and fail to mention shots fired at the very next boat? Because there were none at the second boat.
And yet there are credible accounts of an officer shooting at passengers, then shooting himself just before the Titanic sank.
Well, if you're looking for a place where shots were fired, look for witnesses who saw someone shooting a gun or hearing shots fired. Witnesses like Hugh Woolner.
Woolner even testified at the U.S. Senate Hearing into the sinking of the Titanic that he saw with his own eyes First Officer William Murdoch fire two shots in the air at Collapsible C. Collapsible C left the ship minutes before men pushed Collapsible A off the roof of the officers' quarters to the deck and tried to launch it from the same falls that lowered C.
In one of his letters to Walter Lord, Hurst wrote about Collapsible C: "there was a bit of trouble there, the Chief officer was thretening [sic] someone and fired 2 Revolver shots shouting now will you get back I was not near enough to see if anyone was shot."
In the book 'Voices from the Titanic: The Epic Story of the Tragedy from the People Who Were There' by Geoff Tibbals, there's a newspaper account attributed only to "another seaman" (identified as one who jumped into the ocean with a baby in his arms) who relates (P. 369, Paperback edition) that "he saw the Chief Officer shoot at two Italians who were pushing women aside on the steamer in a frantic endeavour to reach the lifeboats. As the first shot fired above their heads did not serve as a warning, the officer shot one of them."
Three witnesses who saw shooting at Collapsible C and none who saw shooting at Collapsible A. Add to that the fact that the prime witnesses cited for a shooting at A, George Rheims and Eugene Daly, provided no details that can be used to isolate the lifeboat to which they were referring.
But they did provide some clues.
George Rheims, in a letter to his wife, dated April 19, 1912:
As the last lifeboat was leaving I saw an officer kill a man with one gun shot. The man was trying to climb aboard that last lifeboat.
A year and a half later he gave a deposition to the Limitation of Liability Hearings in New York in which he said:
DEPOSITION OF GEORGE RHEIMS.
Q. Did you hear any particular noise?
- Yes I heard two pistol shots.
Q. About how long before the ship sank?
- About 40 minutes before she sank.
Rheims saw an officer shoot a man "as the last lifeboat was leaving." Collapsible A was never "leaving". It was never in the davits. it was never launched properly. It floated off. And 40 minutes before the ship sank, it was still ensconsed on the roof of the officers' quarters.
Eugene Daly was even more vague in a letter he wrote to his sister who was still in Ireland and which was published in the London Daily Telegraph, May 4, 1912:
At the first cabin when a boat was being lowered an officer pointed a revolver and said if any man tried to get in, he would shoot him on the spot. I saw the officer shoot two men dead because they tried to get in the boat.
Not even the linchpin between the two accounts, the subsequent suicide of the officer who shot the men, helps identify where the shooting happened. Just the opposite, in fact.
Rheims gave this account:
"Since there was nothing left to do, the officer told us, “Gentlemen, each man for himself, goodbye.” He gave us a military salute and shot himself. This was a man!!"
I was intrigued by the reference to a military salute. I asked the obvious question. Which officer who was lost was in the military?
It wasn't First Officer William Murdoch. or Sixth Officer James Moody.
But Chief Officer Henry Tingle Wilde was a Lieutenant in the prestigious Royal Naval Reserve.
There's no doubt that Murdoch shot himself. Crewmen were talking about his committing suicide even as they clung to an overturned liferaft, hours before being rescued.
You can see where this is going. Two officers. Two suicides?
Mrs. Eleanor Widener, in Lifeboat No. 4, is quoted in the New York Times, April 20, 1912, giving her account of an officer's suicide:
“As the boat pulled away from the Titanic I saw one of the officers shoot himself in the head, and a few minutes later saw Capt. Smith jump from the bridge into the sea.”
Since the Captain jumped into the ocean literally moments before the Titanic sank, its clear this is not the suicide seen by Rheims 40 minutes earlier.
The unravelled story, then, appears to be that there was a shooting at Collapsible C not Collapsible A, that it was deadlier than warning shots fired in the air, that one or possibly two men were shot by an officer, and that that officer shot and killed himself.
George Rheims and Eugene Daly both saw the shooting. Rheims saw the officer, likely Chief Officer Wilde, shoot himself. Daly was only told that the officer who he saw firing his gun killed himself. The body he saw could have been either Wilde's or Murdoch's; it's impossible to tell from his accounts when the single suicide shot that he heard happened.
Deconstructing the account of a shooting a Collapsible A has taken a long time. But it lets me complete the story of the shootings on the Titanic. That's next.
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