by Nic Compton
Sir Ernest Shackleton – Explorer
With a dead calm sea there is no sign at all to give you any indication that there is anything there. If you first see the breaking sea, then you look for the rest and you generally see it. You detect it better the nearer you are to the waterline, because from a height it is not so easily seen; it blends with the ocean if you are looking down at an angle like that. If you are on the sea level it may loom up. You suffered from a disadvantage, certainly, in the Titanic, by not being able to get as near to the waterline.
Charles Lightoller – Second Officer
It was a beautiful night, there was not a cloud in the sky. The sea was apparently smooth, and there was no wind, but at that time you could see the stars rising and setting on the horizon.
We then discussed the indications of ice. I remember saying, ‘In any case there will be a certain amount of reflected lights from the bergs.’ The captain said, ‘Oh, yes, there will be a certain amount of reflected light.’ I said, or he said, that even though the dark side of the berg was towards us, probably the outline, the white outline would give us sufficient warning, that we should be able to see it at a good distance, and, as far as we could see, we should be able to see it. Of course it was just with regard to that possibility of the blue side being towards us, and that if it did happen to be turned with the purely blue side towards us, there would still be the white outline.
We knew we were in the vicinity of ice, and though you cross the Atlantic for years and have ice reported and never see it, and at other times it is not reported and you do see it, you nevertheless do take necessary precautions, all you can, to make perfectly sure that the weather is clear and that the officers understand the indications of ice and all that sort of thing.
Edwin Cannons – Captain, Atlantic Transport Line
In the day, they appear as a white glistening mass, irregular in shape, white. At night they throw off an effulgence that can be seen. I have seen the outlines of an iceberg by taking a bearing over seven miles. Ice-blink is an effulgence thrown off the berg or ice because the ice absorbs the light by day, and throws it off at night. It would look like a large mass of luminous paint. That is the description one might venture upon.
I have seen them much darker. When I was chief officer of our Michigan, I saw an iceberg capsize in the daytime. What appeared prior to the iceberg capsizing as a white glistening mass, after the sea had subsided and the water run off the portion that was then exposed, was apparently dark blue. It was different in outline and different in colour.
Herbert Pitman – Third Officer
A change in the temperature would not denote anything at all, because in this country [USA] and our own country [UK] we will probably want no clothes on at all, and the next day we will want overcoats, winter clothes, and that is not due to ice.
I do not think there are any signs at all. As regards the temperature of the water, it is absolutely useless. I have proven it. I saw one about 18 months ago – there were three, as a matter of fact – off the Falkland Islands. One was about 700 feet long and 600 feet wide and fully 500 feet high. When the sun was shining on it, it was a perfect white. In the morning, about eight o’clock, when the sun was not shining on it, it looked like a perfectly black berg, like a huge island. That is where I proved that the temperature of the water is absolutely no indication of icebergs. It did not affect the temperature in the slightest.
Taking the temperature of the water is a custom in the ships, and it is for meteorological observation. The quartermaster does that every two hours. I have seen the men going to do it. We usually have a canvas bucket which they lower into the water. We did not have time to make one, so they were using a tin attached to a piece of rope long enough to reach the water.
Sir Ernest Shackleton – Explorer
If there was no wind and the temperature fell abnormally for the time of the year, I would consider I was approaching an area that might have ice in it. But, unless the wind is blowing from a large field of ice to windward, the change of sea temperature is a very poor thing to go upon. The film of fresh water that covers the sea is so thin that by dipping in a bucket you do not pick up that thin cold water; and if the temperature of the air is approximately the temperature of the sea, there is practically no haze; it is only when the water is warmer or the air is warmer that the haze occurs. There are no methods that I have heard of before this that can really give you an indication of approaching ice by ordinary temperature methods.
Bruce Ismay – Managing Director, IMM
There is always danger with ice – more or less danger with ice. I knew we were approaching the region of ice, by this Marconi message. Because I presumed the man would not send the Marconi message to us unless the ice was there and that we were approaching it, or it must have been very close to the track.
I could not say exactly where the ice was. I do not understand latitude and longitude. The Marconi message did not convey any meaning to me as to the exact position of that ice. That is for the captain of the ship. He was responsible for the navigation of the ship. I had nothing to do with the navigation. I was simply a passenger on board the ship. I had never seen an iceberg in my life before.
The other information I got was from Dr O’Loughlin, who said we had ‘turned the corner’. He had been in the service over 40 years. He made the remark at dinner, ‘We have turned the corner.’ Crossing the Atlantic, you come down to a point and then you go up; it is what is always known as ‘turning the corner’. I knew, when we had turned the corner, we must be getting towards the ice region.
Ella White – First Class Passenger
Everybody knew we were in the vicinity of icebergs. Even in our staterooms it was so cold that we could not leave the porthole open. It was terribly cold. It was unusually cold. I made the remark to Miss Young, on Sunday morning: ‘We must be very near icebergs to have such cold weather as this.’
Charles Lightoller – Second Officer
The captain said, ‘If it becomes at all doubtful’ – I think those were his words – ‘If it becomes at all doubtful, let me know at once; I will be just inside.’ He meant to say, if I had any doubt at all in my mind about the weather, about the distance I could see. If there were the slightest degree of haze to arise, the slightest haze whatever, if that were to any degree noticeable, to immediately notify him.
If we were coming on a large berg there might be a haze, as there frequently is in that position, where warm and cold streams are intermixing. You will very frequently get a little low-lying haze, smoke we call it, lying on the water perhaps a couple of feet. The slightest haze would render the situation far more difficult, and far more dangerous if there were ice.
Shortly afterwards, I sent a message to the crow’s nest to keep a sharp lookout for ice, particularly small ice and growlers. And I think I told them to pass that word on until daylight – to keep a sharp lookout till daylight. That is a message I always send along when approaching the vicinity of ice or a derelict, as the case may be. If I know we are approaching the vicinity of a derelict, I send the word along to let them know what to look out for. It is just the same with regard to a lightship, say the Nantucket Lightship; I tell them to keep a sharp lookout for the Nantucket Lightship to give them an idea what they are looking for.
George Symons – Lookout
We had special orders about 9.30 from some officer on the bridge. ‘Keep a sharp lookout for small ice and bergs till daylight, and pass the word along.’ That was the order received by Jewell and me; we both heard it through the ’phone.
Charles Lightoller – Second Officer
At 9.30 or about 9.30 I took up a position on the bridge where I could see distinctly right ahead – a view which cleared the back stays and stays and so on – and there I remained during the remainder of my watch. Keeping a sharp lookout, as sharp as was possible. Looking out for ice and watching the weather; watching the conditions generally to see there was no haze which would rise that I should not
notice, and, of course, keeping a sharp lookout for ice as well.
The next hour it went colder by one degree. That was exactly freezing. I probably noticed at about ten minutes to ten, when the quartermaster took the temperature of the air and the water by thermometer.
Mr Murdoch came on deck in his overcoat and said, ‘It is pretty cold.’ I said, ‘Yes, it is freezing.’ I said something about we might be up around the ice any time now. I cannot remember the exact words. I gave him to understand that we were within the region where ice had been reported. I told Mr Murdoch I had already sent to the crow’s nest, the carpenter and the engine room as to the temperature, and such things as that – naturally, in the ordinary course in handing over the ship everything I could think of.
No orders were passed on about speed. I have never known speed to be reduced in any ship I have ever been in the north Atlantic in clear weather, not on account of ice.
We were making for a vicinity where ice had been reported year after year, and time and again. I do not think for the last two or three years I have seen an iceberg, although ships ahead of us have reported ice time and time again. There was no absolute certainty that we were running into an ice-field or running amongst icebergs or anything else, and it might have been, as it has been in years before, ice reported inside a certain longitude.
So it is hardly correct to say we knew we were in the presence of ice. We did not; we only had reports to go on. On the contrary, we had reason to disbelieve those reports, having so many years gone across and never seen ice, though it is repeatedly reported. In the view of the reports we have had in other voyages, if I say in the light of good seamanship or extra good seamanship, we should have stopped, the thousands of ships that have crossed the Atlantic would likewise have stopped, and then you come to the end of your tether.
In the view of after-events, of course, we form a totally different opinion. It would naturally have been safer, we can see now, not to have gone ahead at all.
Bertram Hayes – Captain, White Star Line
Ice does not make any difference to speed in clear weather. We proceed at the same rate of speed. No alteration. It is the practice all over the world so far as I know – every ship that crosses the Atlantic. You can always see ice in clear weather. You can see it from six or seven miles away – I have seen it ten miles. You see a light there; the ice is light. It is like looking at that piece of paper on the wall; you can see the brightness. That is the way you distinguish it any time; you see the colour of it. It is differentiated from land in the daytime.
I have steamed in between icebergs at night-time. They have been scattered all over about the course on either bow, and I have gone on my course steering between them. That was at night-time, approaching Belle Isle on the north track. We were doing 18 knots, full speed, on the Laurentic, of the White Star Line.
Charles Lightoller – Second Officer
I have never known the route to be changed by the commander. When we have the absolute position of anything that is reliable, when the latitude and longitude is given by a ship immediately ahead of an iceberg or a derelict, some commanders will alter their course a few miles just to avoid it, particularly if it is in the night-time. You have the position of that one derelict and if you cross there at night-time you might haul a little to the southward or northward.
Every man has a different idea with regard to navigation. Each man has his own individual idea with regard to the safety of which he exercises to the utmost to keep the ship from danger in its various forms.
Bruce Ismay – Managing Director, IMM
I am not a navigator, but I should say if a man can see far enough to clear ice, he is perfectly justified in going full speed. I presume that the man would be anxious to get through the ice region. He would not want to slow down upon the chance of a fog coming on. I presume that if a man on a perfectly clear night could see far enough to clear an iceberg he would be perfectly justified in getting through the ice region as quickly as he possibly could.
Assuming the weather was perfectly fine, I should say the captain was perfectly justified in going full speed.
Sir Ernest Shackleton – Explorer
A certain state of things has evolved in the last few years by public desire and competition. There is a general feeling amongst people at sea that you have to make your passage; if you do not make your passage it is not so good for you. But the possibility of accident is greatly enhanced by the speed the ship goes.
When navigating in an ice zone, I would take the ordinary precaution of slowing down, whether I was in a ship equipped for ice or any other, compatible with keeping steerage way for the size of the ship. I have been in a ship which was specially built for ice, but I took the precaution to slow down because you can only tell the condition of any ice you see; there may be projecting spurs and you may suddenly come across them. She was only six knots at full speed. She was 40 years old.
As soon as they know they are in an absolute ice locality, a liner should slow down sufficiently to give her steering way; I should say ten knots. You have no right to go at 21 knots in an ice zone.
George Rheims – First Class Passenger
I was in the smoking room with my brother-in-law, Joseph Loring, and we were trying to figure on the speed of the boat to see what the run would be the next day. Then the steward, whom I think they called the commodore steward, because I think he is the oldest steward, came up to us and said we might figure on a bigger run. We said, ‘Why?’ He answered, ‘Because we are making faster speed than we were yesterday.’ My brother-in-law said, ‘What do you know about it?’ He said, ‘I got it from the engine room.’ My brother-in-law said, ‘That don’t mean anything.’ He said, ‘Gentlemen, come out and see for yourself.
We went out in the passage hallway right outside of the smoking room and we stood there, and he said, ‘You notice that the vibration of the boat is much greater tonight than it has ever been.’ And we did notice the vibration, which was very strong that night, and my brother-in-law, whose stateroom was right underneath the passage, said, ‘I never noticed this vibration before; we are evidently making very good speed.’
Henry Stengel – First Class Passenger
When I retired at about ten o’clock, I could hear the engines, and I noticed that they were running fast. I called my wife’s attention to the fact that the engines were running faster than at any other time during the trip. I noticed just through being familiar with engines in the manufacturing business. We have bought a great many engines in 28 or 29 years, and we generally take the speed of the engine. We want to buy an engine that will run a certain speed to do a certain amount of work. It was just natural instinct, that was all.
Harold Bride – Assistant Telegraphist
Just before I turned in, I heard Mr Phillips sending the preliminaries to Cape Race.k I was reading what Mr Phillips was sending from his apparatus. I could hear the make and break of his key. It was just before I went to bed; I was not asleep, I had nothing else to do but lie and listen.
We had a very large accumulation of messages waiting to be sent to America. At the same time, Cape Race would have a number of telegrams to transmit to him. I should estimate he could not have finished before nine from the batch he had. I am judging by the amount of work that was got through. From leaving Southampton to the time we had finished with Cape Race, we had transmitted 250 telegrams.
Cyril Evans – Marconi Officer, SS Californian
On the same evening, we were stopped, and I went to the captain and I asked him if there was anything the matter. He told me he had stopped because of the ice, and he asked me if I had any boats. I said the Titanic. He said, ‘Better advise him we are surrounded by ice and stopped.’ So I went to my cabin, and at 9.05pm New York time [10.55pm ship’s time] I called him up. I said, ‘Say, old man, we are stopped and surrounded by ice.’ The operator on the Titanic turned around and said, ‘Shut up, shut up, I am busy; I am working Cape Race,’ and at that I jammed him.
It meant he did not want me to interfere; you do not take it as an insult or anything like that. By jamming we mean when somebody is sending a message to somebody else and you start to send at the same time, you jam him. He does not get his message. I was nearer than Cape Race station, therefore my signals came in with a bang, and he could read me and he could not read Cape Race. He must have heard the message, but I do not know whether he took it down.
Directly afterwards, he called up Cape Race and said, ‘Sorry, please repeat, jammed.’ He continued to send messages right up till I turned in. I had the phone on my ear, and heard him sending, but I did not take them down. They were all private messages; you can tell by the prefix. At 11.35, ship’s time, I put the phones down and took off my clothes and turned in.
Stanley Lord – Captain, SS Californian
We were surrounded by a lot of loose ice, and we were about a quarter of a mile off the edge of the field. We stopped altogether, so we would not run over the top of the ice. The field was about 26 miles long and from one to two miles wide.
