A former shipmate of Captain Rostron, who had served with him aboard several vessels, wrote, ‘The great thing about Rostron was, he was a great navigator. There was nothing slapdash about Rostron and the navigators around that night, and I would certainly place Rostron and his team at the top of the list.’ We already know that Captain Rostron had steered for the position of the sinking as worked out by Titanic’s navigating officer, Joseph Boxhall. That he found the lifeboats at that position tells us that Mr Boxhall had got his sums right and that this was indeed the position where at least the first of the boats had been launched. (Curiously, when the wreck was discovered it turned out to be several miles from Boxhall’s position, suggesting that the ship steamed for some considerable distance after many of the lifeboats went into the water.)
This first boat turned out to be No 2 with none other than Fifth Officer Boxhall in command, which had been launched at about 1.45am after all Titanic’s aft boats were away from the ship and only about half an hour before the liner finally sank. Rostron noticed that one of Titanic’s officers was in the boat and had him brought to the bridge to report on what had happened. Boxhall told Rostron that Titanic had sunk at about 2.30 that morning, a mere hour and a half before Carpathia arrived on the scene.
It was just about dawn and the growing light revealed a terrifying vista to those aboard Carpathia and in the Titanic’s lifeboats close by. Everywhere they looked they saw huge icebergs, dozens of them. A junior officer on Carpathia counted 25 that were around 200 feet tall, and dozens more ranging in height from 150 feet down to 50 feet, all within a couple of miles of Carpathia. Less than half a mile away was the monster that had almost caught them out at the last moment, and only 100 feet or so off the port quarter was a growler. Captain Rostron had been extraordinarily lucky, it seems. Floating pathetically among the bergs and growlers were Titanic’s lifeboats. Captain Rostron was actually impressed by this awesome display of nature, which is more than can be said of Titanic’s Second Officer, Charles Lightoller. By this time Lightoller had been picked up from capsized collapsible boat B by Mr Lowe in No 14. As it grew light he looked around but couldn’t see any icebergs at all. As we have already seen, quite a lot of Mr Lightoller’s evidence flies in the face of that given by the vast majority of the other witnesses. Either Mr Lightoller wasn’t there at all, or he had his own reasons for concealing the truth.
Captain Rostron continued to seek out the remainder of the lifeboats and bring what survivors he found aboard Carpathia. As these people came aboard their names were taken and a list of survivors was compiled so that the authorities ashore could be informed at the earliest possible moment, by wireless, just who had survived the sinking. According to second-class survivor Lawrence Beesley, only 17 of Titanic’s small boats were brought alongside Carpathia instead of the 18 that we know were supposedly launched from the liner without any serious problems. Where then was the other one? Just 13 of Titanic’s small boats were hoisted aboard the Cunard vessel, the others, having discharged their survivors, were cast adrift with the bodies of those who had died from the cold during the night.
Having taken the people from all of the small boats he could find, Rostron ordered the whole area to be searched in the hope that more survivors might be discovered. As his vessel moved slowly through the area where Titanic had presumably foundered he noticed that there was not much wreckage floating about, just a deckchair or two, a few lifebelts, a good deal of cork, and just one floating body. ‘No more flotsam than one can often see on a seashore, drifted in by the tide,’ is how Captain Rostron described what he saw. However, he did note one anomaly, although he didn’t attach any importance to it at the time, or intentionally play it down later. He found too many proper wooden lifeboats at the scene. When asked, at the British Inquiry into the Titanic disaster, ‘Altogether, how many boats did you pick up?’ Captain Rostron replied:
‘We got 13 lifeboats alongside, and we picked up 13 lifeboats, two emergency boats, and two Berthon [collapsible] boats. One lifeboat we saw capsized, and one of the Berthon boats was not launched from the ship. There was also a Berthon boat we saw capsized. This made a total of 20.’
We already know that none of Titanic’s proper lifeboats were capsized and that all of them transported their survivors to Carpathia. Captain Rostron also described seeing collapsible boat B drifting at the site, so the upturned full-sized lifeboat cannot have been that. Rostron is quite clear in his distinctions between full-sized (30-foot-long) lifeboats, emergency (25-foot-long) boats and collapsibles. He obviously saw an upturned full-sized ship’s lifeboat, but it cannot have been from Titanic, so where did it come from? Captain Rostron’s sighting of this extra boat was confirmed by the captain of the only other ship to reach the scene of the sinking in a rescue attempt, Captain Stanley Lord of the Californian.
Aboard Californian Captain Lord had spent the greater part of the night dozing, fully dressed, on the chartroom settee. As we know, Lord was obviously expecting something to happen during the night, which was why he had not responded to the sighting of white rockets by his watch officers but had asked if there was any colour in them. We also know that the only ship in the area that night that fired coloured rockets was the Titanic. Unfortunately the liner’s coloured signals had not been seen from Californian, or had at least not been reported to Captain Lord, so his ship had remained inactive, waiting. At about 4.00am Californian’s Chief Officer, G. V. Stewart, came onto the bridge to begin his watch. The officers already there, Stone and Gibson, reported the rockets they had seen during the night. Steward looked towards the south-southwest and saw a four-masted steamer. ‘There she is!’ he said, believing he was looking at the same ship that had been seen earlier, and that it had steamed away, then come back again. Stone quickly told the Chief Officer that the ship he was looking at was not the same vessel that had been in sight earlier. The ship that Stone and Gibson had seen earlier had two masthead lights whereas the steamer they could see now had but a single one. (A four-masted ship should normally have displayed two masthead lights.)
It began to get light at about 4.30, so Stewart left the bridge to wake Captain Lord, who was still dozing in the chartroom. When Stewart woke Lord he told him that the ship from which rockets had been seen during the night was still to the south of them. With no apparent reason to suspect that there was anything wrong, Captain Lord took a few minutes to make his way to the bridge. Once there he waited until full daylight, when he could see the best way through the ice, before ordering the engine room to stand by. At about 5.15am Californian got under way, but not seemingly towards Titanic or Carpathia. It was only now that Chief Officer Stewart told Captain Lord that he was concerned about the steamer to the south of them. Stewart thought that she might have been damaged by the ice and have been firing distress rockets during the night. Captain Lord ordered Stewart to wake the wireless operator and tell him to contact this other vessel and find out if anything was amiss. Shortly afterwards Californian’s wireless operator, Cyril Evans, sent out his first ‘CQ’ of the day. Almost immediately the Frankfurt replied with the information that Titanic had sunk during the night. The Virginian confirmed the news about Titanic. Evans made a note of what he had heard and took it straight to Captain Lord.
As soon as he received the information about Titanic Lord ordered Evans to get confirmation of the position in which she had foundered. Immediately on receiving this confirmed position Lord worked out the best course towards it. Californian would have to steer S16°W for a distance of 19½ miles to reach the site of the sinking. Perhaps even more coldly efficient than Captain Rostron, only when Lord was sure of his facts did he start towards Titanic’s last given position. Because of the ice it would take Californian about 2½ hours to cover slightly less than 20 miles in broad daylight. Californian’s performance at least has the merit of being believable, which is more than can be said of Carpathia’s mad dash through the darkness for almost 60 miles in just 1 hour more.
By the time Califo
rnian reached the site of the sinking, Carpathia had finished picking up the people from the boats and was preparing to get under way towards New York. Before she left, Captain Rostron requested that Lord make a search of the area in case he had missed anyone. Californian scoured the area, steaming slowly, but did not find a living soul. However, Captain Lord did see the small boats Rostron had left behind. ‘There were about six of them, the remainder having been picked up by the Carpathia,’ he said. ‘One was capsized, and there were two smaller boats with collapsible canvas sides.’ Captain Lord’s description is characteristically clear and concise. He only saw two collapsible boats and made a clear distinction between them and proper wooden lifeboats. He did see a capsized wooden lifeboat exactly as described by Captain Rostron, a lifeboat that had no business being there when all of those from Titanic have been accounted for. As the collapsible boats are very different in appearance from real lifeboats there is little or no chance that Lord and Rostron were confusing them. Captain Lord also said that they saw about six boats at the scene, so if we add the two damaged collapsibles, which he clearly did not see, to the 13 boats recovered by Carpathia, we have a total of 21 small boats there. Titanic only carried 20, so we have at least one boat that must have come from another vessel.
There is one other piece of evidence to show that there was another vessel involved in the Titanic disaster. As we know, Captain Rostron had a list of survivors from the liner compiled so that he could notify people ashore of exactly who had survived. Carpathia’s wireless operator, Cottam, duly transmitted that list. There were 803 names on it, 135 of which do not appear on Titanic’s passenger or crew lists. It is entirely possible that a good many of those whose names do not appear on the liner’s lists simply had their names misspelled on one or other of the records. However, we now know that 705 people actually survived the sinking of the Titanic; 98 fewer than appear on the list sent out by Carpathia. Captain Rostron was certain that his vessel had picked up 705 survivors from Titanic, and said so quite forcibly. He was careful to include the qualifying ‘from Titanic’ wording in his statements, hinting that any extras came from somewhere else. Nevertheless we are left with 98 people who were picked up by Carpathia but who did not come from the White Star liner. Titanic’s lifeboats saved an average of about 40 people each that night, but we know that their loading was very badly managed. Allowing that the crew of another vessel present might have been more efficient than their counterparts on Titanic, perhaps they managed an average of 50 persons per lifeboat. That would account for there being too many lifeboats in the area when Carpathia arrived to take on survivors. There would have had to have been 22 boats there in all, which in the light of the available evidence is not unlikely.
It is now abundantly clear that the orderly and even heroic evacuation of the sinking Titanic after an accidental collision with an iceberg simply did not happen. That there was an accidental collision seems almost incontrovertible, but the iceberg appears an unlikely participant. The most likely scenario must be that another ship substituted for the berg and that this unnamed vessel was seriously damaged to the extent that her crew began putting passengers off in lifeboats. The evacuation of the Titanic was anything but orderly as is evidenced by the haphazard loading and lowering of the lifeboats, which were not even launched in any logical order. That there was panic aboard is shown by there being no serious attempt to prolong the life of the ship once she was damaged, and by the fact that a number of survivors testified to either hearing gunfire or actually seeing people trying to get into the boats shot down by the ship’s officers. At least one of those officers did admit to firing his gun, but not at anyone in particular. It is also clear that at least some of those who survived the sinking did not do so in the manner they later claimed.
Remember that anyone who went into the sea for any more than a few seconds that night would have had almost no chance of surviving; the cold would have killed them. It is a fact that sudden immersion in very cold water causes the human body to immediately react by immobilising the limbs and sending all warm blood toward the heart and lungs. This reaction actually gives the best chance of survival, whereas attempting to swim accelerates cooling. Even without attempting to swim, survival time for a human being in water at sub-zero temperatures is only a matter of a couple of minutes. Nobody from Titanic could have swum more than a couple of yards before being fished out of the water that night. Possibly those who escaped on or in collapsible boats A and B were already in them when they were upset by people in the water as the ship went down. They would then have been close enough under those circumstances for some of them to have scrambled back aboard before the cold immobilised them. Of course that would mean that officers who should have remained at their posts had in fact left the ship before the last of the boats was lowered and while there were still many passengers aboard, men, women and children. It would also mean that these people who had saved their own skins without regard to the duty they owed to those in their care would have to come up with some sort of story to hide the fact. Once aboard Carpathia they began to do just that.
Titanic’s surviving officers, aware that there was bound to be an inquiry into the disaster, met to decide what story they should tell. It would definitely be better for them if all the crew’s stories matched up. It would be even better if the tales told by the surviving passengers were similar as well.
Shortly before Carpathia reached New York a note was circulated among Titanic’s survivors requesting that they make no statement, in any detail, when they arrived. As a result, not one survivor in ten would submit to questioning; clear evidence that the cover-up had already begun aboard Carpathia well before she reached New York.
More evidence of the cover-up beginning in earnest aboard Carpathia can be gathered from other decrees issued by the survivor committee led by Samuel Goldenberg aboard the Cunarder, which display technical knowledge of shipping in general and Titanic in particular of which ordinary passengers would have been ignorant. Obviously these decrees were the work of Ismay, Lightoller and Lowe. It is interesting to note that the majority of these so-called decrees were not supported by the great majority of the survivors, being signed solely by the 25 members of the committee. The statement stated:
‘We the undersigned surviving passengers from the steamship Titanic, in order to forestall any sensational or exaggerated statements, deem it our duty to give to the press a statement of facts which have come to our knowledge and which we believe to be true.
On Sunday, April 14, 1912, at about twenty minutes to twelve PM on a cold, starlit night, in a smooth sea and no moon, the ship struck an iceberg which had been reported to the bridge by lookouts, but not early enough to avoid collision. Steps were taken to ascertain the damage and save passengers and ship. Orders were given to put on lifebelts and the boats were lowered.
The ship sank at twenty minutes past two AM Monday, and the usual distress signals were sent out by wireless and rockets fired at intervals from the ship. Fortunately the wireless message was received by the Cunard steamship Carpathia at about twelve o’clock midnight, and she arrived on the scene of the disaster at about four AM Monday.
The officers and crew of the steamship Carpathia had been preparing all night for the rescue and comfort of the survivors, and the last mentioned were received on board with the most touching care and kindness, every attention being given to all, irrespective of class. The passengers, officers and crew gave up gladly their staterooms, clothing and comforts for our benefit, all honour to them.
The English Board of Trade passengers’ certificate aboard the Titanic allowed for a total of approximately 8,500. The same certificate called for lifeboat accommodation for approximately 950 in the following boats: Fourteen large lifeboats, two smaller boats and two collapsible boats. Life preservers were accessible and apparently in sufficient numbers for all on board.
The approximate number of passengers carried at the time of the collision was:
First class, 33
0; second class, 320; third class, 750; total, 1,400; officers and crew, 940; Total, 2,340
Of the foregoing about the following were rescued by the steamship Carpathia:
First class, 210; second class, 125; third class, 200; officers, 4; seamen, 39; stewards, 96; firemen, 71; Total, 210 of the crew. The total saved, about 745, was about eighty percent of the maximum capacity of the lifeboats.
We feel it our duty to call the attention of the public to what we consider the inadequate supply of lifesaving appliances provided for a modern passenger steamship, and recommend that immediate steps be taken to compel passenger steamers to carry sufficient boats to accommodate the maximum number of persons carried on board. The following facts were observed and should be considered in this connection:
The insufficiency of lifeboats, rafts, &c; lack of trained seamen to man the same (stoker, stewards, &c, are not efficient boat handlers); not enough officers to carry out emergency orders on the bridge and superintend the launching and control of lifeboats; absence of searchlights. The Board of Trade rules allow for entirely too many persons in each boat to permit the same to be properly handled. On the Titanic the boat deck was about seventy-five feet above the water, and consequently the passengers were required to embark before lowering boats, thus endangering the operation and preventing the taking on of the maximum number the boats would hold. Boats at all times to be properly equipped with provisions, water, lamps, compasses, lights, &c. Life saving boat drills should be more frequent and thoroughly carried out, and officers should be armed at boat drills.
The Great Titanic Conspiracy Page 24
