by Senan Molony
But a side light is much further down than a masthead light, and the lifeboat occupants are of average height, sitting down. They continued to see the red light of the mystery ship from the lifeboats. The realistic distance to that ship is thus of the order of 5 miles – until she disappears.
Let us now recap what is indicated by testimony thus far. Firstly, the mystery ship was moving. Yet the Californian was stationary. Secondly, the mystery ship showed her red light ‘most of the time’. Yet the Californian, if she were indeed the mystery ship, would have been showing Titanic her green light. Thirdly, the lifeboats could not make any progress to the mystery ship, nor see her in the morning; if the mystery ship was indeed the Californian, they should have made progress and seen her after dawn. Lastly, we can observe that the mystery ship came very near at one point, because even her red sidelight, below the bridge, could be seen from the lifeboats. In short, the evidence thus far from Titanic observers is against the mystery ship being the Californian. And it is worth repeating – the issue is the Titanic’s mystery ship. Titanic witnesses have no reason to lie!
5
THE MYSTERY SHIP GOES AWAY
We can recall that some Titanic witnesses claimed that the light was ‘stationary’, ‘there all night’, and ‘always seemed the same distance away’. For the record, it should be indicated that this was by no means the universal feeling. And we know that the mystery ship was quite evidently not there in the morning.
It is argued here that Boxhall, the Fourth Officer charged with observing the mystery ship, got it right when he saw a light approach, develop into two masthead lights, become a ship showing both red and green side lights, and then turn to starboard, and lie apparently stationary there for some time, showing only the red light (port side) ‘most of the time’ to the Titanic. What happened later?
Let us see how Boxhall describes that mystery ship arrive, turn, then appear to move slowly, but inexorably, away (US Inquiry, pp.933–934):
Boxhall: I think I saw the green light before I saw the red light, as a matter of fact. But the ship was meeting us. I am covering the whole thing by saying the ship was meeting us.
Senator Burton: Your impression is she turned away, or turned on a different course?
Boxhall: That is my impression.
Sen. Burton: At a later time, when you were in the boat after it had been lowered, what light did you see? [Boxhall went away in boat No.2 around 1.45 a.m., more than an hour after he first saw the light]
Boxhall: I saw this single light, which I took to be her stern light, just before I went away in the boat, as near as I can say.
Sen. Burton: How long did you see this stern light?
Boxhall: I saw it until I pulled around the [Titanic’s] stern [to the starboard side, blocking his view]. I had laid off a little while on the port side, on which side I was lowered, and then I afterwards pulled around the ship’s stern, and, of course, then I lost the light, and I never saw it anymore.
Sen. Burton: Her course, as she came on, would have been nearer to your course; that is, your course was ahead, there, and she was coming in toward your course?
Boxhall: Yes, sir; she was slightly crossing it, evidently. I suppose she was turning around slowly.
Sen. Burton: Is it your idea that she turned away?
Boxhall: That is my idea, sir…
Sen. Burton: She kept on a general course toward the east, and then bore away from you, or what?
Boxhall: I do not think she was doing much steaming. I do not think the ship was steaming very much, because after I first saw the masthead lights she must have been still steaming, but by the time I saw her red light with my naked eye she was not steaming very much. So she had probably gotten into the ice, and turned around.
Sen. Burton: What do you think happened after she turned around? Do you think she went away to avoid the ice?
Boxhall: I do not know whether she stayed there all night, or what she did. I lost the light. I did not see her after we pulled around to the starboard side of the Titanic.
Sen. Burton: Then you lost track of her?
Boxhall: Yes.
Sen. Burton: And you saw her no more after that?
Boxhall: No, sir.
First class passenger Archibald Gracie remained on deck after Boxhall had left and, indeed, after all the lifeboats were gone. He wrote in his 1913 book The Truth About the Titanic:
To reassure the ladies of whom I had special charge, I showed them a bright white light of what I took to be a ship about five miles off and which I felt sure was coming to our rescue. Colonel Astor heard me telling this to them and he asked me to show it, and I pointed the light out to him… but instead of growing brighter the light grew dim and less and less distinct and passed away altogether.
There now follows a sample of Titanic witnesses who felt the ship or light went away. If they are correct and the ship was underway, then she was not the Californian. But do not necessarily rely on these accounts, as no witness in a lifeboat can be realistically relied upon. These extracts are intended merely to show that it was not universally agreed that the Titanic’s mystery ship was ‘there all night’, ‘stationary’ or ‘always the same distance away’. Let us now leave it with experienced seafarers, not civilian passengers, and hear the opinions of crew only. Firstly, AB George Symons:
11712. Did you row towards the light that you had mentioned? — We were rowing for the light. The light bearing roughly on our port beam when we were rowing away from the ship.
11715. Did you appear to be catching it up at all? — No I thought my own self she was gradually going away from us.
We also have the evidence of Quartermaster Robert Hichens:
1183. Could you tell at all whether the light was moving or whether it was still? — The light was moving, gradually disappearing. We did not seem to get no nearer to it.
1184. As I understand you, it seemed to get further away from you? — Yes, sir.
Lookout Fred Fleet states the following (US Inquiry, p.326):
We pulled for it, but we did not seem to get any nearer to it…
Senator Smith: How close could you get to it?
Fleet: She was getting away off…
Able Seaman Frank Osman (US Inquiry, p.539):
Senator Burton: When did you last have a sight of that light? – About an hour afterwards.
What do you think about it? Did it sail away? – Yes, sir; she sailed right away.
Here is Seaman William Lucas:
1804. You saw nothing more of the vessel to which those lights belonged? — No; the light went further away every time we looked at it.
Nightwatchman James Johnson claims:
3503. Did this light seem to get fainter or did it disappear suddenly? — When we got away it disappeared altogether.
Steward Alfred Crawford (US Inquiry, p.828):
Senator Smith: Did you see any more of that light than you have now described?
Crawford: No. At daybreak it seemed to disappear. We came around and came back.
Quartermaster George Rowe responded as follows (US Inquiry, p.524):
Senator Burton: Do you think there was a sailing boat there?
Rowe: Yes, sir.
Sen. Burton: And was she going away from you?
Rowe: Toward daylight the wind sprung up and she sort of hauled off from us.
Able Seaman Edward Buley gives an extensive account (US Inquiry, p.611):
There was a ship of some description there when she struck [this ‘when she struck’ is a lazy phrase: Buley was ‘sitting in the mess reading when she struck’, in his own evidence (US Inquiry, p.603), and he first saw the light ‘when turning the boats out’ after midnight (p.612)] and she passed right by us. We thought she was coming to us; and if she had come to us, everyone could have boarded her. You could see she was a steamer. She had her steamer lights burning…
Senator Fletcher: How far away was she?
Buley: Three miles, sir, I should judge… No
; we could not see anything of her in the morning when it was daylight. She was stationary all night; I am very positive for about three hours she was stationary, and then she made tracks.
Sen. Fletcher: Did you see that ship before you were in the water?
Buley: Yes, sir; I saw it from the ship. That is what we told the passengers. We said: ‘There is a steamer coming to our assistance’. That is what kept them quiet, I think.
Sen. Fletcher: Did she come toward you bow on?
Buley: Yes, sir; bow on toward us; and then she stopped, and the lights seemed to go right by us.
Sen. Fletcher: If she had gone by you, she would have been to your stern?
Buley: She was stationary there for about three hours, I think, off our port [side] there, and when we were in the boat we all made for her, and she went by us. The northern lights are just like a searchlight, but she disappeared.
The quality of Buley’s eyesight – ‘I can see a distance of 21 miles, sir’ (US Inquiry, p.612) may perhaps be attested by his graphic account of the Titanic breaking in two before she sank. This was a fact disbelieved by the British Inquiry, which declared that ‘the ship did not break in two’ (Final Report, p.34). Buley’s account was verified seventy-three years on, however, after the discovery of the two halves on the sea bed. He had this to say in 1912 (US Inquiry, pp.609–610 – the four answers are here compressed):
She went down as far as the after funnel, and then there was a little roar, as though the engines had rushed forward, and she snapped in two, and the bow part went down and the afterpart came up and stayed up five minutes before it went down… We could see the afterpart afloat, and there was no forepart to it. I think she must have parted where the bunkers were. She parted at the last, because the afterpart of her settled out of the water horizontally after the other part went down. First of all you could see her propellers and everything. Her rudder was clear out of the water… You could hear the rush of the machinery, and she parted in two, and the afterpart settled down again, and we thought the afterpart would float altogether. She uprighted herself for about five minutes, and then tipped over and disappeared… You could see she went in two, because we were quite near to her and could see her quite plainly.
Buley must be an excellent witness, possessing the sharp vision that he claimed to have. His account, along with all the other evidence, suggests that the mystery ship approached, turned, showed a red side light while lying stationary, and later showed a stern light as she turned once more to starboard and cruelly fled the scene. The Californian, by contrast, did not move all night.
WHAT WAS SHE?
Boxhall thought that the mystery ship he saw was a three-mast or four-mast steamer. He is the best witness to this point. He had the ship under observation, with glasses, for the longest period. The Californian was a four-masted steamer, but an immobile one. Yet not all agreed with Boxhall’s observations. There is confusion, and even contradiction, in the numerous attempts to identify the mystery ship. There are passengers who think that the light was a fishing boat, but it is quite obvious folly to place any reliability whatsoever on passenger identification of a light at sea at night. We will look only at crew, ranked in order of seniority. Second Officer Lightoller states:
13894. I had already been calling many of the passengers’ attention to it, pointing it out to them and saying there was a ship over there, that probably it was a sailing ship…
14138. I was perfectly sure it was a light attached to a vessel, whether a steamship or a sailing ship I could not say.
Third Officer Pitman seems more certain:
15061. Did you see any light or lights which you took to be the light or lights of another steamer? — I saw a white light which I took to be the stern light of a sailing ship.
Quartermaster Hichens guessed at the type of vessel sighted:
1339. We expected it to be a steamer from the ship, but when I got into the boat and could not get nearer to it, and being calm weather, then we expected it to be a fishing boat, a cod-banker, as we call it.
Quartermaster Bright was confident of sail, not steam (US Inquiry, p.836):
It looked to me like a sailing ship – like a fishing boat. There were no lights to be seen about the hull of the ship, if it was a ship.
Quartermaster Rowe had little doubt about what he saw (US Inquiry, p.524):
Do you think there was a sailing boat there? — Yes, sir. I think there was a ship there. Indeed, I am sure of it, and that she was a sailer.
Yet, Lookout Lee was not certain:
2568. The light disappeared. Whether it was a fishing vessel or a steamer, or what she was, I do not know.
Lookout Fleet was similarly reluctant to speculate (US Inquiry, p.358):
It might have been a fisher sail, or something; it was only just one bright light. I could not say what it was.
At the British Inquiry, he offered no more information (question 17453):
I could not tell what it was, it might have been a sailing ship, or it might have been a steamer.
AB Symons (question 11478) said: ‘I took the light to be that of a cod-bankman – or fishing vessel’. And AB Frank Osman opined (US Inquiry, p.538): ‘I thought it was a sailing vessel from the banks’.
Nine separate crewmen then, including two ranking officers, suggest that the vessel might possibly have been a fishing craft. They must all be mistaken if the mystery ship is to be the Californian. And there is separate evidence that fishing boats were in the vicinity.
FISHING VESSELS ON THE SCENE
On 18 April 1912, the Belfast Newsletter reported a Reuters story that:
The Captain of the Ultonia [of the Cunard Line], which arrived at New York at midnight on the 16th instant, reported that he passed over the Titanic’s route and had seen a number of fishing boats near where the disaster occurred.
The Dow Jones news agency had also reported:
The Captain of Leyland Line freighter Etonian, which was not equipped with wireless and which docked in North River last night, reports that he passed along [the] route taken by Titanic and that a number of fishing boats were in the vicinity of the disaster at the time. He says he thinks many of the passengers if they secured life preservers may have been rescued by crews of fishing vessels.
But let us choose to ignore these claims and instead place reliance on Fourth Officer Boxhall who, it must be remembered, was armed with time, height, and binoculars. At the US Inquiry, the prime witness made clear his settled opinion (p.911):
Senator Fletcher: She could not have been a fishing vessel?
Boxhall: No, sir.
Sen. Fletcher: Was she a sailing vessel?
Boxhall: No, sir; a sailing vessel does not show steaming lights, or white lights.
And, later: ‘She might have been a four-mast ship or might have been a three-mast ship, but she certainly was not a two-mast ship’. It must thus be assumed, as the key evidence indicates, that the mystery ship was indeed a steamer, and one of some size.
CHOICES AND SIGNPOSTS
First the good news – we are finished for now with Titanic witnesses. Soon we shall examine what happened on the Californian that night. It is undoubtedly right that we should not rush away from the Titanic witnesses to get to the Californian. That haste in 1912 prevented the British and US Inquiries from properly analysing the evidence of the Titanic witnesses about a vessel that was, after all, their perplexing nearby ship, the one close enough to effect a rescue and to save hundreds of lives. The Titanic witnesses claim that their strange ship was moving and showed a red side light for most of the time she was present. It appears she could have shown a stern light as she later ‘made tracks’.
In deciding whether Californian could have been the Titanic’s mystery ship, we are now at a crossroads. We can take one of two routes. Either we can trust that Boxhall and others are correct, in which case Californian is not the mystery ship. Or we can believe that they are wrong, which still leaves the Californian as a potential myste
ry ship.
A reader having followed the thread of evidence to this point, concentrating on the Titanic witness testimonies, could be forgiven for already having severe doubts as to any possibility of the Californian being the mystery ship. Yet we must go down both routes signposted above, and see where they lead us. It may be noted that those in 1912 who rushed to label the Californian as the mystery ship seemed to feel no inclination to make any scenic tour in the other direction.
The inquiries effectively ignored the most credible Titanic witnesses, deeming them mistaken, and disregarded the preponderance of Titanic evidence as somehow irrelevant. A patient reader would certainly form a contrary impression.
So let us walk a hundred yards down the ‘Believing Boxhall’ road for a quick look at the vista it affords, before returning to take the short-cut to the Californian’s guilt.
If Boxhall and others are right, Californian is not the mystery ship. The corollary of this, of course, is that some other vessel is the mystery ship, and that the Californian is unseen by Titanic. Therefore the Californian lay over the visible horizon. If this is the case, she must have been at least 17 miles away (and probably more) according to unimpeachable scientific formulae. This is because 17 miles is the maximum observable mileage over the curvature of the earth for someone at 70ft, the height of Titanic’s bridge looking at an object the height of the Californian. If the distance becomes any larger than this, any object (such as a mastlight) disappears. The ship is said to be ‘hull down’ over the horizon, and unseen. The corpus of Titanic evidence, by marked contrast, puts the mystery ship approaching and visibly closing to 5 or 6 miles away, well inside the horizon. If Boxhall and others are right, then it makes perfect sense that the Titanic’s distant rockets should only rise halfway towards the masthead light of a ship which had stopped close to the Californian, and which was under observation by her.
