Titanic and the Mystery Ship

by Senan Molony

  Captain Lord’s longitude and ship’s time one hour fifty minutes ahead of New York would suggest an on-board time seventeen minutes ahead of Titanic (before midnight at least, when it was common to put clocks back in anticipation of the next local noon). When Titanic was striking an iceberg at 11.40 p.m. her time, therefore, it was three minutes before midnight on the Californian.

  Lord confirmed this one hour fifty minutes in his British evidence. But Californian Wireless Operator Cyril Evans claimed on the other hand that the ship was one hour and fifty-five minutes ahead of New York (not one hour fifty minutes). It would appear Evans is mistaken, since he did not have direct access to navigational calculations.

  After midnight, Titanic time seems to have generally run on (although it was due to go back), whereas Californian time might have gone back ten minutes to put her just seven minutes ahead of perceived time for many on the White Star liner during the period when rockets were fired.

  We did say it was a quagmire! Presumably the Carpathia, sending that message on the morning after disaster, was relying on surviving Titanic officers – and checking watches against New York time.

  Officer Pitman timed the sinking at 2.20 a.m. by his wristwatch, partly supporting his brother officers. The situation is complicated, and we cannot be certain of the time difference between Californian and Titanic. So let us return to the narrative, knowing only that time on both ships was not the same.

  Captain Lord, who saw only one masthead light on the stranger, in contrast to Groves’ two, had been carrying out his own observations from a lower deck, unseen by Groves (US Inquiry, p.728):

  When I came off the bridge, at half past 10, I pointed out to the officer that I thought I saw a light coming along, and it was a most peculiar night, and we had been making mistakes all along with the stars, thinking they were signals. We could not distinguish where the sky ended and where the water commenced. You understand, it was a flat calm. He said he thought it was a star, and I did not say anything more. I went down below. I was talking with the engineer about keeping the steam ready, and we saw these signals coming along, and I said ‘There is a steamer passing. Let us go to the wireless and see what the news is’. But on our way down I met the operator coming, and I said, ‘Do you know anything?’ He said: ‘The Titanic’. So, then, I gave him instructions to let the Titanic know. I said: ‘This is not the Titanic; there is no doubt about it’. She came and lay at half past 11 alongside of us, until, I suppose, a quarter past; within 4 miles of us.

  Lord talks of pointing out the light at 10.30 p.m. to an officer at a time when it was Third Officer Groves’ watch. In a 1959 affidavit, Lord said he pointed out the light to Groves, who thought it was a star. Groves admits to confusion about low-lying stars but does not mention the light being pointed out to him by Captain Lord at 10.30 p.m., before he himself saw a ship approaching at 11.10 p.m.

  There is a big difference here. Lord says he spotted the light as early as 10.30 p.m. and mentioned it to Groves. But Groves said in evidence that he first noticed a ship approaching at 11.10 p.m., forty minutes later.

  Yet Lord did see a ship at his earlier time, because he spoke first to the Chief Engineer about it and then to the wireless officer. A wireless message warning of ice was sent out ten minutes before Groves, who was on watch, says he noticed another steamer in the vicinity.

  The crux is clear – the Californian’s own mystery ship was seen at 10.30 p.m. by the Californian, and if their near ship was the Titanic as claimed, then the Titanic in turn must have seen the Californian’s lights, particularly as she had far greater observation height.

  Even at a minimum time difference between the ships, such a visual encounter is happening an hour or more before the Titanic’s collision. Yet the Titanic saw nothing. Recall Lord’s evidence:

  7120. Suppose the Titanic was 7 or 8 miles from you between 11.30 and 12 o’clock, would those on her bridge have been able to see your lights? — Easily.

  Meanwhile Lord says he remained on the deck (which was lower than the bridge, where Groves was) watching this mystery steamer himself for quite a while.

  This is a very important point. Somehow the myth has grown up that Lord never saw the Californian’s own approaching ship and was not interested in finding out about her. The evidence however shows that not only did Lord see her earliest of all – a tribute to his eyesight – but he then deployed his concentration for a considerable period in studying the visitor:

  6749. Did you continue to watch the approaching, vessel? [Lord] Yes.

  6750. Till what time? — Half-past 11 [Titanic collided at 11.40 her time]. I was standing on deck watching it.

  6751. All this time you were stopped? — We were stopped.

  6752. What size steamer did she appear to you – can you give us some idea? — She was something like ourselves. [Californian 6,233 tons, Titanic 46,000 tons!]

  6753. Something like yourselves? — Yes.

  6754. Medium size? — A medium size steamer.

  6755. Did you see your Third Officer attempt to communicate with him? — I did.

  6758. How? — By Morse lamp.

  6758. Did he get any reply? — No [Titanic flashed her stranger with ‘Come at once, we are sinking’, but saw no reply].

  6759. By this time had you been able to detect her side lights at all? — I could see her green light then.

  6760. How far do you judge she was when you could see her green light? — Well, I saw it some time between 11 and half-past; I do not know exactly.

  6761. What distance do you think she was from you when you could see the lights? — About five miles.

  6762. As much as that? — About that, I should think.

  It should be noted that Lord believed the ship he was watching came to a stop at 11.30 p.m. This was his cue for leaving the deck and going inside. This move coincides with Groves’ visit down from the bridge to tell Lord about the ship he has recently noticed. Groves says:

  8169. …when I went down to him [Lord] it would be as near as I could judge about 11.30.

  8170. What did you say to him? — I knocked at his door and told him there was a steamer approaching us, coming up on the starboard quarter.

  Size Comparison

  Ship GRT Length (ft) Beam (ft) Hull depth (ft) Electric lights

  Titanic 46,328 882.5 92 60.5 10,000

  Californian 6,223 447.5 53 30 260

  Lord knew this already. What he didn’t expect was Groves’ next claim that the vessel was a passenger steamer. It is worth quoting Groves in full:

  8174. [You] said ‘She is evidently a passenger steamer’? — Yes, my Lord.

  8175. You added something to that answer? — ‘Coming up on the starboard quarter’.

  8176. Did you say why you thought she was a passenger steamer? — Yes, I told him that I could see her deck lights and that made me pass the remark that she was evidently a passenger steamer…

  8178. How many deck lights had she? Had she much light? — Yes, a lot of light. There was absolutely no doubt her being a passenger steamer, at least in my mind…

  8182. Now is that all you said to the Captain before he said something to you? — Yes. He said, ‘Call her up on the Morse lamp, and see if you can get any reply’.

  Lord had personally witnessed only minutes earlier what he called a ‘medium steamer’, ‘something like ourselves’, with ‘a few white lights’. Now Groves was insisting that he told the captain that what was coming close to the Californian was ‘evidently a passenger steamer’. Lord ought to have been astonished at this claim, and one might imagine him straight away going out to check again that his eyes were not playing tricks.

  But Lord denied that Groves had imparted any such information: ‘Did he say to you that she was evidently a passenger steamer? — No’ (6830).

  Lord’s prescription of Morse lamp signalling and his lack of special interest in the other ship at this point are common to both accounts. Whose account of the visitor does that tally with bes
t? Would a captain mutely accept an assurance from an underling that the captain’s privately formed opinion was utterly wrong?

  We will look later at Groves’ description of the course being adopted by his ‘passenger steamer’, but at this point there is a clear disparity between Groves’ ship, reported at 11.30 p.m., and the one Lord had seen up to an hour earlier and personally viewed for some time.

  It will be remembered that wireless operator Cyril Evans gave evidence of seeing Lord talking to the ‘Chief Officer’ shortly after 10.25 p.m., which matches Lord’s evidence. The Morsing ordered by Lord now took place. The first attempt began immediately – just after 11.30 p.m., we may suppose. Very soon thereafter Lord came up to the bridge for another look, by Groves’ evidence, because Groves was still Morsing when Lord appeared:

  8481. When did he (the Captain) come up? — About 11.45 onto the bridge.

  8482. You reported to the Captain at 11.30? — About 11.30.

  8483. And then the Captain at some time looked at her and said: ‘That does not look like a passenger steamer’? — That was about 11.45 on the bridge.

  8484. What lights was she then showing? — Two masthead lights and a side light, and a few minor lights [author’s italics].

  8485. Some deck lights? — A few deck lights, yes, that is what I could see.

  8486. Is that before or after you say the deck lights had gone out? — That was after the deck lights went out.

  How do we square ‘a few minor lights’ with the Titanic’s 10,000 electric lights all told, quite apart from her additional oil-burning lamps? The Titanic had eight decks of light, the upper decks particularly bright. The sheer layering of lights, if that ship was the Titanic, ought to have been unmistakable! Groves’ shipmate, apprentice officer James Gibson seems to be referring to deck after deck of brightness on large passenger vessels when he later describes (in his response to question 7720) how ‘a passenger boat is generally lit up from the water’s edge’ when the one he could see was not.

  He could tell the difference between cargo boats and large liners at night by the sheer quantity of lights in the latter leviathans (question 7802). Groves says the vessel is a passenger steamer, and said previously that she had ‘a lot of light’, yet he is also the person who does not now see a quantity of lights but instead only ‘a few minor lights’. Groves suggests that this is because the vessel has for some reason quenched her main lights. It is difficult to see how he can have it both ways – the Titanic passengers watched her lights burning brightly to the end, even from lifeboats 1 and 2 miles away. They saw line after line of shining portholes. There seems no possibility of the Titanic displaying only ‘a few deck lights’ either before her collision or in its aftermath, having doused her ‘deck lights’. Dousing did not happen. Again, a hypothesis aimed at making Groves’ ship the Titanic suggests that the Titanic somehow turned obliquely to the Californian, thus showing little light. But read Groves again. He can see the side light – meaning some of the broadside! Indeed the sheer shining spectacle of the sinking Titanic was one of the enduring memories for many disaster survivors. The lights burned to the very last; there are accounts telling how lights were still showing in the stern even when the bow had disappeared. And those lights went out suddenly at the death – unlike the gradual declining later seen from Californian, consistent with a steaming away.

  By the time he came to give his testimony, Groves, ‘from what I have heard subsequently’, had become convinced that the ship he saw was the Titanic. And Lord insisted that Groves first declared that the ship he saw was in his opinion the Titanic, only after the Californian had made her return journey to Liverpool.

  Yet Groves’ vessel does not seem to have the vertical height needed to be the Titanic from his rather prosaic description. Instead it arguably seems much how his own ship, the Californian, might appear to an observer. The Californian regularly carried up to forty-seven paying customers. Does that make her a ‘passenger steamer’? This brings us to another point: at no time did Groves ever describe his ship as ‘large’ or ‘big’. The only suggestion of size comes from the subtle impression created by the phrase ‘passenger steamer’.

  To return to the narrative; Groves testified (question 8206) that Captain Lord had not been on the bridge since about 10.35 p.m., but reappeared at 11.45 p.m. when a burst of Morsing was underway.

  8207. You went on the bridge after he had told you to signal with the Morse light?

  Groves: Yes.

  8208. And you did signal and then, as I understand, the Captain came on to the bridge? — Not until after I was Morsing. I was actually Morsing when he came up.

  8209. Very well, he came up and he remarked to you: ‘She does not look like a passenger steamer’? — That is so.

  8210. And you said: ‘It is’? — Yes.

  Groves in his evidence above is repeating what he said was his earlier assertion to the captain when below that a ‘passenger steamer’ was approaching. Captain Lord, having denied the earlier imparting of such a claim, would testify (question 6830) that Groves did not announce the nearby vessel as a passenger steamer when he came on the bridge again shortly before midnight. Therefore Lord had no reason to state, and says he did not state, that ‘She does not look like a passenger steamer’.

  There is a direct clash on this point between the two men. However both will leave the scene shortly and observations of Californian’s nocturnal visitor will be taken over by two other men. It will be interesting to see whose interpretation of the vessel they favour.

  Groves continues:

  8211. Now you said something about the lights going out; what was it? — Well he said to me: ‘It does not look like a passenger steamer’. I said: ‘Well, she put her lights out at 11.40’ — a few minutes ago that was [Groves seeks to explain, or arguably to dilute, his previous ‘it is’ insistence].

  8212. Then had she put her lights out before the Captain came on the bridge? — Yes, my Lord.

  8213. When did she put her lights out? — At 11.40.

  8214. And you told the Captain this, did you? — Yes.

  8215. What did he say to that; did he say anything? — When I remarked about the passenger steamer he said: ‘The only passenger steamer near us is the Titanic’.

  8216. He said that, did he? — Yes, my Lord.

  8217. What makes you fix the time 11.40 for her lights going out? — Because that is the time we struck one bell to call the middle watch.

  8219. Did the steamer continue on her course after that? — No, not so far as I could see.

  8220. She stopped? — She stopped.

  8221. Was that at the time when her lights appeared to go out? — That was at the time that her lights appeared to go out.

  8222. Were the lights you saw on her port side or her starboard side? — Port side.

  8223. I want to ask you a question. Supposing the steamer whose lights you saw turned two points to port at 11.40, would that account to you for her lights ceasing to be visible to you? — I quite think it would.

  It is here being suggested by counsel that Groves’ ‘passenger steamer’ was the Titanic and would have turned at or after impact – thereby facing due north – shutting in her lights and making her appear like a small tramp to Lord. The nominal similarity of times – 11.40 p.m. – proves irresistibly attractive. But Groves is actually agreeing with a suggestion that a steamer turned at a time which, according to the ‘twelve-minute theory’ turns out to be twelve minutes after the Titanic hit her berg (Californian time being behind that of the Titanic, as the theory suggests).

  By the alternative time difference theory (the one accepted by the US Inquiry), the Californian was seventeen minutes ahead of the Titanic’s time. In applying this version, Groves would have seen a very strange manoeuvre on the other ship at 11.23 p.m. Titanic time, or seventeen minutes before she struck the berg! Let us resist making both ships’ times directly interchangeable, for the one thing we do know is that they were not the same, both ships
being in different locations when they set their clocks to local noon.

  Let us instead get back to a vessel which makes a turn, thereby shutting in her lights by counsel’s version, or physically extinguishes them in Groves’ account. While Groves has somehow missed the turn that results in a westbound vessel suddenly showing him her port side, it should be noted that Captain Lord was also watching this vessel, from below, before joining Groves at 11.45 p.m.

  Lord was studying the ship independently from the lower deck just prior to ascending the bridge (question 6766: ‘I was up and down off the bridge till 12 o’clock’). He did not see any lights go out on the vessel:

  6864. Were you on deck about 20 minutes to 12? — I was on deck, yes [Groves, on the bridge above, said it was 11.40 p.m. when the lights went out – see question 8213, above. This is five minutes before Groves said Lord joined him on the bridge].

  6866. Did you see that the deck lights of this vessel appeared to go out? — Not to me.

  Nor did he see any turn. In fact Lord repeatedly offered his belief that the stranger had stopped at 11.30 p.m., ten minutes before Groves suggests she did. If she stopped when Lord says she did, then she cannot turn for Groves in order to hide her ‘passenger steamer’ lights.

  A cynical person could make the argument that Groves’ sudden change in the vessel’s appearance is merely a fig-leaf to allow him to have seen her as both a ‘passenger steamer’ and an ordinary vessel, with few lights, like Lord. A cynic, indeed, might view this as a desperate defence.

  Lord now ascends the bridge at 11.45 p.m. and continues to find himself looking at a vessel which he did not consider a passenger steamer, but ‘something like ourselves’:

  6829. A quarter to 12 was the first time I ever mentioned anything to him about the steamer, that I recollect.

  6830. Did he say to you that she was evidently a passenger steamer? — No.