Titanic and the Mystery Ship

by Senan Molony

  [The Solicitor General] I understand, my Lord.

  Yet look at Mersey’s Final Report, referenced earlier. He does not rely on the absence of any mention of rockets in the log – scrap or otherwise – as a plank of argument. He instead relies on the fact of destruction of the scrap log as a tool for a quite different suggestion – that of a conspiracy in relation to the Californian’s position.

  Yet Mersey knew (when he crudely wielded the destruction of the scrap log as a weapon in another context) that it was, in his own words, ‘the practice… to destroy… the scrap log’. He chose to deliberately misrelate the evidence for his own ends. The scrap log is clearly being misused as a crutch for Lord Mersey’s declared satisfaction that the overnight stop position is ‘not accurate’.

  Yet Stone, who certainly might have entered the rockets he saw, would not have had any reason to include the Californian’s position in his scrap log notes. He came on the bridge for the middle watch after midnight. Groves was serving the previous watch from 8 p.m. to midnight (question 8115), with the Californian stopping midway through at 10.21 (although Groves thought it was 10.26). These details should have been recorded in Groves’ scrap log. And this is what Groves had to say about the reported stop position, it is worth recalling:

  8425. In the log book it is stated that when you stopped your ship in the ice the position of the ship was 42° 5’ N and longitude 50° 7’ W. Is that accurate? — Well, it is bound to be accurate if the Captain put it in.

  Groves, be it remembered, was the last officer of the watch. It was his responsibility to take the Californian due west on the Boston track. He oversaw compass, course and speed. He knew his ship was substantially separated from the Titanic on the separate, southern, New York track. There is no basis, therefore, for suggesting that Stone’s scrap log would have contained any mention of a ‘giveaway’ Californian position. We know instead that Stone’s scrap log was effectively blank.

  To be the mystery ship, Californian would have to have travelled at least 14 miles to the south (42° 05’ minus 41° 46’ is 19 minutes – 19 miles of latitude, less the average 5 miles separation from the Titanic cited by witnesses on the White Star vessel). Groves knew the Californian had not headed south. Because he was the one in charge at the time – it had been his duty to continue her progress due west!

  Lord Mersey may have found it difficult to believe that scrap logs were routinely destroyed, until Mr Laing’s intervention to point out that exactly the same position obtained on the Titanic and other White Star vessels. Here is Lightoller, second officer of the Titanic, in confirmation: ‘The speed was taken down, I understand, in the log? — Yes, that would be kept in the scrap log’ (14361).

  And here is Pitman, third officer of the Titanic (US Inquiry, p.301):

  Senator Fletcher: What officer had charge of the log of the ship?

  Pitman: Well, the Fifth and Sixth usually keep that. Which log do you mean? We keep two or three. The scrap log is kept on the bridge; the Fifth and Sixth look after that. The Chief Officer’s log is copied from that… which is really the official log.

  Meanwhile Groves, the Californian third officer, who gave evidence to the British Inquiry about seeing a ‘passenger steamer’, told of the fate which befell every scrap log (including his own that night from his personal period on watch):

  8507. Is the scrap log here? — No, it is not kept.

  8508. [The Commissioner] Is it destroyed from time to time? — It is destroyed from time to time. There is one log always kept, of course, but the scrap log is destroyed from time to time.

  Groves also told of opening a new scrap log, with pre-ruled pages to be torn out as required, for the Californian’s homeward voyage from Boston to Liverpool:

  8530. Groves …We had evidently finished the old one, otherwise I should not have started it.

  8531/2. Where is that old one? — I expect it was thrown away.

  8533. …I expect it went over the side.

  The scrap log usually related to the Californian’s own information, such as speed, course, weather, and so on. Groves’ evidence shows that his own scrap log, prepared just before Stone took over after midnight, contained no mention whatsoever of his ‘passenger steamer’ that came up and stopped nearby:

  8550. As you were making entries in the scrap log book from 8 to 12 that night, do you know whether you made any entry as to any ship that you saw? — No, no entry whatsoever relating to any ship.

  So how sinister now is Stone’s failure to relate the rockets of another ship? Whether or no, the British Inquiry was inclined to make a great deal of the Californian’s ‘missing’ log, notwithstanding the fact of Titanic’s missing log and identical scrap system.

  It meant that Robertson Dunlop, counsel for the Leyland Line, felt he had to address the climate of suspicion on the issue in his closing address to the Inquiry. He insisted that the Californian’s official log, the master copy, contained all the information – or lack of it – that had been included in the source material (British Inquiry, p.833):

  …It was not suggested to the Master, or the officers of the Californian, nor are there any grounds for the suggestion, that the log before your Lordship has been ‘cooked’. The log on the face of it appears to be a perfectly genuine log.

  [The Attorney General] I think you are putting that too high – you say there is no suggestion.

  [Mr Dunlop] No question was put, my Lord, to the Master.

  [The Commissioner] Just a moment, please. The scrap log is gone.

  [Mr Dunlop] The scrap log is gone, and the explanation of that was given by the witnesses when they were asked about it.

  [The Commissioner] And as far as I remember it was given in a way that satisfied me that it had gone.

  One can see immediately that no suggestion or accusation of ‘cookery’ of the log was ever put to Captain Stanley Lord or any of the Californian witnesses. Yet this very smear was later outrageously inserted into the Final Report and placed in the public arena by Lord Mersey himself! Such a decision was a betrayal of Mersey’s duty to elicit the truth. The scrap log simply had nothing whatsoever to do with whether the Californian could have been the Titanic’s mystery ship. Note, too, the role of the Attorney General, legal adviser to the British Government, in his sly intervention to bolster Mersey’s prejudice.

  22

  THE FINAL REPORT

  The inquiries accepted the Titanic’s SOS position without question. The Titanic, we know, saw a mystery ship off her port bow and fired rockets. The Californian meanwhile saw rockets to the south-south-east. Therefore, if the Californian was the Titanic’s mystery ship, it follows, by 1912 acceptance of the SOS position, that she had to be located to the west side of the ice barrier, whereas we know she stopped to the east. And not only this – but it becomes necessary to argue that the Titanic’s head must also have been pointing to the north… thereby allowing not only the Californian to see rockets to the south-south-east, but for her be the Titanic’s mystery ship, seen to the north-north-west from the opposite point of view. The Titanic’s head must be pointing north in this model of fitting-the-Californian – because the mystery ship is seen off the port bow of the Titanic!

  It will thus be grasped that all other thirty-one points of the compass favour Captain Lord’s vessel not being the mystery ship! Those who accuse the Californian, therefore, are gambling all on just a 3.12 per cent chance in the uncertain sweepstake of how the Titanic was pointing her bows.

  A crucial point to grasp is that the Californian has no such ‘heading’ needs, and she will always see rockets to the south-south-east once the Titanic is put back towards the place where her wreck was found, a location that is indisputable. Californian will still see rockets where she said she saw them, irrespective of how the Titanic might be pointing her bows, whether to north, south, east or west – because the rockets will rise from their point of origin, however the unseen ship (Titanic) might be deployed, swinging or spinning.

  If
the Titanic is on the east side of the barrier and firing rockets towards a mystery ship, then it equally does not matter where that mystery ship is located (in terms of the compass), once the Californian’s stop position is acknowledged as credible. And it is now highly credible, in the light of what we know since 1985. The discovery of the wreck has finally disposed of the SOS position sent by Titanic. Believing the Californian’s stop position now makes complete sense in a scenario that must involve two pairs of ships.

  If the Titanic is in reality firing rockets at a completely different ship, and they are both over the visible horizon from the Californian, then the Californian can see those rockets to be lying low over her own nearby stranger, which Lord, Stone and Gibson agreed was a nondescript tramp. The Californian saw rockets to the south-south-east – on the same bearing as their nearby ship. This is a literal coincidence, as the rockets and the nearby ship coincide. Regarding rockets, Stone comments: ‘I had seen white lights in the sky in the direction of this other steamer’ (7829), ‘immediately above this other steamer’ (7832), which was bearing ‘first south-south-east’ (7940).

  Again, this scenario does not at all require the Titanic to be aligned on the same vector with her mystery ship – meaning the four-ships-in-a-line idea often erroneously offered. If both the Titanic and her mystery ship are over the visible horizon from the Californian, they can relate to each other in any way at all, and it is irrelevant to the rockets. The only requirement for confusion aboard the Californian is for the rockets (from a distant Titanic) to show in the same direction as their own nearby ship. That ship of the Californian’s will eventually steam off to the south-south-west, and Stone will say that the rockets changed their bearing with her. But this description cannot mean that the Californian’s nearby ship was the Titanic, because the Titanic not only was not a tramp steamer, but did not steam or move anywhere after striking her berg.

  It has been postulated that the angle of elevation of the rockets could have changed as the Titanic was sinking. Viewed from a great distance however, the lights can only appear largely the same, so the argument is flawed. It might be that Stone simply continues to link the rockets with the moving ship in his own mind. Or he may have realised at the Inquiry that to disconnect the later rockets from the near ship would have left him open to the charge of ignoring some other ship whose well-being he could not establish, since he could not see her.

  Yet it is essential to keep in mind what we now know, beyond all dispute, which is that the Californian’s claimed stopping place in 1912 is 23½ nautical miles in a direct line (and on the correct ‘rockets vector’) from the centre of the Titanic debris field. This is massively beyond the horizon for Californian to see Titanic that night – and it is inescapable, because the Titanic had to sink where she was actually found!

  This is what destroys the idiotic idea of some writers (based on Groves), who claim the wounded Titanic might have closed the gap by voyaging north after the collision, thereby getting closer to a stopped Californian. The Titanic’s track was along latitude line 41° 46’ N (the same latitude given in the SOS), but after the impact she drifted south – and in fact sank in a latitude of 41° 43’ N.

  That’s where the wreck site is today – 3 nautical miles south of the SOS latitude and the New York track Titanic was following. If the Titanic went any distance at all to the north by engines therefore, she would have to reverse the entire distance back to her starting point, and then reverse further to the south (to make up for lost time!) – because she always sank where she is today. Her wreck site, to the south of the track, conclusively disproves the claim.

  Let us backtrack to 1912. The inquiries accepted that the Titanic sank in the SOS position transmitted, whereas the Californian claimed to be far to the north-east of that spot. If Californian were to the north-east of the Titanic (sinking at the SOS position), then she should have seen Titanic’s rockets to the far south-west, and not to the south-south-east. Remember our triangle ‘r’, with Californian at the top.

  So, if the Californian saw rockets to the south-south-east, as she said, and if her claim to be where she said she was is also true, then it would necessarily mean to the 1912 Inquiry (built on the cornerstone of the SOS position) that two ships were firing rockets at roughly the same period, these ships being the Titanic, whose rockets Californian thus did not see, and an unknown stranger (whose rockets she did). This idea, quite understandably, was rejected, leaving the British Inquiry with the simple choice to believe either the Californian’s position, or that of the Titanic. They had two separate positional claims which could not both be right.

  It was not a difficult choice. The Titanic would have no reason to lie about something as crucial as an SOS position. The Californian could, however, have a motive for lying. The British Inquiry chose to rely absolutely on the Titanic’s SOS position, and once this was laid down as fact, then the Californian’s claimed position, in the absence of another rocket-firing ship, could no longer stand. It was thus a short journey of reasoning to place the Californian to the north-north-west of the Titanic, her confessed sighting of rockets to the south-south-east now dovetailing nicely with the Titanic’s sighting of a ship on the reverse bearing.

  All of this, in the British Inquiry’s view, allowed the Californian’s claimed stop position to be portrayed as false. And when added to Lord Mersey’s erroneous deductions about ‘speeding wreckage’, it would appear the Californian was indeed peddling falsehoods. But it was the Titanic’s SOS position that was wrong. The wreck was found in 1985, 13 miles to the east of the SOS position, and east of the ice barrier. Now, when the Californian is returned to her claimed stop position of 1912, she is found to be on a correct line to see rockets to the south-south-east, as everyone had agreed she had seen them. And Stone said those rockets were ‘very low-lying’ (7921). To understand what happened, therefore, it is necessary that the Titanic be moved to the east, not the Californian to the west!

  There is no absolute proof how far distant the White Star and Leyland liners were from each other in 1912, apart from their being at opposite ends of a line running north-north-west (‘’) to south-south-east. But since the discovery of the Titanic wreck, we can at least say that the Californian’s repeatedly-cited 1912 stop position, which not only put her neck firmly in the noose at the time but virtually kicked open the gallows trapdoor, is no longer so easily imagined to be false.

  Indeed, her claims must instead be considerably strengthened, given that the Titanic’s SOS position is proven to have been hopelessly in error.

  TURN, TURN, TURN AGAIN

  It has been seen that it is necessary for the Titanic to have been pointing generally north after her collision with the iceberg in order for the mystery ship appearing off the port bow to be the Californian, which sees rockets to the south-south-east. But there is no reliable evidence, at least in the Attorney General’s opinion, as to how the Titanic’s head was pointing after impact. The change of heading from westward, as the Titanic had been driving, to a heading north, represents a fairly violent turn.

  We know there was a violent turn to avoid the berg, but to port, not to starboard. This would leave the Titanic pointing momentarily south of west – but even still it was not enough because the berg impacted on the starboard bow. The helmsman at the time, Quartermaster Robert Hichens, specifically says:

  1000. Then she comes round two points and then strikes. Is that right? — The vessel veered off two points, she went to the southward of west.

  Now, it is claimed that what happened next was that the bridge ordered the wheel swung hard in the opposite direction, in order to swing the Titanic’s stern away from the berg. This was a second turn that would have the effect of a starboard manoeuvre. The contention is that this next turn would have the effect of leaving the Titanic’s head to the north. But the only problem is that such a long, extended turn to starboard is not convincingly attested in evidence!

  Note that putting the helm hard-a-starboard mea
nt to swing the ship’s head to port, as the rudder orders were contrary to the intended direction of travel. Ordering hard-a-port would have the effect of sending the ship’s head to starboard. Therefore a left turn to avoid the berg would involve a ‘hard-a-starboard’ command, while a command to swing to the right, to take the stern away from impact, would require ‘hard-a-port’.

  Here is Hichens:

  948. Had you had any instructions before she struck? Had you been told to do anything with your helm before she struck? — Just as she struck I had the order ‘Hard a starboard’, when she struck.

  949. Just as she struck, is that what you said? — Not immediately as she struck, the ship was swinging [to the left]. We had the order, ‘Hard a starboard’, and she just swung about two points when she struck.

  Officer Boxhall said he overheard what First Officer Murdoch, in command at the time of impact, said to the captain to explain what had happened:

  15355. What conversation took place between them? — The First Officer [Murdoch] said, ‘An iceberg, Sir. I hard-a-starboarded and reversed the engines, and I was going to hard-a-port round it but she was too close’.

  Note that carefully: ‘I was going to hard-a-port round it’. It is implied by Boxhall’s account that Murdoch did not have a chance to fully carry out the second manoeuvre to swing the stern out of the way – he was only ‘going’ to make the manoeuvre. In fact, he explicitly said this at the US Inquiry (p.230):