Titanic and the Mystery Ship

by Senan Molony

  Naess said: ‘We feared we might be taken for violating territorial borders and the lights out there meant there were Americans in the area. When the lights went out this probably meant that we had been observed, the rockets being maybe signals to other ships. We therefore changed course and hurried northwards.’

  On arriving in Iceland and hearing of the disaster, he checked the Samson’s log and found that the date and location fitted: ‘We had been ten miles away when the Titanic went down. There we were with our big excellent ship and eight [life]boats in calm, excellent weather. What might we not have done, if we had known? Alas we had no radio on board.’

  In 1921, a Norwegian yearbook reported that the Samson had been in the vicinity and could have had the opportunity of rescuing many ‘if the people on board had known what was taking place nearby’. Naess was not directly quoted.

  The story did not substantially emerge however until 1928 when Naess achieved a certain fame as an ice pilot taking charge of a vessel in the attempted rescue of the crew of the airship Italia, which had crashed somewhere in the Arctic after a flight to the North Pole. Norway’s famous son, Roald Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole, would be lost forever on a similar venture to find the lost crew of the Italia. It was in this undertaking, which became an international mercy mission, almost a race, that Naess was mentioned by his home town newspaper, the Arbeideravisen of Trondheim. In this interview, sixteen years after the Titanic disaster, Naess mentioned that he had seen rockets from the sinking White Star vessel, but that he and his captain, Carl Johann Ring, believed them to be flares from American patrol boats exchanging signals.

  Captain Ring was a maritime victim of the First World War. Naess thereafter became a captain himself, and would achieve recognition as ‘one of Norway’s most famous arctic explorers’. Naess worked with Baden Powell and Fridtjof Nansen, and was awarded the Royal Order of Merit by Norway for his discovery of valuable coalfields on Spitsbergen. He died in 1950.

  The case of the Samson returned to international attention in 1962, when the Norwegian state broadcaster aired a documentary to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Titanic disaster, highlighting Naess’s claims. Several detailed accounts of the incident, composed by Naess, eventually came to light. At least one version had the Samson seeing both the Titanic and her rockets. Naess said the Samson had been sealing illegally off the Grand Banks and it was feared the rockets might have been a signal to heave to and await a search party from an official vessel. The Samson instead fled the scene by engines. Sealing was indeed carried on in the area of the Titanic sinking, mainly by Canadian vessels. But the area is on the ‘high seas’ and no territorial limits applied so far from land, so there was no question of any illegality. The sealing season started in March as millions of newborn seals and their parents drifted south on frozen floes – with vessels venturing out to land clubbing parties on to the ice for pelts and blubber. Stealing the spoils of others was common.

  Cassie Brown in her book Death on the Ice, an account of the great Newfoundland sealing disaster of 1914 in which 132 men were stranded on an icefield for two days and nights, two-thirds of them dying, declared: ‘Piracy was almost a recognized part of the game’. It is noteworthy perhaps that one of the vessels involved in that 1914 disaster, the Florizel, had taken a peripheral part in Titanic body recovery two years earlier. It may also be worth noting that Third Officer Groves of the Californian saw seals he thought were bodies on drifting ice as his vessel searched the area on the morning of 15 April 1912.

  The author Leslie Reade has cast doubt on the Samson story. A revenue book he uncovered for the Icelandic port of Ísafjördur lists harbour charges against the Samson for 6 April and 20 April 1912, seeming to suggest the vessel was in port on those dates. Since Ísafjördur is about 1,500 miles from the scene of the sinking, it would require the Samson to make 300 miles a day, or a steady pace of 12½ knots to make port five days after the disaster.

  Charles McGuinness, chief officer of the Samson in her later incarnation as an exploration vessel, was not impressed with her speed. In his book Sailor of Fortune (Macrae-Smith, 1935) he writes: ‘In a dead calm the engines propelled the clumsy barque at a rate of six knots per hour’ (p.244).

  It seems scarcely possible for her to have been on the scene and made port again – yet US researcher David Eno insists that the revenue book shows prepayments and is not a harbour log as such. A charge relating to the Samson appears among vessels listed from 20–23 April.

  The Californian, having spent the entire morning of 15 April searching the scene, arrived in Boston at 4 a.m. on 19 April, a distance some 1,000 miles from the tragedy. The Carpathia had arrived in New York on 18 April at 9 p.m.

  Meandering at half the rate of those vessels, the Samson would have taken 10½ days to reach Iceland, a journey 500 miles further. It seems the earliest she could have put in at Ísafjördur would have been the afternoon of 25 April.

  Naess, however, does not mention the Samson being in Iceland before May. It is known she was there that month because of a fight involving her crew and locals, which was reported in the press.

  Despite the apparent contradictions in her account, the Samson was evidently a tidy ship. She was bought by the American Antarctic explorer, Admiral Richard Byrd, for use in polar expeditions – on the recommendation of Roald Amundsen – and renamed the City of New York. She had a hull 3ft thick, a metal-plated bow, and saw plenty of icebergs in a sea-going career that lasted more than seventy years. She was exhibited at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933, and became a total loss off Nova Scotia twenty years later.

  What benefit, meanwhile, the respected Naess could have hoped to gain by continuing in later life to freely connect his vessel with the sinking Titanic is not clear.

  Premier

  The Premier was a fishing schooner of just 374 tons, out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. She was 155ft long and captained by a Billy Morrison.

  The American magazine Sea Classics reported in 1970: ‘According to the recent report of a former Premier crew member [surnamed Rose], the Premier’s 22-man crew saw the gradually sinking Titanic about five miles distant but failed to realise she was in distress’. The Premier, like all schooners of her day, had no wireless. The crew’s reaction to the Titanic’s distress rockets is unknown. Rose said they noticed a great deal of debris on the water the next morning but did not realise its significance until learning of the disaster in Halifax several days later.

  The magazine suggested that the Premier might have been the mystery schooner with which the Mount Temple had a close encounter. It said crew members had ‘admitted witnessing the Titanic in her death throes’.

  A similar story is offered about the Dorothy Baird, another Gloucester schooner, of three masts and 241 tons. She was 118½ft long, and reported to have been in the area by the Etonian. Also mentioned in dispatches are vessels named Bruce, Dora, Kura and Pisa.

  Almerian

  The Almerian, just short of 3,000 tons, was another Leyland liner, like the Californian, except 100ft shorter. She was bound to the east, with a cargo from Mobile, Alabama. At 3 o’clock in the morning on 15 April, forty minutes after the Titanic sank, she stopped on the western side of the icefield. Another vessel was similarly stopped on the Almerian’s port quarter, according to a report later given to Captain Lord.

  When signalled by Morse lamp, all that could be made out of her reply were the letters ‘…ount…’, according to the account retailed in the book A Titanic Myth, by Leslie Harrison, based on paper’s in Captain Lord’s possession, now in Liverpool Maritime Museum.

  At daybreak, the Almerian could see that she was confronted by field ice. She began to go northwards to search for a way through the floes, and the vessel she had seen earlier got underway too. It was then they were able to read her name – Mount Temple.

  On the other side of the ice could be seen a large four-masted steamer with her derricks deployed (presumably the Carpathia). Continuing north, the Al
merian – which had no wireless – saw smoke shortly afterwards, which on nearer approach was seen to be coming from a ship of the same line (presumably the Californian). Before they got up to her on the western side of the ice, she changed course to the eastward and steamed through the ice in the direction of the four-master on the other side.

  A curiosity about this story is that the Almerian, which was heading east, did not then follow her sister ship through the path she had negotiated, but continued north (paradoxically in the direction from which the ice was drifting down), and only found a way through the ice at 10 a.m. The Almerian knew nothing of the tragedy, completing her passage to Europe.

  The explanation for the Almerian not following the Californian seems to be that the story is apparently in error on at least this detail – Captain Lord implied that he passed a pink-funnel steamer, which was heading northwards, before making his cut through the ice. Captain Rostron of the Carpathia gave evidence (question 25551):

  At 5 o’clock it was light enough to see all round the horizon. We then saw two steamships to the northwards, perhaps seven or eight miles distant. Neither of them was the Californian. One of them was a four-masted steamer with one funnel, and the other a two-masted steamer with one funnel.

  If these vessels then become the Mount Temple and Almerian respectively, and the Almerian, already 7 or 8 miles north of the Carpathia next heads further north, then it is impossible for the Leyland liner she encounters, the Californian, to cross her bows. They must pass before Lord’s descending vessel makes a sharp turn to port to head for the Carpathia. Captain Lord stated at the British Inquiry:

  7400. Was there another vessel near the Mount Temple? — There was a two-masted steamer, pink funnel, [Leyland liners had pink funnels, including both the Californian and Almerian] black top, steering north down to the north-west.

  Lord did not draw any further unwelcome attention to the Leyland Line, formally naming the Almerian only in 1959, but clearly that vessel was where he said she was, and at a most material time. Her reported story is intriguing and she has many unanswered questions of her own.

  It will be remembered that the captain of the Mount Temple said his vessel stopped at 3.25 a.m., some time later than the Almerian claims to have received ‘…ount…’ from a stationary steamer, judged in daylight to be the Mount Temple.

  Mount Temple

  Claims about the Mount Temple have been persistent. Moore said that when he first stopped, at 3.25 a.m., he estimated his vessel to be 14 miles from the Titanic’s transmitted SOS position, which was incorrect. This estimate, however, finds a curious echo in a letter Captain Lord received in August 1912 from a W.H. Baker, written on board the Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Britain (see ‘Lord’s Rebuttal’). Baker stated that he had filled a vacancy as fourth officer on the Mount Temple for her return journey across the Atlantic immediately following the Titanic tragedy. He wrote:

  The officers and others told me what they had seen on the eventful night when the Titanic went down, and from what they said, they were from ten to fourteen miles from her when they saw her signals.

  I gather from what was told me that the Captain seemed afraid to go through the ice, although it was not so very thick.

  A drawing of the overall scene by G. H. Davis which appeared in The Sphere on 4 May 1912 – long before any Californian witnesses were called before the British Inquiry. It correctly locates the Titanic sinking on the east side of the ice barrier, whereas Mount Temple arrived at the transmitted SOS position on the west side and found the ice impassable in front. While the map mistakes the location of the Carpathia and leaves out some other ships in the vicinity, it still stands as an indictment (before the fact) of the British Inquiry’s conclusions.

  They told me that they not only saw her decklights but several green lights between them and what they thought was the Titanic. There were two loud reports heard, which they said must have been the finale of the Titanic; this was sometime after sighting her, I gathered.

  The Captain said at the inquiry in Washington that he was 49 miles away but the officers state he was not more than fourteen miles off. I must tell you these men were fearfully indignant that they were not then called upon to give evidence at the time, for they were greatly incensed at the Captain’s behaviour in the matter.

  The doctor had made all preparations and rooms were turned into hospitals, etc, and the crew were standing by ready to help, on deck, watching her lights and what they said were the green lights burnt in the boats.

  On our arrival in Gravesend the Captain and Marconi officer were sent for, also the two log books, scrap and Chief Officer’s. What they wanted with the scrap log I cannot understand, for there was only about a line and a half within of what occurred during the four hours, and quite half a page in the Chief’s book! I saw this myself. These fellows must feel sorry for you, knowing that you could not, in the face of this, have been the mystery ship.

  Baker was verifiably aboard the Mount Temple as a replacement officer on the crossing in question, and other references in his letter prove accurate, yet the main aspects are admittedly hearsay, apart from what he claims to have personally seen.

  Lord made efforts to follow up this letter but found the Mount Temple’s fourth officer A.H. Notley (the man replaced by Baker), and the Mount Temple’s doctor, W.A. Bailey, both unwilling to go on the record. Bailey suggested Lord seek evidence from the officers aboard at the time who ‘saw certain things’.

  In October 1912, Lord submitted what he had, including Baker’s letter, to the Board of Trade. Baker alone appeared willing to give evidence, but the Board of Trade at the beginning of December replied merely that it would give ‘the most careful consideration to any signed statements’ from witnesses who had served in the Mount Temple on the night in question.

  The Mount Temple, built in 1901 at Newcastle, was 8,790 tons. She was sunk by the German raider Moewe in 1916. The many claimants about her conduct on the night the Titanic sank are documented in the author’s separate work, ‘Titanic Scandal: The Trial of the Mount Temple’ (Amberley, 2009).

  FURTHER READING

  The transcripts of both official inquiries make fascinating reading; The Loss of the SS Titanic, Report, Evidence &c, can be ordered in a 972-page tome from the Public Record Office: PRO Publications, Ruskin Avenue, Kew, Surrey, TW9 4DU, United Kingdom (ISBN: 1 873 162 707). The 1,162-page American report (paradoxically much shorter in verbiage than the British equivalent, is today entitled Titanic Disaster 1912 Hearings and is available from Documents on Demand (1800–227-2477, or from outside North America 1-301-951-4631), email: cisdod@lexis-nexis.com. DoD is an arm of the Congressional Information Service, Inc., 4520 East-West Highway, Bethesda, Maryland 20814–3389 USA.

  Both transcripts are available in a CD-ROM produced by the British National Archives at Kew (incorporating the Public Record Office) entitled ‘Titanic: The True Story’ (see: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/). They are also available on the internet via the Titanic Inquiry Project at http://www.titanicinquiry.org/

  The report ‘RMS Titanic – Reappraisal of Evidence Relating to SS Californian’ (1992) by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch at the Department of Transport can be ordered through the HMSO, PO Box 276, London, SW8 5DT, England (ISBN: 0 11 551111 3).

  Books specific to the Californian controversy include:

  Harrison, Leslie, A Titanic Myth (William Kimber & Co, 1986)

  Molony, Senan, Titanic: Victims and Villains (History Press, 2008)

  Padfield, Peter, The Titanic and the Californian (Hodder & Stoughton, 1965)

  Reade, Leslie, The Ship That Stood Still (Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1993)

  Other books referenced in this volume include:

  Beesley, Lawrence, The Loss of the SS Titanic (William Heinemann, 1912)

  Bisset, Sir James, Tramps and Ladies (Angus & Robertson, 1959)

  Gracie, Colonel Archibald, The Truth About the Titanic (Mitchell Kennerley, 1913)

  Grov
es, Charles Victor, The Middle Watch, unpublished manuscript, 1957

  Lightoller, Charles, Titanic and Other Ships (Nicholson and Watson, 1935)

  Molony, Senan, Titanic Scandal: The Trial of the Mount Temple (Amberley, 2009)

  Rostron, Sir Arthur, Home From The Sea (Macmillan, 1931)

  PLATE SECTION

  1. ‘A ship like the Titanic at sea is an utter impossibility for anyone to mistake …’ Titanic at Southampton, Good Friday, 5 April 1912. The funnels to the left belong to three other liners. They are (from left): the Majestic (9,950 tons), the Philadelphia (10,650 tons), and the St Louis (10,250 tons). The cargo steamer Californian was 6,223 tons. Her captain described the vessel lying nearby as ‘something like ourselves’. What would the world’s largest passenger ship look like within ‘easy distance’? (Southampton City Collection)

  2. The RMS Titanic at Queenstown, midday, Thursday 11 April 1912. (William W.L. McLean)

  3. The presence of a mystery ship within 5 miles of the sinking Titanic made for sensational headlines. That this vessel ‘continued on her way’ remains shocking a century later. (New York Herald, 23 April 1912)

  4. White Star Line managing director J. Bruce Ismay. (The Sphere)

  5. Journalists and photographers outside the White Star Line offices at Bowling Green, New York, before the full extent of the disaster became known. The offices also served the Leyland Line. (Library of Congress)

  6. A Leyland Line leaflet showing the boat deck of one of their steamers, around 1918. Apprentice James Gibson saw a tramp 4–7 miles from the Californian. Meanwhile, Officer Pitman of the Titanic believed his ship’s blowing off steam ought to have been heard 10 miles away. The Titanic also fired rockets ‘in lieu of guns’ – but although Gibson saw rockets, he could not hear their detonations. Lawrence Beesley, in a lifeboat, was able to hear Carpathia rockets at least 7 miles away.