Titanic and the Mystery Ship

by Senan Molony

  7. Captain Stanley Lord in 1908, aboard the Leyland Liner SS Louisianian. The port companionway to the steamer’s flying-bridge is in the background. He had previously seen the Olympic, Titanic’s sister ship, at a distance of 5 miles. Lord made clear the steamer close to his own vessel was ‘something like ourselves’. (Estate of Stanley Tutton Lord decd)

  8. The Boston Herald of Friday 26 April pictured the ‘steamship Californian of [the] Leyland Line lying at her dock at East Boston’. A pejorative headline – ‘Liner Charged with Deserting Titanic’ – accompanied the photograph.

  9. The Californian at 8.30 on the morning of 15 April 1912. Photographed from the Carpathia by honeymooning couple James and Mabel Fenwick. The vessel clearly still has some way on her, indicating Captain Lord’s anxiety to reach the scene. The Carpathia, laden with Titanic lifeboats, is reflected on the hull of the Californian. (Courtesy George Fenwick)

  10. The Californian under construction at the Robb Caledon yard. She cost £105,000, compared to the Titanic’s £1.5 million ten years later. When this picture was taken, in November 1901, her later captain, Stanley Lord, had already been awarded his Extra Master’s certificate – at the extraordinarily young age of twenty-three. (Dundee City Archives)

  11. The Californian photographed from the Carpathia by passenger Louis Ogden on the morning of the rescue. She is flying the ‘J’ signal flag, indicating that she wishes to communicate by semaphore with the Cunarder. The Californian was sunk by U-35 off Cape Matapan, Greece, on 9 November 1915. (National Archive and Records Administration)

  12. Californian crew members, put out of court on the morning of Tuesday 14 May as their captain was giving evidence. From left: George Glenn, fireman; William Thomas, greaser; Cyril Evans, wireless operator (holding his messages log); James Gibson, apprentice; Herbert Stone, second officer; William Ross, A.B.; Charles Groves, third officer; George Stewart, chief officer. (Illustrated London News)

  13. The Titanic’s surviving officers. Back row, from left: Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, Second Officer Charles Lightoller, Fourth Officer Joseph Groves Boxhall. Front, seated: Third Officer Herbert Pitman. All these men clung to low estimates of distance to the mystery ship, despite Inquiry findings. (Southampton City Council collection)

  14. Captain Stanley Lord. (Estate of Stanley Tutton Lord decd)

  15. Californian Second Officer Herbert Stone. (Public Record Office)

  16. Californian Third Officer Charles Victor Groves. (Public Record Office)

  17. Californian apprentice officer James Gibson. He was sure the vessel he was looking at had only one masthead light, and thought she ‘looked like a tramp steamer’.

  18. Titanic Able Seaman Thomas Jones and Quartermaster George Rowe. Rowe fired rockets and worked a port-side Morse lamp in a bid to summon the mystery ship. Thomas Jones was sent away in boat No.8, charged by Captain Smith with landing his passengers on the near steamer and returning with her to rescue all aboard Titanic. (Courtesy Chris Dohany)

  19. Californian Donkeyman and deserter Ernest Gill. (Boston American)

  20. Californian lookout Benjamin Kirk. He was told to ‘look out for the Titanic’ when hoisted up the Californian mainmast on the morning after the sinking.

  21. Californian Chief Officer George Frederick Stewart. The British Inquiry indicates he took a Pole Star observation at 10.30 p.m. which neatly verified the Californian’s latitude. It had already been estimated by means of traditional ‘dead reckoning’. (Public Record Office)

  22. Fifth Officer Harold Lowe. He saw a red light on the mystery ship at 1 a.m. The Californian at this time could only have been showing her green light to any vessel to the southward. (Public Record Office)

  23. RMS Titanic Fourth Officer Joseph Groves Boxhall. He swore to seeing the mystery ship come ever closer to Titanic until it turned and stopped. (Public Record Office)

  24. Titanic Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller, pictured aboard the Oceanic in 1908. A leader in the port side evacuation, he was ‘perfectly sure’ he saw a light attached to a vessel ‘about two points on the port bow’. It was ‘not over five miles away’. He reassured passengers that a rescue ship was coming. (Author Collection)

  25. Jack Phillips, Titanic wireless operator. He told the Californian to keep out when she tried to warn of ice a short time before the Titanic struck.

  26. Harold Bride, surviving Titanic wireless operator. He endured a freezing night’s exposure on an overturned collapsible lifeboat. Bride said Phillips clung to the same raft, but succumbed to the cold.

  27. Californian Wireless Operator Cyril Furmstone Evans. Third Officer Groves entered his room as he lay in bed after midnight, but could not read any transmissions. Evans was roused the next morning by Chief Officer Stewart and asked to investigate what happened in the night. (Photo © courtesy Günter Bäbler and Claes-Göran Wetterholm)

  28. Able Seaman Edward Buley claimed to be able to see a distance of 21 miles. He said he was ‘very positive’ that the steamer ‘off the port [side]’ was stationary for about three hours, and then ‘made tracks’.

  29. Quartermaster Robert Hichens was at the ship’s wheel when the Titanic struck. He later took control of lifeboat No.6, which left the port side under instructions to pull towards the tantalising light. ‘The light was moving, gradually disappearing’, Hichens testified, ‘we did not seem to get no nearer to it’. (Public Record Office)

  30. Thomas Dillon testified to extra Titanic movement after she had struck her berg. There is evidence she temporarily ‘resumed her course’ to the west before stopping. (Southampton City Archives)

  31. The man who spotted the fatal iceberg, Titanic lookout Frederick Fleet. He told the Inquiries that he could see ‘no lights at all’ of other ships when he and colleague Reg Lee were in the crow’s nest, where they remained for some time after impact. He later saw the mystery ship from the deck, on the port bow at ‘about 1 o’clock’. (Public Record Office)

  32. First class passenger Archibald Gracie thought the ship was ‘coming to our rescue’. (Houghton Mifflin)

  33. Lady Lucile Duff Gordon wrote: ‘Just beside us there was a man setting off rockets and the ear-splitting noise added to the horror’. She looked back at the Titanic from her ill-filled lifeboat and described the liner as like ‘a giant hotel, with light streaming from every porthole’. The Californian witnesses did not see a floating hotel, but a tramp steamer nearby. Nor did they hear rockets or see high displays. (Library of Congress)

  34. The Countess of Rothes, who steered lifeboat No.8 ahead of all others toward the mystery ship, declared: ‘For three hours we pulled steadily for the lights seen three miles away; then we saw a port light [red] vanish and the masthead lights grow dimmer until they disappeared’. (Illustrated London News)

  35. Lord Mersey, the seventy-one-year-old chairman of the British Inquiry. Suspicious of the Californian from the start, he would declare himself satisfied that her declared stop position was ‘not accurate’. Before retiring to write his report, he also wondered aloud about what powers he had to sanction a captain who would fail to come to the aid of a vessel in distress. (Southampton City Collections)

  36. Lord Mersey sitting at the later Empress of Ireland Inquiry. He rejected the entire testimony of Titanic witnesses as to the distance away of the mystery ship, preferring to take ‘advice’ from others. Despite his findings of an 8–10 mile separation, Titanic officers maintained their much shorter claims during a 1913 court case on the legal liability of the White Star Line. (Author collection)

  37. A younger Lord Mersey. Born and brought up in Liverpool, the former Mr Justice John Charles Bigham represented the city in parliament and acted at the bar for big shipping companies. He allowed a legal ambush, knowing Captain Lord had no chance to answer it. His 1929 Times obituary was unusually sour, accusing him of ‘premature expression of opinion or bias’. (Daily Sketch)

  38. Lord Mersey, President of the British Inquiry, was brought out of retirement to sit over an investiga
tion deemed a ‘whitewash’ by Titanic Second Officer Lightoller. A former MP, he was intimately attuned to Government needs and would later preside over the Empress of Ireland, Falaba and Lusitania inquiries. His conclusions in each case suited the state, but later fell suspect. (Author collection)

  39. Attorney General of the United Kingdom, Sir Rufus Isaacs. He appeared for the Board of Trade at the Titanic Inquiry and was later elevated Lord Justice of Appeal and ennobled as Lord Reading. (Incorporated Law Society)

  40. British Solicitor General Sir John Simon appeared on behalf of the Board of Trade, which both licensed the Titanic to go to sea and administered the later Inquiry. Sir John examined many of the Californian witnesses and, on the twenty-fourth day, after they had been heard, connived in the Attorney General’s application to amend the terms of reference whereby a finding might be made about the conduct of the Californian. (Author collection)

  41. Senator William Alden Smith of Michigan, chairman of the US Senate Subcommittee Inquiry. (Library of Congress)

  42. Captain John J. Knapp, US hydrographer. He claimed the Titanic’s sidelight could be seen at a range of 16 miles when it was required to be visible for 2 miles. Not content with this stretch of the imagination, he would also invent a hypothetical location for the Californian. (US Navy)

  43. The US Senate Subcommittee on Commerce Titanic investigation in session. Taken in Washington DC on Tuesday 23 April 1912 during the evidence of Titanic Third Officer Herbert Pitman (not visible in this photograph). Chairman William Alden Smith is pictured, centre. Pitman said he saw a white light on the horizon ‘to the westward, right ahead’ while in lifeboat No.5. It ‘may have been three miles’. To the right of centre, bearded with arms folded, is passenger Arthur Peuchen, saved in boat No.6. (Library of Congress)

  44. The Titanic is shown here with two masthead lights in an eyewitness drawing of the sinking by Steward Leo Hyland. Californian witnesses said their nearby vessel had one masthead light. (Collection of the late Walter Lord, National Maritime Museum)

  45. The Titanic boat deck, port side, at Queenstown, Thursday 11 April 1912. An arrow indicates a trawler a few points by compass off the port bow – close to where the mystery ship would be seen three nights later. The near lifeboat is No.8. Its crew members were told by Captain Smith to row to the stranger, which Boxhall said was showing ‘beautiful lights’. He left in boat No.2, hanging over side, while the visiting steamer was showing a stern light. To the top-right of the picture is the crow’s nest, with a perfect view of all in front. Yet the lookouts saw no other ship, either before or immediately after Titanic struck ice – indicating the mystery ship drew close under power, whereas the Californian was stationary throughout. Note: author has airbrushed the mast of a tender from lower left of picture for purposes of clarity. (Fr Browne Collection)

  46. Captain Smith at the Olympic’s starboard wing-cab, with the starboard Morse lamp above. The sidelight of the Titanic’s sister ship (green for starboard, red for port), is shown in the lower left hand corner. Titanic evidence shows she was Morsing even as she sent up her rockets. The US Inquiry accepted the patently absurd suggestion that a Titanic sidelight could be seen at 16 miles. (Southampton Pictorial)

  47. Lightoller saw eight rockets fired from starboard (seen to left, above), where Boxhall fired from six to twelve rockets. But the mystery ship was seen to port (right of picture)… and firing here also would mean many more rockets! (20th Century Fox)

  48. Captain Maurice Clarke, Marine Surveyor of the Board of Trade, watches a rocket being fired at a pre-sailing inspection on the American liner New York at Southampton in 1907. Five years later Captain Clarke inspected the Titanic immediately prior to her maiden voyage, while the New York nearly collided with the White Star liner as the latter left her berth. (The Graphic)

  49. Opposite below: German star shells, left, and Belgian reply rockets, right, photographed by camera-plate on the Western Front in 1916, four years after the sinking of the Titanic. In reality the human eye sees not the whole journey (as shown here over the flooded defences of Ypres), but a travelling ball of light. Rockets further away are distinguishable by a lower trajectory, smaller points and less glow. Gibson used binoculars to look at a vessel short miles away which he concluded was only a tramp steamer. (The Sphere)

  50. A contemporary artist’s rendition of a pyrotechnic burst at sea. Most depictions, including on film, show rockets ridiculously low (in order to fit the frame). Officer Lightoller confirmed the Titanic rockets went ‘several hundred feet’ in the air, and other witnesses corroborated their extreme height – this itself is a fundamental property of distress rockets so that they might be seen over the horizon.

  51. A rowboat with a dying ‘Holmes light’ on the water, left, during the search for the lost submarine A–1 in 1904. The Titanic was equipped with flares made by Manwell Holmes and other firms. (The Graphic)

  52. Looking forward on the shelter deck of the SS Californian. When daylight began to break after 4 a.m., Chief Officer Stewart could make out a new steamer to the south – a ship Stone insisted was not the one he and Gibson had been viewing, and which had instead steamed away. (Dundee City Archives)

  53. The cable ship Minia demonstrates how the Californian might have looked when stopped in ice, facing north-east, on the night of 14 April 1912. The Minia was chartered by the White Star Line to search the vicinity of the Titanic sinking for bodies, and recovered seventeen. (Author collection)

  54. The SS Birma, photographed from the Carpathia on the morning of 15 April 1912. Her experiences proved the Titanic could not have reached the transmitted distress position. (Courtesy of George Fenwick)

  55. The Carpathia steamed west to New York with survivors. (Southampton City Collection)

  56. Captain Sir Arthur Rostron of the rescue ship Carpathia. He could see ‘all around the horizon’ as he rescued Titanic lifeboats at 5 a.m. ‘The first I saw of the Californian was at about eight o’clock.’ (Library of Congress)

  57. The Almerian was half the size of her sister, Californian. (Author collection)

  58. The Antillian. A wireless message to her reporting three icebergs confirmed Californian’s northerly position several hours in advance of Titanic’s collision and was overheard by the White Star vessel. When she stopped at the edge of an icefield, the Californian attempted to warn Titanic. (Mariners’ Museum, Newport News)

  59. The oil tanker Paula. Like a modern bulk carrier, her housing – arguably her ‘glare’ – was all the way aft. (Mariners’ Museum, Newport News)

  60. The 5,595-ton SS Parisian. She passed over the spot where the Titanic sank. (Contemporary postcard)

  61. President Lincoln. (1910 postcard)

  62. The Hansa Line oil tanker Lindenfels. Like her sister ship, the Trautenfels, also in the North Atlantic that night, she had a black funnel containing a white band with the heraldic device of a Maltese cross. (Peabody Museum of Salem)

  63. The SS Saturnia. She heard the Titanic SOS and turned back, but was supposedly stopped by heavy ice 6 miles from the scene. (Contemporary postcard)

  64. The Norddeutscher Lloyd liner, Frankfurt. She responded to the Titanic’s distress messages, asking questions, until she was told by Titanic Wireless Operator Jack Phillips that she was a fool and to shut up. His dismissal of her remains controversial to this day. (Contemporary postcard)

  65. Advertising for the sister ships RMS Virginian and RMS Victorian. (1912 poster)

  66. The Samson, later the City of New York, at the edge of the ice in the Bay of Whales, Antarctica, in 1930.

  67. The Canadian Pacific liner Mount Temple grounded off Nova Scotia in December 1907. She had a yellow funnel in common with other CPR liners, but was to the west of the icefield when finally met by the Californian. Chief Officer Stewart saw a yellow-masted vessel to the east of the field at 4 a.m. on the morning of 15 April. Stone and Lord both also saw that steamer to the south, but never learned her name. (Mariners’ Museum, Newport News)

  6
8. Captain James Henry Moore of the Mount Temple. His sighting of the Carpathia supports Lord’s evidence. (Courtesy Edward P. DeGroot)

  69. Stanley Lord as an old man. He was eighty-two when he made his final deposition on the critical events of nearly half a century before. (Estate of Stanley Tutton Lord decd)

  70. Captain James DeCoverly. His report, endorsed by the Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents, Captain P.B. Marriott, formed the basis for the official reappraisal conclusion that it was ‘probable’ the Californian had been 18 nautical miles away and seen some other vessel. (PA)

  71. Grave of Captain Stanley Lord, New Brighton, Liverpool. (Author collection)

  COPYRIGHT

  First published in 2006

  The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port