About Titanic: Part 2

Hey, Jammer's! CoolCat here with another post! And I'm here today with my long awaited About The Titanic, Part 2 post! In this post I will be talking about the crew members! I won't lie when telling you, this WILL be a very long post.  I feel this is very important, as most of the crew members I talk about had a part in the sinking of Titanic. I hope you all do not mind and read it anyways!  So without further ado, lets get started!

Captain Edward John Smith:

Captain Smith was a British Merchant Navy Officer. He served as a master of numerous White Star Line vessels. He is best known as the Captain of the RMS Titanic. Captain Smith had decided to retire after completing Titanic's maiden voyage. During the evacuation, Captain Smith, aware that there were not enough lifeboats for all the passengers and crew, did his best to prevent panic and did his best to assist in the evacuation. Major Arthur Godfrey Peuchen of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club said ''He was doing everything in his power to get women in these boats, and to see that they were lowered properly. I thought he was doing his duty in regard to the lowering of the boats.'' Robert Williams Daniel, a first class passenger also said: ''Captain Smith was the biggest hero I ever saw. He stood on the bridge and shouted through a megaphone, trying to make himself heard.'' Just minutes before the ship started its final plunge, Captain Smith was still busy releasing Titanic's crew from their duties. He then carried out a final tour of the deck, telling crew members: ''Now its every man for himself.'' Five minutes before the ship sank, Steward Edward Brown saw the captain approach with a megaphone in his hand. He also heard him say: ''Well boys, do your best for the women and children and look out for yourselves.'' He also saw the captain walk onto the bridge alone. This was the last reliable sighting of Captain Smith. Captain Smith perished that night, and his body was never recovered.

Thomas Andrews:

Thomas Andrews was Titanic's ship builder. Andrews familiarized himself with every detail of the Titanic, in order to ensure that Titanic was in optimal working order. Andrews suggestions that the ship have 46 lifeboats (instead of the 20 it ended up with) as well as a double hull and watertight bulkheads that went up to B deck, were overruled by Bruce Ismay. Ismay didn't want the extra lifeboats to take up deck space for the first class passengers.  Andrews had been in his state room when Titanic struck an ice burg, and barely noticed the collision. Captain Smith had Andrews summoned to help examine the damage. Andrews determined that the first five of the ships watertight compartments were rapidly flooding. Andrews knew that if more than four of the ships compartments flooded, Titanic would inevitably sink. He relayed this information to Captain Smith, stating that it was a ''mathematical certainty'' Titanic would sink, adding that in his opinion, Titanic had only about an hour before it completely sank. He also informed Captain Smith of the severe shortage of lifeboats on board the ship. As the evacuation of the Titanic began, Andrews tirelessly searched staterooms telling passengers to put on lifebelts and go up on deck. Several survivors testify to have met or spotted Andrews several times. Fully aware of the short time the ship had left and of the lack of lifeboat space for all passengers and crew, he continued to urge reluctant people into the lifeboats in hopes of filling them with as many people as possible. Andrews was reportedly last seen by a steward on the ship, approximately ten minutes before the ship sank. Andrews was standing alone in the first class smoking room staring at a painting above the fireplace, arms folded over his chest, his lifejacket lying on a nearby table. It was later revealed not long after the sinking that the steward who reportedly seen Andrews left the ship on a lifeboat at 1:40 a.m, before his supposed encounter with Andrews. Thomas Andrews went down with the ship and his body was never recovered.

William McMaster ''Will'' Murdoch:

*The rest won't be as long, I promise*

***Warning- possible distressing content***

 In two films about Titanic, Murdoch was portrayed shooting passengers and himself during the sinking; this was based on a number of eyewitness testimonies of a shooting/suicide by an officer during the launching of the last lifeboat. It is possible that Murdoch was the officer. At present there has been no evidence as yet to prove that William Murdoch was not the officer seen committing suicide. Murdoch has become a figure of controversy, with mystery surrounding the circumstances of his death and actions during the collision with the ice burg. Murdoch was the officer in charge at the bridge when at approximately 11:40 P.M on April 14, 1912 a large ice burg directly in Titanic's path was sighted. Quartermaster Robert Hichens, who was at the helm, and Fourth officer Joseph Boxhall, who may or may not have been on the bridge during the collision, both stated that Murdoch gave the order ''Hard-A-Starboard'', a tiller command which would turn the ship to port ''left'' by moving the tiller to starboard ''right''. Despite these efforts to be made, its fatal collision was at an estimated 37 seconds after the ice burg had been sighted.  The starboard side scraped the ice burg, buckling the hull in several places and causing rivets to pop out below the waterline, opening the first five compartments (the forward peak tank, the three forwards holds and boiler room 6) to the sea. After the collision, Murdoch was put in charge of the starboard evacuation during which he launched ten lifeboats, containing almost 75% of the total number who survived. He was last seen attempting to launch Collapsible Lifeboat A. He was never seen again after the ship disappeared into the Atlantic Ocean on the morning of April 15, 1912. Within days of the disaster, several crew members and passengers spoke of an officer committing suicide in the ships final moments. In one example in a letter reprinted in the London Daily Telegraph, third class passenger Eugene Daly wrote, that he had seen an unknown officer shoot two men and then himself.  ''An officer pointed a revolver and said if any man tried to get in he would shoot him on the spot." I saw the officer shoot two men dead, because they tried to get into the boat. Afterwards there was another shot, and I saw the officer himself lying on the deck. They told me he shot himself, but I did not see him.  First class passenger George Rhiems also said, while the last boat was leaving, I saw an officer with a revolver fire a shot and kill a man who was trying to climb into it. As there remained nothing else for him to do the officer told us, "Gentlemen, each man for himself Goodbye." He gave a military salute and then fired a bullet into his head. George Rhiems said, " That's what I call a man!" Before long however, rumor suicide had a recurring name: William Murdoch. Several survivors disputed this, including Second Officer Charles Lightoller, and Colonel Archibald Gracie. They saw him hard at work, attempting to free Collapsible A from the falls on the boat deck just before the bridge submerged in the final stages of the sinking, when a huge wave washed him overboard into the sea. Lightoller described in a letter to Murdoch's wife Ada: ''I was then practically looking down on your husband and his men." " He was working hard, personally assisting, over hauling the forward boats fall." " At this moment the ship dived, and we all were in the water." Other reports as to the ending are absolutely false. Mr. Murdoch died like a man, doing his duty.  However it seems that Lightoller may have jumped into the sea {but survived} and thus been unaware of Murdoch's fate. It is also possible that Lightoller may have wanted to conceal the suicide, if it occurred, from Murdoch's widow. Later in life, Lightoller is said to have admitted that he ''Knew someone who committed suicide that night'', but he never said who.

John George ''Jack'' Phillips:

Phillips was a British wireless telegraphist aboard the RMS Titanic. He served as senior wireless operator on the maiden voyage of the ship. Before Titanic hit the ice burg, Phillips  told Cyril Evans, the operator of the Californian, ''Shut up! I am busy, I am working, Cape Race!'', when interrupted on-air by his counterpart warning him that the Titanic was in the vicinity of an ice field. After that response, Evans switched off his radio and turned in for the night, not responding to later distress calls from Titanic after they hit the ice burg. As the Titanic was sinking, Phillips worked tirelessly to send wireless messages to other ships to enlist their assistance with the rescue of the Titanic's passengers and crew. John George ''Jack'' Phillips did not survive the sinking.

David Blair:

David Blair was a British merchant season with White Star Line, which had reassigned him from the Titanic to Titanic's sister ship the RMS Olympic, just before its maiden voyage. Due to his hasty departure, he accidentally kept a key to a storage locker believed to contain binoculars intended for use by the crows nest lookout. When Blair left the Titanic on April 9th, 1912 he took with him the key to the crows nest locker, presumable by accident. This is believed to be the reason why there were no binoculars in the locker, and none left behind in his cabin. He may have taken them along with him when he left the ship, as they were his personal set of binoculars some people thought.  The absence of binoculars being a factor in the sinking of the Titanic, became a point of investigation in the subsequent inquiries into the sinking.

Frederick Fleet:

As a lookout on board the Titanic when it struck the ice burg, along with second lookout Reginald Lee, it was Fleet who first sighted the ice burg, ringing the bridge to proclaim ''Ice burg, right ahead!'' Fleet testified that if he had been issued with binoculars, ''We could have seen it a bit sooner.'' When asked how much sooner, he responded, '' Well, enough to get out of the way.''

Bruce Ismay:

Ismay came to international attention as the highest-ranking White Star Line official to survive the wreck of the company's brand new RMS Titanic, for which he was subject to severe criticism. In a highly controversial move, during construction of the first two Olympic class liners Ismay authorized the projected number of lifeboats reduced from 48 to 16, the latter being the minimum allowed by the Board of Trade based on the RMS Olympics tonnage. Ismay occasionally accompanied his ships on their maiden voyages, and this was the case with Titanic. Ismay also had a conversation with Captain Smith, over testing Titanic's speed, which was overheard by a survivor, and also talked about in About Titanic: Part 1. After the ship collided with the ice burg, Ismay bore the full brunt of his errors in the ships lifeboat capacity when it was made clear a rescue ship would not reach the area in time. Ismay stepped aboard Collapsible C, which was launched less than 20 minutes before the ship went down. He later testified that as the ship was in her final moments, he turned away, unable to watch his creation sink beneath the waters of the North Atlantic. After being picked up by Carpathia, Ismay was led to the cabin belonging to the ships doctor. Ismay did not leave Doctor Frank Mcgee's cabin for the entire journey, ate nothing solid, and was kept under the influence of opiates. Seventeen year old Jack Thayer visited Ismay trying to console him, despite just having lost his father in the sinking. This is what he had to say after his visit with Ismay: ''Ismay was staring straight ahead, shaking like a leaf." " Even when I spoke to him, he paid absolutely no attention." " I have never seen a man so completely wrecked.'' After the  disaster, Ismay was savaged by both the American and British press for deserting the ship while women and children were still on board. Some papers called him the ''Coward of the Titanic'' or J. Brute Ismay. Ben Hecht, then a young newspaperman in Chicago, wrote a scathing poem contrasting the actions of Captain Smith and Bruce Ismay. The final verse reads: '' To hold your place in the ghastly face of death on the sea at night is a seaman's job, but to flee with the mob is an owners noble right.'' Some maintain Ismay followed the ''women and children first'' principle, having assisted many women and children himself. Ismay's actions were defended in the official British inquiry, which found:  Mr. Ismay after rendering assistance to many passengers, found ''C'' Collapsible, the last being lowered. No other people were there at the time. There was room for him and he jumped in. Had he not jumped in he would merely have added one more life, namely his own, to the number of lives lost.  Ismay lived as a shamed outcast for the rest of his life.

And that's all Jammer's! I have been working on this for quite awhile, so I really hope you enjoyed! Comment down below who your favorite person that I wrote about in this post is, I would love to hear! Also comment if you read the whole thing!!

As always, bye Jammer's! And ~Jam On!~