"I Was There - The Sinking of the Titanic" by Commander Lightoller (BBC, 1936)

I was there talks by men who saw the making of history nowadays a passenger to America has no misgivings but nearly a generation ago a terrible catastrophe in mid-ocean had to mark the end of an era of peril in Atlantic Transport on the 15th of April 1912 the Titanic struck an iceberg and in a couple of hours a great liner had sunk on her maiden voyage at a cost in human life of 1,500 souls commanded light all our second officer and when he had seen the last of the insufficient lifeboats pull away from the ship he plunged into the sea and was ultimately rescued all the other officers who went down with the ship were drunk demanded Lightoller altogether I have had four shipwrecks and a fire during my 30 odd years at sea but by far and away the worst of them all was one I'm going to tell you about no the loss of the Titanic I joined her in Belfast while she was still in the builder's hand the biggest and finest ship in the world and given the normal life of the ship I'm pretty sure she would approve the fastest but let me save right here and now neither that night nor that voyage were we out for any records we run our trials in Belfast Lough and then took her round to Southampton on April the 10th that's 1912 she sailed on her maiden and only voyage for New York from the moment we left Belfast we had marvelous weather and even when we got out on the western ocean or Atlantic as you probably know it it was as small as the proverbial Mill Pond not a breath of wind and the sea like a sheet of busts in any other circumstances those conditions would have been ideal but anyone with experience of ice at sea knows that those very conditions the moonless night only render the detection of icebergs all the more difficult and calls for additional alertness on the part of both officers and men speaking for myself I knew only too well that there were chances if long ones of sighting an iceberg but as I reckon in ample time that clear it with a turn of the wheel on that night of April the 14 we all that is the captain and officers knew perfectly well that we were just about entering the region where ice might be sighted at that particular time of the year and it taken all necessary precautions now throughout the day there had been the usual Wireless messages from different ships reporting the weather on icebergs and so forth but as none of these birds reportedly on our course well they didn't directly concern us but when the evidence came to be sifted out at the enquiry held in London afterwards it then came out that one very vital message received in the Titanic's wireless room that night I'd never been delivered to the bridge that message came from a ship called the Masada warning all ships of heavy pack ice icebergs and filled ice in an area then lying right ahead of the Titanic and what was still worse not far away those immense quantities of ice were abnormal for almost any time of the year and the significance we should have attached to that report can hardly be exaggerated in my opinion it was a warning of the most vital importance you see I was officer of the watch and in charge of the ship when that'm saw the message came over an idle perfectly well what I have done if it had come to my hand without a shadow of doubt I should have slowed her down at once that would have been imperative and sin more than likely in fact almost certainly you would have stopped the ship altogether and waited for daylight to feel his way through anyhow the long and short of it is neither he nor I nor any other officer of the ship got that message not ago we were steaming that night at a good twenty-two knots at ten o'clock I was relieved as officer the watch by murder WL murder he and I being shipmates and many of the ocean greyhounds and both of us across this ice region times without number both in clear weather and what's more in fog after the usual formalities I hand it over wished him joy of a few perishing cold hours went below I expect his watch went on as mine had done nothing to see nothing to hear except the distant roar of the water at her above that and the half hourly bells with a lookout was cry of all's well of course he knew nothing of the deathtrap lying ahead of this any more than I did and so five bells six bills and seven bells went by but barely ten minutes had passed after the sound of the last Bell when there were three sharp claims on the Crowsnest Bell followed by a cry from the lookout cage ice right ahead sir murder Gavin they saw the massive ice practically at the same time as the devout men and shouted hard a-starboard whoop speed astern his idea was to swing her boat there and then put the helm over the other way and so swing her stirred here and give him half a chance I believe he'd have done it but going at that speed it was too late as it was her ball swung a bit but not enough and she struck she took the blow on her starboard side masses of ice actually falling on the foredeck but what was worse though we didn't know that till he came out of the inquiry she was pierced below the waterline in no less than six compartment and from that moment nothing could have saved her I was lying in my bunk when I felt the slight jaw not in a sense of collision but more a kind of shiver that ran through the ship anyway it was enough to bring me out of my bunk in one jump out on deck I run over one side and then to the other but there wasn't a trace of anything we'd struck so back I went to my bunk and just wait if I was wanted naturally and my cabin would be the first place where anyone sent for me it would look you see apart from being nearly frozen even an officer when Hawk watch isn't exactly welcomed on the bridge either in pajamas or anything else anyway it wasn't long before box all the fourth officer poked his head round my door and said you know we struck an iceberg I know you struck something I told him not thinking at anything serious and feeling none too pleased then he said the water's up to epic in the mayoral there was no need for him to say anything more I was into a pair of punch sweater and bridge coat and out on deck almost as soon as he was now we've been running under a big head of steam and the sudden stopping of the engines lifted every safety valve and as a result the steam roared off at all exhausts the role was absolutely definite added to that the engineers started to blow the boilers down shout as loud as you like no one would hear of word at the same time the Box all had called me the order had been given all hands on deck and I met my watch tumbling up on the boat deck just as I got there and the boat deck just in case you don't know is the top deck of all I got hold of the bosun's mate and sort of showed him with my hands that I wanted him to start the men stripping off the boat covers now in the Merchant Service men are taught to think and if necessary act for themselves they don't wait for fights or bugles and I can tell you the 700 of survivors that mate and thank God they don't every man-jack just went about his job well as if it were an everyday occurrence when the boats were stripped and clear they were swung out and lured to the level of the boat Nick just a little while before they were ready to swing out I happen to meet the captain and I asked him by cupping my hands over his ear and yelling at the top of my voice shall I get the women and children away sir he just nodded so I started to fill the first book just about now thank goodness the roar of escaping steam stopped and passengers now they could hear themselves think started asking me why are you getting the boats out and why are you putting women and children in them I told them it was merely a precaution and that very likely they'd all be taken on board again at daylight or at the worst taking on board the ship everyone could clearly see only a few miles away we could see all her lights quite plainly but Eric gain we were up against it that ship was the Californian and though her lights were plain to everyone on board the Titanic she seemed to pay not the slightest heed either to our Wireless calls or to the distress signals we were wearing every minute the reason why she didn't answer our Wireless calls which other ships heard halfway around the earth was because she only carried one wireless operator and when we struck the iceberg he'd just gone off watch so there's no fault of his but why don't notice was taken about this stress signals shells that are fired hundreds of feet up into the air to explode with a cascade of stars have normally known what a chance her captain missed he could have laid his ship right alongside the Titanic and taking practically every soul on board or he didn't and the two ships gradually drifted further and further apart and according to the officer of the watch of the Californian the Titanic's lights disappeared at 2:40 a.m. they did and with his own eyes he personally witnessed one of the greatest tragedies of the sea but to go back again uptime of getting away the first u-bolt no one believed that the ship was actually in any danger I'm afraid my own confidence that she wouldn't or couldn't sink rather conveyed itself to others for there were actually cases where women absolutely refused to be put in a boat I remember one young couple haven't ly not long married walking up and down the boat deck I asked the girl she was only a girl from the western states I can see if I should put her in a boat but no she wouldn't be parted from her husband not on your life she said we've started together and we'll finish together brave girl but she didn't know how near that finish was certainly I didn't as time went on I could see the bowels of the ship getting steadily Lord glory in the water now between luring one boat and another I frequently took a run forward and a quick look down a long stairway that led from the boat neck three or four decks down frankly I'm never likely to forget the sight of that old greenish water creeping step by step up that stairway some of the lights were shining down on order on others already submerged we're giving it a sort of costly transparency but for my purpose I could tell by that staircase measurement exactly what was happening how far down she'd gone and how quickly she was going just when I first realized how desperately serious things were I don't know but I do know that before many boats were way I got the piling more and more people into them partly because I now knew she was going and partly because the boats were not remaining by the ship to be filled to their full capacity when water board a four year job luring him with their full complement from that tremendous height another thing it was plain to me that if we were going to avoid the uncuttable disgrace of going down with boats to hang in at the Davis we've got not only to take chances we got to work like lazy I've always admired the coolness and efficiency of merchants or sailors in the thick fog and I've seen a few but that night well the Titanic's men set up a standard that'll never believe every single boat was filled and lured from David heads to water and got away without an accident of any kind and that despite the pitch-black night and the conditions we were working on there the same tribute must be paid to the passengers for the courage they show or by the time little more than half the boats had gone I knew and I'm pretty certain day knew that she was definitely going down you've got to remember the Californian had drifted away the word enough boats to take half the people and the chances of the other half in that icy cold water were absolutely nil yet there was never the slightest attempt get into a boat out of turn in fact with the last couple of boats it was even difficult to find women to fill them of course there were still a good many on board then came the very last boat of all and it was a sort of rough with collapsible canvas size stowed upside-down on top of the officers quarters and that's above the boat day a seaman named hemming he'd been with me in many of the male boats he and I cut this one adrift and threw it down on the water which was now about two feet above the boat a hemming by the way had earlier long given up his place in a boat after being told off to take charge of it and unbeknown to me had fallen drowned helping me with the lorry ticklish job even in daily having dumped this collapsible there was not a thing further we could do on that say so both of us went over to the starboard side but we found all the boats away from there to of course there were still hundreds of people round as hemming and I looked down from the top of the officers quarters where we were standing the ship took a sudden dip and a sea came rolling up carrying everyone with it many were drowned there and then everyone that could just instinctively started to scramble up towards the after end of the ship but that was only putting it off in fact it was lessening their chances the plunge had to come and that I could see was pretty soon and no one's chances were going to be improved by getting mixed up in a struggling masse hemming as I found out afterwards headed for one of the after booth Falls slid down dropped into the water swam away and was eventually saved for my part I turned foreign and took a header from the top of the wheelhouse I started to swim away but got sucked down two or three times in fact I got mighty near the edge of things before I finally came up alongside the collapsible weed hold into the water from the top of the officers quarters and there I hung on a bit later the foreign funnel guys carried away and the funnel weighing perhaps 50 or 60 tons fell down with a crash on the water it missed the wrath by and some of its hanging oddly by inches but they were good many it didn't miss next thing I remember I was still hanging on to a bit of rope attached to the raft but some 30 or 40 yards away from the ship the wash of the falling funnel had evidently picked us up raft and all and flung us clear of the ship all together several of us crumbled up onto the slippery bottom of the rock and it was from there I saw the Titanic sink as I watched I could see her ball getting deeper and deeper in the water with the formas sticking up above the service whilst her Stern lifted higher and higher till it was right out of the water when she got to an angle of about 60 degrees there was a sullen sort of grumbling roar as her massive boilers all met their beds and went crashing down through the bulkheads and everything that stood in their way up to that moment she had stood out as clear as clear with her rows of electric lights all burning when the boilers broke away she was of course plunged into absolute darkness though her huge black outline was still perfectly distinct up against the stars and sky slowly she reared up on it till at last she was absolutely perpendicular then quite quietly but quicker and quicker she seemed just to slide away under the surface and disappear as she vanished everyone round me on the upturned booth as though they could hardly believe it just said she's gone some little time later I found that the senior wireless operator was standing just behind me I'm from the wireless messages he told me he'd received from different ships I figured up in my mind that the Cunard liner Carpathia one that he said was coming to our rescue should be up about daylight it was then I first heard of the Mesaba message and when I said it didn't remember it he told me he put it under a paperweight at his elbow and never sent it to the brain many died from cold during the night the wireless operator amongst them and a mighty long time it seemed before daylight broke standing wet through and up to our knees in icy water on that upturned boat frankly I don't think many of us expected to see daylight at one time during the night someone suggested we should say our Father and I don't think it was exactly scare that made everyone join in but you'd need to be in somewhat the same things where a couple of minutes may mean all the difference between well here and Hereafter you understand the feeling we put into it I've heard that prayer ever since I was the height of six Benedict offers but never with such intense earnestness as the surroundings lent to it that night however when daylight did break most of most of us were still heads up and we have the upturned boat transferred to one of the lifeboats at full daylight there was the carpathian steaming toward us I didn't say just what sort of a welcome sight it was either cruising slowly round she can to the boats one by one mine I know was loaded down to the gunnels I know he's a job to keep afloat in the rising sea at last everyone was safely on board and with a seven hundred odd survivors of that night she turned away from that tragic spot and headed for New York you

Channel: Titanic's Officers

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Keywords: Titanic, Lightoller, BBC, 1936, Charles Herbert Lightoller, Second Officer Lightoller, Titanic officers

Id: uzG4cjm5mKo

Length: 22min 38sec (1358 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 11 2019