Most people know
something of Charles Lightoller and his experience aboard the RMS
Titanic. As the highest ranking officer of the doomed
ship to survive, he has been featured in every movie, novel, and documentary
about the tragic night of April 14, 1912.
Yet, there is a lot
more to his life than the loss of just one large ship--even without that event,
Lightoller’s life is the stuff of movies.
(Picture in your mind an adventure film starring Pierce Brosnan--at
least, you will shortly.)
Born in Lancashire,
England, he was effectively orphaned at age thirteen, when his father abandoned
him to leave for New Zealand (his mother had died shortly after his
birth). To avoid the workhouses attached
to orphanages, young Charles apprenticed himself on a sailing ship plying the
south Atlantic. On only his second
voyage, the storm-damaged ship was forced to put in for repairs in Rio de
Janeiro, arriving just in time for both a violent revolution and a smallpox
epidemic.
The next year,
1889, while crossing the Indian Ocean, the ship was once again caught in a
violent storm. Damaged too badly to stay
afloat, the captain intentionally grounded the vessel on a small, uninhabited
island. Luckily, the crew was soon
rescued and taken to Australia, from which Lightoller was able to work his way
back to England as a seaman on a clipper ship, one of the largest and fastest
sailing vessels of the time.
Once again signing
on as a seaman, he shipped out to Calcutta, where he passed the exam to get a
second mate’s certificate. While serving
as third mate aboard a windjammer (a very large, iron-hulled ship
powered by sails), the Knight of St. Michael, its cargo of coal caught
fire, endangering the ship. Lightoller
heroically fought the fire and saved the ship, earning him a promotion to
second mate.
However, the days of sailing
ships were numbered, and though only 21, Lightoller had had enough of the
dangers of wooden-hulled ships, and hired onto a steamship. For three years, he traveled up and down the
Western African coast with the African Royal Mail Service, during which time he
nearly died from malaria.
Lightoller
eventually wrote an autobiography, but most of the material was about his
experiences at sea, so many of the details about the next few years away from
the sea are a little sketchy. Like an
estimated 100,000 other men, Lightoller became part of the flood of men who
headed for northwestern Canada during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-99. Fewer than half of that number ever arrived
at the gold fields, and a much smaller number
actually found any gold.
When his funds ran
out, Lightoller worked as a cowboy in Alberta.
Then, with almost no money, he became a hobo, riding the stabilizing
rods under railroad cars as he made his way across Canada to get back to a
seaport on the eastern coast of Canada. There, he found work on a cattle boat—not
as a seaman—but as a cattle wrangler. Though
he arrived in England penniless, the voyage gave him enough experience that he
hired on as third mate on the Knight Companion, yet another cattle boat.
By January of 1900,
he had enough experience that he began a long and faithful career with the White
Star Line as fourth Officer of the SS Medic, one of five Jubilee Class
cruisers (so-called because they were all launched in 1899—the last year of the
nineteenth century) built for the White Star Line. Decidedly not a first class cruiser,
this 550-foot ship hauled steerage class passengers and was occasionally used
as a troop ship.
It was while
serving on the Medic, that Lightoller was involved in what became known
as the Fort Denison Incident.
In 1901, England was fighting the Boer War in South Africa, and for the
first time, troops from the British colonies—including Australia—were
involved. When the Medic dropped
anchor in Sydney, local passions about the war were unusually high--something
that evidently Lightoller and a few shipmates found unusual. Or as Lightoller put it in his autobiography:
England was then in the throes of the Boer War, with
Australia more loyal, more patriotic, more fervently keen for Empire rights,
than was even displayed at home. It is notorious that the Australians are
always more British than the English themselves, loyal to the heart’s core, and
every thought for the homeland. The scene on the quaysides, and in the towns
when a contingent was leaving for South Africa, simply staggered belief. The
people were patriotic mad, and had there been the ships and the necessity,
every man jack in Australia would have volunteered.
Before dawn on the
morning of October 6, 1901, Lightoller and two midshipmen rowed out to Fort
Denison, an island fortress guarding the Sydney harbor. On top of a tall rock tower, the three men
raised a Boer flag from the lightning rod, and packed an aging cannon with 25
pounds of powder. While a long fuse
burned, the three men made good their escape, and were startled when the sky
suddenly lit up with a loud crash.
Lightoller later recorded that he thought it couldn’t have been the
cannon, it must have been lightning.
Lightoller’s other mistake of that night was using about four times too
much powder. The blast blew out most of
the fort’s windows.
Depending on which
Sydney newspaper you believe, the town either panicked, slept through the
incident, or thought it was foolish.
There was, however, a government investigation. While the authorities never caught those
responsible, aboard the Medic, it quickly became common knowledge who
had fired “the one gun salute.” When the
company brought him in for questioning, Lightoller confessed his role to the
White Star officials whose reprimand would have been taken more seriously if
they hadn’t been laughing. Evidently
naval people don’t care what you do to an army fort.
For his own safety,
Lightoller was transferred from the Australia run, to the Atlantic—effectively
a promotion. Over the next ten years, he
served on both the RMS Majestic and the RMS Oceanic as first
mate. Then, with an excellent record, he
was transferred to the RMS Titanic as the second
officer.
There is no need to talk about Lightoller’s
actions aboard the Titanic, they are familiar to almost everyone--but
allow me to add that his actions the night of April 14, 1912 are above
reproach. He strictly enforced order,
and the only men he allowed to enter lifeboats were acting in the capacity of
boat crew. He literally went down with
the ship, but was blown free by a blast of air.
When he took command of an overturned lifeboat, he saved dozens of
lives, and was the last survivor to board the Carpathia.
Everyone knows that
one of the many reasons that the Titanic sank was because the lookouts
were not issued binoculars. Much less
well known is the reason why. Lightoller
was supposed to have been the ship’s second officer. Shortly before sailing, however, Captain
Smith brought a more experienced officer—for the inaugural voyage only—to be
the ship’s first officer. The original
first officer became the second officer and Lightoller temporarily assumed the
duties of the ship’s third officer. The
original third officer, David Blair, stayed behind in Liverpool with the key to
the binocular locker in his pant’s pocket.
After the sinking,
Lightoller was the highest ranking officer to survive the disaster, and was the
chief witness at both the American Senate hearing and the British Board of
Trade inquiry.
Lightoller’s
testimony is a marvel of tact, company loyalty, and personal restraint. The British inquiry was staffed by men who
were knowledgeable about the sea, who understood exactly what was going
on. Since they knew if the design of the
ship should be found at fault, British shipping suffer, and since they
had approved the design of the ship, they would, in effect, be blaming
themselves...so, of course, the British inquiry was a farce.
The American Senate
inquiry, on the other hand, was run by people who were as ignorant as only a
Senator can be, and who were totally inexperienced in all things naval, but who
were committed to preventing future accidents.
(One senator even questioned Lightoller whether anyone hit by the
falling funnel was hurt.)
While
Lightoller steadfastly, and almost certainly knowing it was false, maintained
that the ship did not break in two, he did manage to focus the public's
attention on improving safety conditions rather than on becoming angry at
either the White Star Line or the British Board of Trade. As Lightoller later wrote, "it was very necessary to keep one’s hand on the
whitewash brush". Most of
Lightoller’s recommendations, including that ships carry enough lifeboats for
all aboard, mandatory lifeboat drills, and manning the wireless equipment
around the clock, became part of international law.
Lightoller
continued to serve with the White Star Line as a mate aboard the RMS Oceanic. When World I started, both the ship and
Lightoller were called up for active duty with the Royal Navy. Lieutenant Lightoller was serving on the Oceanic
went she went aground in Scapa Flow--the first Allied ship lost in the
War. (Ironically, she went aground
because of an inaccurate fix of her position plotted by the ship’s navigator—David
Blair, whom Lightoller had replaced as third officer on Titanic.).
Lightoller went on
to serve on an aircraft carrier, and eventually was given command of two
torpedo-boats, one of which sank after a collision on convoy duty, and another,
which rammed and sank a German U-Boat.
Lightoller ended the war with the rank of Commander and a Distinguished
Service Cross.
After the war,
Lightoller stayed with the White Star Line, but soon realized that chances for
advancement with the line were no longer possible. Any crewman remotely connected with the
Titanic had to be hidden, not given a responsible position. Lightoller soon resigned and took a series of
odd jobs ashore, such as innkeeper and chicken farmer. Eventually, he and his wife found financial
success speculating in real estate.
Lightoller wrote
his autobiography in the 1930’s and, in retirement, bought his own private
motor yacht, the Sundowner for family excursions. This should have been the end of this story,
but World War II provided one more chapter to the Lightoller story.
Shortly before
France surrendered in World War II, the combined armies of the Britain, France,
and Belgium were cut off, forced against the British Channel, and surrounded by
German Panzer Corps. Hitler, confident
of an Allied surrender, issued the order for the German forces to halt in
place.
The Allied forces
organized a hasty flotilla of hundreds of merchant marine boats, pleasure
craft, and lifeboats, escorted by 39 British destroyers and other larger ships,
to sail to Dunkirk and evacuate the doomed soldiers. In eight days, the “little ships of Dunkirk” evacuated
338,226 men.
One of the little
ships was the Sundowner, captained by a 68 year-old retired Charles
Lightoller, despite the fact that he was still grieving the loss of his son,
Flying Officer Herbert Lightoller, who had been killed while bombing the German
battleship Admiral Scheer. Despite being attacked by German fighter planes, the Sundowner transported 130 soldiers back to England,
reportedly packed together like sardines, almost capsizing when they reached
the shore. The ship today is on exhibit at the Ramsgate
Maritime Museum.
Lightoller
had learned to love smoking a pipe during his many years at sea, and even as
his health declined, refused to give it up.
In 1952, London was still reeling from the effects of the war, with
mandatory food rationing and almost every building being heated with coal. That winter was called the Great Smog of ’52,
which aggravated Lightoller’s heart disease.
Far from really retired, when he died at the age of 78, he was managing
a small boatyard that built patrol boats for the river police.
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ReplyDeleteDon Doleshal