What a story! It makes Indiana Jones seem tame - and it all actually happened. They say fact is stranger than fiction. I've realised that here is a sadly forgotten hero and character.
His career spanned the ages of 13 to 72 and included both World Wars. He lived at a time when life was hard and dangerous (especially at sea) and he had such a fascinating and adventurous life that he deserves a whole television series to himself. Born in 1874 he first went to sea as an apprentice at the age of 13 on a clipper and survived indescribable hardship. It was 6 months before they saw land. Food was starvation rations of salted pork and horse meat which were rock hard and rotten, and mouldy biscuits crawling with weavels. He was covered with sores and the rats would eat the rotten skin from the bottom of his feet while he slept!
It was the little boys who were sent up the 200 ft masts to struggle with the sails in all weathers and many of them were blown out to sea or dashed on the deck below. He learnt determination and the overcoming of fear early in his career.
At the age of 15 he survived his first shipwreck and was marooned on a desert island with no vegetation and only putrid water and had a remarkable rescue.
By the age of 21 (when he made the change from sail to steam) he had had several more adventures, including surviving a cargo of burning coal and a cyclone. Later, he nearly drowned in treacherous surf and then had a bad attack of malaria on the journey home.
Feeling that he'd had enough of the sea after all that, he joined the gold rush to the Klondike in mid-winter. Having failed to even reach the gold fields and driven back by poverty and starvation he then tried his hand as a cowboy. Finally deciding to return to the only profession he knew, he "rode the (suspension) rods" on the trains to get to Montreal, then got back to Liverpool as a cattleman on board ship (a smelly and noisy job).
Rejoining the merchant navy, he found himself in another unwelcome cattle ship but eventually managed to join the prestigious White Star Line. A succession of ships and promotion followed, including a ship-board romance that resulted in his marriage to an Australian girl, Sylvia.
Shortly after this, a leaflet carelessly thrown into his pocket on the streets of New York led him to take up the study of Christian Science. He had long had the feeling that "someone up there" was looking after him and he found in this very practical branch of Christianity the answers he had been looking for.
He rose up through the officer ranks at the White Star line and finally was given the position of First Officer (later changed to Second) on the Titanic.
The rest of that story, as they say, is history.
That terrible ordeal however was neither the first nor the last of Lightoller's challenges. During the First World War, only 2 years after Titanic, he was on another White Star Liner, the Oceanic (requisitioned as a naval vessel) when it was grounded on rocks at Scarpa Flow and sunk. (Up till then, most of Lightoller's misfortunes had been the result of a wrong decision by the captain. On the Oceanic, they had two skippers - one merchant and the other Royal Navy and they didn't get on and gave contradictory orders with disasterous results!)
'Lights' next found himself on the first converted "aircraft carrier" the Campania - the only problem being that the hastily erected flying deck was too short for take-off and all planes ended up in the North Sea. Consequently, the little Shorts 184 seaplanes were lowered into the choppy water (with Lightoller as a very reluctant airborne observer of the Dover Patrol) for a hair-raising take-off which more often than not found an increasingly irritated 'Lights' swimming for his life yet again! He ended up being the very first observer ever to spot enemy ships from the air, but his wireless message was not received and they lost their position and only just made it back as the engine spluttered on empty!
'Lights' was relieved to get away from his short flying career when at Christmas 1915 he was given command of a torpedo boat. Lightoller was a popular skipper - he got to know all his men and always ran a disciplined, efficient yet cheerful ship. In July 1916 he had a close encounter with a Zeppelin and earned himself a Distinguished Service Cross.
Next came shipwreck number 4 while Lightoller was captain of a destroyer, the Falcon, which sunk after an accident in the fog (unfortunately when he was using it to move house and lost every stick of his and Sylvia's furniture!)
The next ship was a larger destroyer Garry. 'Lights' was now commander of a squadron of four destroyers, guarding the North Sea convoys from U-boat attack. During one spell he escorted six consecutive convoys averaging 40 ships each with only one loss. Thus the nickname "Lucky Lights". It was however, one loss too many for Herbert Lightoller and in July 1918 he rammed and destroyed a U-Boat then limped home with Garry practically in two-halves, earning himself another medal.
When the First World War ended, it soon became clear that any previous officer of the Titanic was never going to find promotion with the White Star Line and 'Lights' left merchant shipping for good.
Next followed an assortment of new experiences - importing Canadian furs, British political correspondent to The Christian Science Monitor, chicken farming and turning their home into a guesthouse. In 1929 he realised a life's ambition when he bought and converted a motor yacht which he named Sundowner.
Just before the Second World War started, and he was in his mid-60's, he was sent on a top-secret reconnaissance mission to photograph and sketch the German coastline. Sylvia would sit up on Sundowner's deck knitting or reading a book while 'Lights' was busily working hidden below. Apart from one hairy moment, they accomplished their mission without incident and if Britain had decided to attack Germany from the sea they would have used Lightoller's plans and photographs.
On June 1st 1940 he set out with his eldest son Roger and a young seascout to rescue as many stranded soldiers as he could from Dunkirk. Under heavy fire all the way and back, being dive-bombed by enemy aircraft and dodging mines, he succeeded in saving the lives of 127 men in a boat he'd previously only managed to squeeze 21 in before.. That the Sundowner came back without even a scratch can only be attributed to his deep faith and trust in God.
