Adolphe Saalfeld

[Ben Holme]

Hi Andrew,

Since posting that message, I've seen two images of Saalfeld. One from the Daily Mirror (which presumably reflected his appearance at the time of the sinking), and one from around the 1920s. Damned if I can remember where I came across the latter image, but I'll try my best to locate them both for you!

All the best,
Ben

 

[Tobias Leimer]

Hello all,

I've been looking through ancestry.com and stumbled upon the exact birth date of Adolphe Saalfeld which is the 4th of April, 1865.

Thomas Krom, Grace, and I have a theory regarding the lifeboat of Adolphe Saalfeld; The boat which makes most sense is lifeboat number 5 as he saw the first boat getting lowered and followed a few women and men into the next possible boat (He could've described the Beckwith/Behr/etc friend party who boarded lifeboat 5 after Ismay told them to). People in his boat (according to him) saw the Titanic disappear which would've been impossible from lifeboat 3's location. My point stands, I think he boarded lifeboat 5.

Thank you for reading and have a nice morningday/evening!

Yours sincerely
Tobias

 

[Arun Vajpey]

My point stands, I think he boarded lifeboat 5.

From the limited information available, it is very difficult to conjecture which lifeboat Saalfeld got into. He comments that he saw boats (plural) lowered before he followed some men and women into a lifeboat. Since lifeboat #5 was the second boat to be launched, it goes against Saalfeld's statement since there was only one other lifeboat (#7) lowered before #5. But his later statement about being "two miles away" when the Titanic's lights disappeared indicate that he was on an earlier boat; since very few male passengers got into any port lifeboat, Saaalfeld's boat must have been an early starboard one. That is why ET reserachers believe that Lifeboat #3 is the most likely candidate.

What Saalfeld saw and described about the sinking Titanic has to be considered in the right perspective. He said that he saw the ship sink lower and lower until its lights went out, which he probably could have seen from Lifeboat #3. Although he thought he saw the Titanic 'disappear', IMO is very unlikely that he actually saw the final plunge itself from his vantage point.