OASOG is one of the better books when it comes to citing their sources.
OASOG is the best book that I have come across not only as far as quoting their sources but to go to some length explaining them.
The problem I have with how certain events are portrayed is when they are written as if they are factual instead of just saying there is an account which claims, or it was reported that, such and such took place. Perhaps it is a style thing, but there are several places where the authors' interpretation of what was said is quite different from what you find when you go to the direct source itself.
But Sam, that is the case for almost all
Titanic works that I have come across and it is not just a style thing.
Interpretations based upon survivors' claims have been presented in every
Titanic book or article that I have read, the difference being that some disguise it better than others. I have seen almost everyone use information obtained from newspaper interviews of survivors and (sometimes cleverly) incorporate them into their work, only occasionally acknowledging the source.
Furthermore, we can only apply hard lines between what is possible and what isn't only as far as certain events during the sinking are concerned, usually by applying (where possible) physical principles, logic or both. But as far as
personal experiences of the
Titanic survivors are concerned, how can anyone be sure of the precise lines between fact, misinterpretation and frank fabrication? Of course, there are plenty of blatantly stupid lies like the survival accounts Thomas Whitely and others which involved 'swimming for hours' etc but others are less easy to prove or disprove. Without going into specifics, there are plenty of
Titanic related stories where there are different accounts of the same events as told by different survivors, each being convinced that they were right. Trimmer John Doe might swear that at 01:35am there was hardly any port list worth mentioning during lowering of Lifeboat X while Steward Joe Bloggs might be equally convincing in his belief that there was enough list to create a sizeable gap between the side of the ship and the lifeboat. If both John Doe and Joe Bloggs were then crew of Lifeboat X, how can anyone be certain which account between the two is closer to the truth? In such cases we (and I am including myself here) often end-up applying confirmation bias perhaps without even realizing it.
No names mentioned but I have long noted that a certain
Titanic work contributor has cleverly chosen only those claims and reports that support his beliefs and discarded others but all the while presenting the entire issue as though it was his own original effort that no one else considered. His unqualified disdain of others' works and views have been obvious in most of his posts and poorly disguised, perhaps intentionally. And just to make things clearer, I am not talking about the former Marine Accident Investigator.
I agree with your classification of statements made during the Official Inquiries as "Primary Accounts" and those told to newspapers and similar as "Secondary"; I also accept that newspapers of those days had a high tendency to embellish, exaggerate and falsify statements made. But that does not change the possibility that the first person account of the survivor himself/herself could have been anything between fact, misinterpretation or fabrication, including during the Inquiries. For example, we have agreed that 4/O Boxhall was not exactly the epitome of honesty during his testimonies on either side of the 'Pond'; if the Fourth Officer could do that, how can other accounts be considered more or even less reliable? Also, several key survivors were not called in to testify, especially the passengers and so what we know of their experiences would have to be through media sources. To quote another example, neither Margaret Swift nor Martha Stone testified and so we know what they said - or supposed to have said - only though newspaper and other third party accounts. Under such circumstances, one cannot be certain of either accuracy or reliability of their statements and so one has little choice but to make one's own interpretation based on what evidence is available and a bit of logic. But with that sort of interpretation, confirmation bias invariably comes in.
