Thomas Krom
Member
It's all just very complicated, and I intend to put everything in a row and to perhaps finally see what the facts on this matter are, which will be hard beyond any doubt.
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Arun Vajpey
Member
As I have mentioned before, during my long and detailed research into scullion John Collins from the late 1980s to mid-1990s, the shooting incident came up briefly and rather vaguely, but NOT in association with Murdoch's final moments. If there was one thing in which both my sources, one of whom was Collins' daughter Mary McKee, never budged was that First Officer Murdoch was still working with others to free Collapsible A when they were all thrown overboard by the 'wave'. Although I never met or directly spoke to a third source, Benjamin Collins, John's son who was at the time living in America, Mrs McKee passed on a lot of information from him; apparently, he had a lot of interest in the Titanic disaster.
However, from what I have read and collated over the years, that particular incident took place just before 02:00am during the late stages of loading of Collapsible C. There was a large crowd of people around the lifeboat including a lot of Lebanese women and children, most of whom were already on board. As the crew got ready to lower the boat, a few disgruntled men tried to rush in and that was when (presumably) Murdoch fired a couple of shots into the air to deter a stampede. It seemed to work and as we all know, the crowd pulled back, rest of the women were loaded and Ismay & Carter slipped in just as Collapsible C started to lower.
Everything I have researched thus far strongly suggests that those 2 warning shots into the air were the only ones that Murdoch fired before he was swept overboard some 15 minutes later. Furthermore, the details of disturbance around Collapsible C came from other Titanic sources and Collins and the steward had not even arrived on the scene at the time.
As far as I know, none of the survivors who were near Collapsible A at the time and survived on it - like Edward Brown, Fireman Thompson etc alluded to any gun waving, let alone firing it during that frantic activity. All evidence suggests that George Rheims, one of those who did report the officer shooting incident, was further aft and closer to amidships with his brother-in-law Joseph Loring at the time. The same applies to Carl Jasson, who heard the shots and saw people running aft before he went overboard.
In my opinion, the multiple and mostly frantic events after 2pm as reported by survivors have become mixed-up and confused due to circumstances at the time. It is unlikely that anyone who reported those events checked the time and remembered it later. But from what I have deduced (and that only) from as much information gathered and collated from several sources including my own research, the following events are likely to be close to the truth.
Yes, but a few like Jack Thayer have also attributed that incident to McElroy. It could have been either, but I agree that Murdoch seems more likely.
However, from what I have read and collated over the years, that particular incident took place just before 02:00am during the late stages of loading of Collapsible C. There was a large crowd of people around the lifeboat including a lot of Lebanese women and children, most of whom were already on board. As the crew got ready to lower the boat, a few disgruntled men tried to rush in and that was when (presumably) Murdoch fired a couple of shots into the air to deter a stampede. It seemed to work and as we all know, the crowd pulled back, rest of the women were loaded and Ismay & Carter slipped in just as Collapsible C started to lower.
Everything I have researched thus far strongly suggests that those 2 warning shots into the air were the only ones that Murdoch fired before he was swept overboard some 15 minutes later. Furthermore, the details of disturbance around Collapsible C came from other Titanic sources and Collins and the steward had not even arrived on the scene at the time.
That is very questionable in my opinion. Depending on which source you read or check, that comment and associated scenario have been attributed to Lowe at Lifeboat #14, Lightoller at Lifeboat #12 or even Lightoller/Wilde at Collapsible D but only very rarely to events around Collapsible A. The men struggling to free Collapsible A - Murdoch, Moody, McElroy, possibly Nichols and several others had their work cut out because of the increasing port list. They had to first unlash it from the roof of the Captain's Quarters and push it down to the boat deck; Steward Brown testified how they tried to use a couple of canvas spars to facilitate this. Thereafter, they tried to drag the heavy boat uphill to position it but a few intervening structures including a funnel stay got in the way making further progress very difficult. Murdoch and the rest were working very hard at it when the wave hit.
As far as I know, none of the survivors who were near Collapsible A at the time and survived on it - like Edward Brown, Fireman Thompson etc alluded to any gun waving, let alone firing it during that frantic activity. All evidence suggests that George Rheims, one of those who did report the officer shooting incident, was further aft and closer to amidships with his brother-in-law Joseph Loring at the time. The same applies to Carl Jasson, who heard the shots and saw people running aft before he went overboard.
In my opinion, the multiple and mostly frantic events after 2pm as reported by survivors have become mixed-up and confused due to circumstances at the time. It is unlikely that anyone who reported those events checked the time and remembered it later. But from what I have deduced (and that only) from as much information gathered and collated from several sources including my own research, the following events are likely to be close to the truth.
- By around 01:58am, Murdoch, McElroy and others had completed loading of Collapsible C on the starboard side and were ready to lower it. At the time there was some disturbance from the men around who were unable to get in and in order to ward off the rush, Murdoch fired a couple of warning shots into the air. He did not hit anyone but the crowd pulled back. Just as Collapsible C started to lower, Ismay (and possibly Bill Carter) checked that there were no more women or children to board the boat and finding none, got on board themselves.
- About 5 minutes later on the port side, Wilde and Lightoller had allowed women and children only to board Collapsible D with a semicircle of crew members linking arms and holding the men back. When the men started to get too unruly, one of those two officers threatened them with his gun - he might even have fired a warning shot without hitting anyone. But the push persisted and so Wilde and Lightoller were forced to lower the lifeboat less than half full onto the sea, which was by then very close due to the post list. As it descended past the A-deck, Woolner and Stefansson jumped in.
- Around 02:10 am John Collins and a steward, each holding on to a small child, were making their way towards where Murdoch and the others had got Collapsible A down to the boat deck on the starboard side and were struggling to position it for loading; August Wennerstrom was also nearby, holding onto 2 other children (all 4 might have been Alma Palsson's kids). Somehow Collins & the steward heard that there was another lifeboat being loaded a bit aft (not true, as there was none) and had turned around when the officer shooting incident - the one to which many survivors have alluded to - took place; this appears to have been quite a bit aft of Collapsible A, closer to where the likes of Rheims, Jansson and possibly Richard Williams were at the time. Collins and the steward tried to go back towards Collapsible A and were nearing it when the Titanic took that sudden forward and downward lurch that generated the 'wave' which hit them all. John Collins saw Murdoch knocked overboard with many others before he was himself washed away, pushed underwater and lost his grip on the child.
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Arun Vajpey
Member
With regard to a lot of survivor witness statements about the Titanic disaster, it would have been difficult for them to have been coldly analytical while recollecting events later, like we now can being uninvolved and with a lot of hindsight. IMO this is particularly applicable to the various incidents where shots were fired and those, combined with other catastrophic happenings during the last 20 to 25 minutes of the sinking, events and timelines would have become seriously mixed-up.
Gorge Rheims is a very good example of this; he told his wife that he saw an officer shoot a man and then take his own life "just as the last boat was leaving". The question is - which boat did he mean? Collapsible C was launched about a minute or so before 02:00am and afterwards, Murdoch, Moody and McElroy were working to free Collapsible A for several minutes before it was washed free by the wave sometime between 02:16am and 02:17am, which was when they were also flung overboard. From what Rheims stated at the Limitation of Liability Hearings over 18 months after the disaster, he (and Loring) jumped off the ship near the gymnasium, which was well aft of where Collapsible A was being worked on, and yet he claims to have seen the officer shooting incident; similarly, Carl Jansson was in the same area when he heard the shots and saw people running aft.
The other thing we have to remember is that many survivors on board Collapsible A were not actually near that lifeboat when they jumped or were swept overboard from the sinking Titanic. Rheims, Jansson, Richard Williams, Peter Daly and probably others like Weikmann swam to the lifeboat and got (or were helped) on board and as far as I am aware, all of them except Daly alluded to some shooting incident. However, those who were actually very close to Collapsible A or actually working on it when the wave hit - Edward Brown, John Thompson, William Mellors, August Wennerstrom and probably Olaus Abelseth never mentioned any shooting. To me, that supports what I learned - albeit somewhat painstakingly - during my own research; the officer shooting incident, IF it did take place, was not near Collapsible A but quite aft of it, probably near the gymnasium. Since several witnesses did report the so-called "officer suicide" incident, the farthest I would go is guardedly accept that it could have happened but we cannot be certain.
Gorge Rheims is a very good example of this; he told his wife that he saw an officer shoot a man and then take his own life "just as the last boat was leaving". The question is - which boat did he mean? Collapsible C was launched about a minute or so before 02:00am and afterwards, Murdoch, Moody and McElroy were working to free Collapsible A for several minutes before it was washed free by the wave sometime between 02:16am and 02:17am, which was when they were also flung overboard. From what Rheims stated at the Limitation of Liability Hearings over 18 months after the disaster, he (and Loring) jumped off the ship near the gymnasium, which was well aft of where Collapsible A was being worked on, and yet he claims to have seen the officer shooting incident; similarly, Carl Jansson was in the same area when he heard the shots and saw people running aft.
The other thing we have to remember is that many survivors on board Collapsible A were not actually near that lifeboat when they jumped or were swept overboard from the sinking Titanic. Rheims, Jansson, Richard Williams, Peter Daly and probably others like Weikmann swam to the lifeboat and got (or were helped) on board and as far as I am aware, all of them except Daly alluded to some shooting incident. However, those who were actually very close to Collapsible A or actually working on it when the wave hit - Edward Brown, John Thompson, William Mellors, August Wennerstrom and probably Olaus Abelseth never mentioned any shooting. To me, that supports what I learned - albeit somewhat painstakingly - during my own research; the officer shooting incident, IF it did take place, was not near Collapsible A but quite aft of it, probably near the gymnasium. Since several witnesses did report the so-called "officer suicide" incident, the farthest I would go is guardedly accept that it could have happened but we cannot be certain.
Sarah S
Member
I just can’t understand why the officer (no matter who it was) felt the need to shoot at passengers during that point of the sinking, bare minutes away from the final plunge when nothing could be done anyways. I commend the crew and officers for holding on the difficult task trying to launch A, but I am sure at that point they already realized that their time had run out and they couldn’t succeed.
A man/officer taking his own life in that stage sounds reasonable to me but not if the shots targeted others
A man/officer taking his own life in that stage sounds reasonable to me but not if the shots targeted others
Thomas Krom
Member
I believe that it was a matter of mistaken identity on a badly lit boat deck, with the first statement on the identity being purser McElroy from Thayer being made 20 years after the disaster and the second one being made 28 years after the disaster. It must also be noted that Thayer never named Murdoch by name or even by rank in any of his accounts, not to mention the big question of how McElroy would have gotten a firearm. Depending on which timeline one believes McElroy was seen standing with Surgeon/Doctor O’Loughlin, assistant surgeon/doctor Simpson, assistant purser Barker, the four purser clerks and the postal clerks between 1:50 and 2 o’clock on the port side, and while he actively took part in the loading of lifeboat number 9 I find this change from passively standing and talking with colleagues he served together with for a long time to suddenly firing warning shots and being active again in less than 10 minutes quite strange. Beside that, I agree.
Which sources do you have that places purser McElroy his presence at collapsible Engelhardt lifeboat C (beside Thayer his two statements) and A? As far as I am aware he was last seen by an unknown crewmember who landed in Plymouth who saw him standing United states postal clerk William Logan Gwinn (1875-1912).
On a side note, chief officer Wilde his last sighting by name was at collapsible Engelhardt lifeboat A by Colonel Gracie in his book (he however misidentified the lifeboat wrongly, despite being on the starboard side):
This is his last sighting by name that I managed to find, which matches with the location of the sighing you mentioned that scullion John COllins talks about.
Third class passenger Eugene Patrick Daly (1883-1965) recalled these threats were made. In the letter to his sister he described:
He told the Daily Sketch edition from the 4th May 1912 something similar:
Rheims mentioned he saw an officer firing upon a man who attempted to climb into a boat. All the lifeboats which were located more amidships had left the Titanic at this point in the sinking.
May I see the account in question? I want to make sure nothing is taken out of context
As mentioned in my previous post, the Webley revolvers were quite silent compared to other firearms:
There is a chance that with all the commission of getting the lifeboat away the sound was muffled.
Chief officer Wilde was present at collapsible Engelhardt lifeboat C too, and according to quartermaster Rowe was even in charge of preparing it at the time when he was ordered to assist him by captain Smith
As mentioned before Rheims saw someone being shot who attempted to climb in a lifeboat and amidships there were no lifeboats. According to the letter Rheims wrote to his wife he went down to A-deck to retrieve a picture of his wife in his stateroom. This took one minute. I believe it is more likely that he told his brother-in-law about it, who followed him aft but waited on the deck near the door of the boat deck landing of the forward Louis XIV/grand staircase then that he stayed behind near that said lifeboat. Rheims stated it took about a minute to do so.
First class passenger Peter Dennis Daly (1860-1932) DID allude to a shooting incident:
Peter Dennis Daly | William Murdoch
Thompson recalled in the New York Sun on the 23rd of April that:
The him in this case is supposedly first officer Murdoch. As mentioned before, there are holes in the claim that it happened amidships.
We don't know who exactly got shot either. I've seen claims that it were staff members of the á la carte restaurants, stewards but also indeed passengers. The only reason as to why shots were fired was, as mentioned before, to set an example to the other people nearby not to storm or climb into the lifeboat as the women and children nearby were the first priority if I am allowed to speculate.
Arun Vajpey
Member
I agree. For quite a while I considered that Thayer might have been right on grounds that as a First Class passenger he would have been familiar with the Chief Purser. But on reflection I changed my mind; I agree that McElroy was very unlikely to have been present at the firearms meeting - in fact, I believe he was getting Lifeboat #9 ready at the time.
I cannot find it at the moment but will let you know as soon as I do. But the fact that McElroy was on the starboard side for most of the latter part of the sinking and he was seen near the bow end by Lightoller suggests that he was there. After Lifeboat #15 was lowered on the starboard side, Moody and later Murdoch (after launching Lifeboat #10) went to Collapsible C and A and it is likely that McElroy was also there.
Appendix K of On A Sea Of Glass (p312 of the paperback edition), where there is a direct quote. The reference says The New York Times on 19th April 1912 but according to his ET bio, Jansson told Chicago American on 25th April that he saw "Chief Officer" Murdoch place a gun in his mouth and shoot himself. It also says that Jansson also told them that he flung himself on top of a door to save himself, but I think that is a mistake. I have seen other accounts which claim that it was Third Class survivor Karl Jonsson who said that he was saved on a door initially.
Going by Jansson's statement in OASOG, he does not appear to have been near Collapsible A while still on the deck of the sinking Titanic. If he was further aft alongside the gymnasium or thereabouts, it sort of matches where you said Gracie might have seen Wilde and where Collins saw the "Senior mate, the one next to the Captain". If Wilde crossed over to the starboard side after Collapsible D was lowered, then it raises certain possibilities which I don't want to go into in this thread. BUT, I have often wondered what made Walter Lord change his mind about the identity of the officer he believed was involved in the shooting incident; while he toyed with the idea that it might have been Murdoch in his 1986 book The Night Lives On, by his 1989 TV interview he was almost convinced that it was Wilde.
This is what I seriously doubt. Apart from Murdoch firing those two warning shots into the air, there were no other firing while Collapsible C was loaded and launched. I don't believe that Rheims was actually near Collapsible A while they were trying to position it even though he later managed to swim to it and get on board.
I do not believe the story about going down to his cabin at that late stage. There is some confusion about which his cabin really was. He told the Limitation of Liability Hearing that he was in A-21 but according to his ET bio, Rheims and Loring had adjoining cabins on B-deck.
Thomas Krom
Member
Second officer Lightoller recalled seeing them on the boat deck after having filled lifeboat number 4, so they were on the port side, likely leaning against the officers quarters deck-house if I were to speculate.
What makes it appear he wasn't near collapsible Engelhardt lifeboat A?
We'll sadly never know as to why, however I believe it is the most likely possibility too.
I never believed the incident took place at collapsible Engelhardt lifeboat C based on the timing. We must keep in mind that Rheims wasn't a seaman and hence his terms for 'leaving' can be up an interpretation. But the bottom line is that he saw a man climbing into a lifeboat and getting shot in his own words.
The claim that they had adjourning staterooms comes from Farewell Titanic: Her Final Legacy, by Charles Pellegrino, which despite not having read it isn't the most reliable source from what I heard from a handful of people.
The price Rheims paid for his ticket matches with the prices fellow first class passengers paid for their A-deck staterooms, however there is one thing that is problematic and that is that A-21 is listed as John Bertram Brady his stateroom. Personally I believe Rheims was on A-deck, but possibly not in A-21 (due to memory loss he may remembered the stateroom number wrong however). Going down to A-deck from the boat deck would have taken about a minute and personally I don't have any doubts about the stories.
Arun Vajpey
Member
Are you quite certain about that? It seemed to me that Lightoller saw McElroy with his hands in his pockets or something just after the former had launched Collapsible D on the port side. But from Lightoller's words I got the impression that he had briefly crossed to the starboard side when he saw McElroy and the others. I know it was somewhere near the bridge.
Also, having spent most of his time helping with starboard side lifeboats earlier, why would McElroy have gone to the port side at a time when his help would be most needed on the starboard side with loading/launching Collapsible C while others (like Moody) attended to freeing Collapsible A from the roof of the Captain's quarters? I have not yet found the source, but do remember reading somewhere (yes, other than Jack Thayer's statements) that the Chief Purser was helping Murdoch with Collapsible C. Perhaps one of the other members can help here.
Jansson's words. "Suddenly I heard shrieks and cries amidship, and the sharp reports of several shots. People began to run by me toward the stern of the ship" That and his subsequent words suggest that the time was a few minutes before the wave struck.
Notice that Jansson thought that he heard the shouts and shots from amidship and then people ran past him towards the stern. That suggests that he was himself quite a way aft of Collapsible A and it was only then that he realized that the bow was sinking rapidly - which might mean that from his position Jansson could not clearly see where they were working on Collapsible A. His allusion to 'amidship' also suggests that the shots themselves came from a bit aft of the sinking bow rather than from the vicinity of Collapsible A. I think that is an important point and could fully open the already leaking can of worms.
I never believed it took place near Collapsible C either. Just consider the circumstances: There might have been some disturbance during its loading that prompted Murdoch to fire those two warning shots into the air, but by the time they came to actually lower the lifeboat very close to 02:00 am, things appeared to have settled down a bit. Ismay and probably Bill Carter checked to see if there were any more women or children around to board the lifeboat and reportedly finding none, got in themselves. That does not fit in at all with any scenario where a man could have been shot when he tried to enter a lifeboat - as described later by Rheims.
That leaves us with Collapsible A, which also does not fit in with what Rheims claimed. The lifeboat was not even properly positioned for anyone to try to get into it. The significant and increasing port list caused Moody and the others considerable difficulty in pushing it down from the roof and then they did, it fell awkwardly onto the boat deck and despite remaining upright sustained some damage so that the canvas sides could not be pulled up. They then had to drag it uphill to fit it to the davits, which Murdoch had ordered to be cranked back. But a funnel stay was in the way and they were unable to get the lifeboat to the davits to position it for loading properly. Meanwhile, water had started gushing up the forward hatchway and despite the port list Collapsible A had started to take in water. Fireman John Thompson got into the boat to try and put the plug in but was not able to do so properly because of his injured hands. It was soon afterwards that the wave struck and Collapsible A floated free.
Note: Most of the above points are from On A Sea Of Glass and there are several individual numbered references that you can check further in the endnotes section.
That is the reason that I do not completely believe what Rheims said - or some interpretations of it - about the shooting incident. I think that he heard the shots that Murdoch fired into the air during loading of Collapsible C, which is likely to have been around 01:58am; Rheims might have also seen some of the disturbance when men tried to rush that boat, which ties in with his statement "when someone tried to get into the lifeboat". Then, about 12 minutes or so later, Rheims might have seen the so called "Officer shooting & suicide incident". which, IF it indeed took place, would have been further aft for reasons we discussed earlier - about statements from Collins, Jansson etc. But when it came to recalling those events later, it is my belief that George Rheims got those two separate events mixed up - not surprising after what he went though during those hellish hours on Collapsible A.
Finally, if you read Rheims' bio on ET, you can see that he was not all that reliable as a witness. Make up your own mind on that.
Say no more. If it came from Charles Pellegrino, then all sorts of mistakes are very highly possible. I own an early edition of his Her Name: Titanic, where it says that the Titanic was a Cunard liner when it sank. You are almost certainly right in thinking that Rheims' cabin was on A-deck like he said told the Limitation Of Liability Hearing.
Well, that is the most difficult conjecture that a lot of us - including me - have skirted around for years. To put it in a nutshell, my own research plus collation of information from other sources very strongly suggests not only that Murdoch was NOT the officer involved in that incident but also that he was still working to free Collapsible A when he was swept overboard. The information about Wilde's whereabouts at the time is more sketchy, but there are indications that he was also on the starboard side by around 02:10 am. IF the shooting incident really took place, it would have been between 02:12 and 02:14 am IMO and the way I see it going by statements of Jansson, Collins and perhaps others including Rheims himself indirectly, the location was well aft of where they were working on Collapsible A. I'll leave you - and anyone else interested - to decide on the possibility that Wilde was there at that crucial time.
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Thomas Krom
Member
Second officer Lightoller didn’t gave a timing for the meeting in his testimony on the 24th of April (the fifth day of the American Senate inquiry) but in his memoirs he placed the meeting before going to collapsible Engelhardt lifeboat D (which he misidentified as emergency lifeboat number 2). I haven’t found any statement that states that Lightoller went to the starboard side at that time, you can correct me if I am wrong. From the accounts that mention his role in the evacuation it appears that McElroy played an active role in supplying the lifeboats with supplies and ordering members of the victualling crew in the lifeboat.
To stand with the rest of his colleagues would he my best guess. And while I am increasing my collection of accounts presently I haven’t found any other account that places McElroy at collapsible Engelhardt lifeboat C. Keep in mind that McElroy was of the victualling crew, and not the deck crew. There is no evidence that earlier in the evacuation there is no evidence of him helping with uncovering the lifeboat, instead he played a vital and instrumental role in rousing the passengers.
Of-course we don’t know how he said it as he was interviewed, but as it is written down he only specified the shriek and cries were amidships. The usage of the sentence “sharp reports of several shots” also makes it unclear if he either heard the shots himself or that it was reported to him by other people on deck, it also contradicts the statements that he saw an officer shot himself.
I believe Rheims referred to a man attempting to board the uncovered collapsible Engelhardt lifeboat A during the unsuccessful attempts to have it swung out.
Except for the mentioning of shots about 40 minutes before the ship went down (likely referring to fifth officer Lowe his warning shots based on the timing) Rheims made no other mention of gunshots during the sinking beside the later incident.
His letter however clearly indicates that the incident when someone (a man) attempted to board a lifeboat, the following shooting and the suicide happened in short succession after one another.
On a side-note, I recently discovered that the letter in question isn’t in it’s actual words as the letter was originally written in French, not English. This can mean that the term “was leaving” could have been translated differently than Rheims wrote in French to his wife.
The only thing that isn’t reliable regarding Rheims in my humble opinion is that he suffered from memory loss, which I find understandable considering the horrors and even destroying thoughts that went through him, particularly this line hit me rather hard:
I don’t agree with you that the incident happened amidships, personally I believe it happened on the officers' promenade.
For some time now I’ve considering chief officer Wilde as the most likely suspect, not only his final sighting (excluding the false story that he was seen on the bridge while smoking a cigarette) but also his private life. Having been depressed myself, with still occasional moment of melancholy since I don’t feel happy of how my life went and how it presently is going, the look into his letters show a good man with a good heart going through a rough period of which he grew tired of. He lived a rough life if one looks at his family life.
Arun Vajpey
Member
I am not claiming that the Officer shooting incident happened amidships but merely stating that it was what Carl Jansson was supposed to have said...or at least translated to that effect. All I am saying is based on what I found out during my John Collins research and collating that with some other related information like the statement by Jansson, it suggests that such an incident, if it indeed had taken place, would have been somewhat aft of where Murdoch and the others were working to free Collapsible A.
I personally think it was slightly further aft, probably in the 1st Class promenade area between the davits of Lifeboats #5 and #3.
Anyway, since Sarah's OP was about general thoughts on the so-called "Officer shooting/suicide incident" we have to consider the large number of reports from survivors from varied classes and backgrounds and who could not all possibly have imagined it, even if many reports did not tally with each other. I know that some of those survivor statements came from people who were in lifeboats launched quite a bit earlier than the final plunge and so could not possibly have seen what happened from their vantage point. My take on that is that such people heard or even saw officers firing shots harmlessly earlier (Lowe, Lightoller/Wilde, Murdoch), then heard from other survivors about the actual shooting incident that we are discussing here and later imagined that they had seen/heard it themselves. Given the confusing and later chaotic circumstances, it is not surprising.
That means that we cannot dismiss the possibility outright and have to at least accept that it could have happened - that is my own position anyway. That said, the next question invariably would be the identity of the Officer involved and that is something that I found many of us - including me - being evasive in our opinions about during impromptu discussions at the annual BTS Conferences in Southampton, which I attended regularly during the 1990s. As I said, by that 1989 TV interview, Walter Lord seemed to have convinced himself that it was Chief Officer Wilde, although he was neither asked not did he offer to explain that change of opinion. Later, my own research into John Collins' survival circumstances, while strongly indicating that it was not Murdoch, rather vaguely hinted that it might have been Wilde. That is how it lies with me at present.
If we go by the process of elimination, it was not Lightoller, Pitman, Boxhall or Lowe for obvious reasons. It could not have been Captain Smith because had it been so, far more of those claiming to have seen the incident would have identified the full-whiskered Master of the ship. Moody is a remote possibility, but he was not at the firearms meeting and as far as is known, did not have a gun at the time. That leaves Wilde and Murdoch. For reasons related to both my research and our knowledge of Murdoch's character, especially the professional manner in which he conducted himself during the evacuation - and of course the fact that he was still working with Collapsible A at the time - makes me believe that it was NOT him. We all know whom that leaves - perhaps in a somewhat unfair manner, but there it is.
Well, you have put into words my own thoughts for a very long time for a variety of reasons. With my medical background as a GP, I have seen and treated several cases of reactive depression and know the kind of effect it can have on the individual at times of stress. Please note that I am NOT claiming that Wilde was suicidal or even close to it when he boarded the Titanic as its Chief Officer, but the circumstances of his private life - death of a beloved wife, loss of twin sons - might have increased the risk when the realization came during the sinking that his own time might not be far away. I have heard some BTS members comment about Wilde's remaining 4 kids being largely cared for by his sister as another risk factor, but I disagree to that; as a relatively recently widowed sailor Wilde would have had to make some arrangements for his children and a close sister would be an obvious choice.
Samuel Halpern
Member
Interesting discussion. Regarding the large number of reports from survivors of different classes and backgrounds, including those who could not possibly have seen what happened, is not surprising given that these survivors heard a lot about many things while on Carpathia from each other. Studies have demonstrated that memory can be contaminated by erroneous information that people are exposed to after they witness an event. They also tend to mix up details across time and place. And then there is false memories that show up years later.
Steven Christian
Member
Yes. I was going to post pretty much what you just said. Many of the reports came from people that weren't even on the ship at the time. They were in life boats a half a mile away. I could be wrong on my take on the whole shooting thing but I know how stories grow. Seen it many times. Cheers.
Thomas Krom
Member
Hence why we are looking at eyewitnesses who were on the Titanic at the time of recalled incident.
Arun Vajpey
Member
You are both right. For instance if a passenger who was saved on an aft starboard lifeboat had heard Lowe's shots while lowering Lifeboat #14 on the port side, they could not have actually seen what happened. Later on board the Carpathia, if that passenger spoke to another who had seen - or thought that they had seen - the alleged officer shooting incident, the first one could immediately think "I heard those shots!" and things could easily grow and spread from there.
Samuel Halpern
Member
Then there are survivors like Margaret Brown and May Futrelle who simply made up stuff when retelling their stories.
