Robert T. Paige
Member
Harold Bride testified in America and mentioned the death of Phillips. Bride was asked:Who are the documented witnesses other than Harold Bride who claim to have seen Jack Phillips alive in the final minutes before the Titanic broke-up and sank? I mean all of those who claim to have seen him after 02:15, approximately the time he and Bride left the Marconi room and went their separate ways.
Somehow I find it difficult to believe Lightoller's statements about Phillips clinging on to Collapsible B for while and even conversing with the Second Officer before slipping into the icy Atlantic waters to his death. How well did Lightoller know the two 'Sparks'? Did he mistake Bride for Phillips? According to Bride, Phillips went aft and away from Collapsible B when the two left the radio shack. If Phillips had somehow turned-up at the overturned lifeboat, surely Bride would have remembered it?
It seems to me that there is more than a bit of ambiguity in Bride's statements about seeing Phillips body on Collapsible B.Harold Bride testified in America and mentioned the death of Phillips. Bride was asked:
Q - You say there were a number of people on the boat, on the bottom of the boat that was bottom-up when you got there?
A - Yes.
Q - Do you know any of them?
A - I heard afterwards that the senior operator was on board.
Q - Mr. Phillips?
A - Mr. Phillips.
Q - Was on the boat?
A - Yes; I heard so afterwards.
Q - He did not survive, however?
A - He did not survive.
Q - Do you know whether he died going from the Titanic to the Carpathia?
A - He died on the way; yes. He died on board the upturned boat.
Q - What became of his body?
A - As far as I know, it was taken on board the Carpathia and buried from the Carpathia.
Q - Buried at sea?
A - Buried from the Carpathia.
Bride also spoke of Phillips body in his exclusive interview to the New York Times in 1912.
"From aft came the tunes of the ship's band, playing the ragtime tune, 'Autumn. ' Phillips ran aft, and that was the last I ever saw of him alive............At last the Carpathia was alongside, and the people were being taken up a rope ladder. Our boat drew near, and one by one the men were taken off of it. One man was dead. I passed him, and went to a ladder, although my feet pained me terribly. The dead man was Phillips. He died on the raft from exposure and cold. I guess he had been all in from work before the wreck came. He stood his ground until the crisis passed and then collapsed. But I hardly thought of that then; I didn't think much about anything. I tried the rope ladder."
Lightoller wrote a book and claimed that he spoke to Phillips on the collapsible boat and that Phillips told him about the vital ice warning from the SS Mesaba which (according to Lightoller) was not sent to the bridge by accident. Lightoller was effectively accusing Phillips of negligence. Bride wrote an angry letter in 1936 shortly after Lightoller published his book. Bride condemned Lightoller's accusation, but he did not dispute in his letter that Phillips was on the collapsible.
Agreed and neither was Lightoller for that matter.Bride was not a very reliable witness at any time.
In my view, Bride and Phillips were not heroes but directly responsible for Titanic's disaster.
Also, how much weight did they give to those ice warnings? Remember that no one on board the Titanic, least of all Phillips and Bride, were able to consider the situation with hindsight like we can.
The Marcoi company certainly came out of the disaster smelling a lot cleaner than it should have done.
I believe this is why Bride became angry because his mate Phillips in his eyes was a professional and would not forget to deliver a vital ice warning to the bridge.
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