I'm almost finished reading "Last Log," it's a very enjoyable book. In fact, I almost couldn't put it down. I won't tell the story, but the book offers an entirely new and interesting perspective on William Murdoch, the "cool hand" First Officer, and his "port around" manuever. Interestingly, Dave postulates that the actual sinking of the ship was caused by
Captain Smith and
Bruce Ismay. If that's the case then a great injustice has been done to William Murdoch by the likes of virtually everyone who has reviewed, testified, or wrote about this disaster from the beginning.
Brown's description of Ismay is hilarious, and right on:
"Ismay was not a sailor, a naval architect, an engineer, or a shipbuilder. He was an aristocrat - - an inheritor of position - - in an era when amateurism was a British national passion. Robert Falcon Scott was about to march to an icy death in Antarctica for the same reason that Ismay was about to steam his ship into oblivion: the British belief in upper-class amateurs "muddling through" on their social superiority. Titanic represented twentieth-century technology bursting through those old ideas. This massive ship required large numbers of educated, skilled people making professional decisions beyond the capacity of well-intentioned amateurs. Ismay may have been an anachronism, but on this night he was still in charge."
How unfortunate for the passengers and crew.
Did many people die in Scott's group? Is it 10? Another one of these guys was Mallory, who died on Mount Everest (and whose still preserved body was discovered on the slopes last year). It's interesting to note, by contrast, that Ernest Shackleton, whose testimony Dave frequently refers to in his book, went on an Antartic expedition shortly thereafter (the Titanic disaster). His expedition failed, and his ship cracked up in the ice - - then Shackleton and his men had to find their own way back. He traveled some 800 miles in a lifeboat to get help, came back, and rescued all his men. The story is documented in his book "South." So a real hero who wasn't an Ismay-style British amateur was on the Plaintiff's side in the Titanic story. That says something in itself.
I wonder if Frederick Fleet made up this story about a "black berg" - - because the notion of a black berg suggests that it was more difficult to see, etc., and raises another excuse for Fleet and others to hide behind.
I can just see those guys now, 2,200 hundred people on board, in the night, zipping through the ice field with their fingers crossed - - I've found in my law practice that if you don't know what actually happened, and you imagine the worst possible scenario - - in the end, you discover that the worst scenario usually turns out to be what actually happened.
My compliments to Dave on his fine book.
