Lights and Californian

[Bob Read]

I agree with Sam. To call Stanley Lord a 'coward' would be bit short sighted IMO. He went to the sea at an early age and to rise to the rank of Captain in one's 30s, he must have been good professionally. Being a sailor in any capacity did involve some risk at the time, especially in the pre-wireless days which was when Lord started his career. An outright coward would never have made it that far.

My personal view is that for all his martinet manner, Lord was not very bright. In fact, his stern and forbidding personality might have been a front to disguise his limitations in lateral thinking. Yes, I know that one did not have to be a rocket scientist to think that a ship firing off rockets at night could be in distress, but Lord's reaction - or the lack of it - means that there was a reason. Lord was probably half-asleep when he was told about the other ship and the rockets and with some people in that state it takes a while to clear one's mind.

Reading Lord's bio, one thing stood out in my mind. Whatever Lord faced or did not face from officialdom after the Titanic disaster and whatever direction his own career took or did not take, he did not really appear to harbour much personal guilt over the matter. At first glance that would seem rather odd because for all his mistakes that night, even his worst detractors have to agree that Stanley Lord was not a bad, heartless man. He had a wife and child himself and so later realization about the extent of loss of life, especially the children, should have made him privately feel very guilty had he come to believe that he could have saved many lives if he had reacted effectively. That suggests that Lord really believed that he had done nothing wrong that night. Of course, he would have felt sorry for the deaths and disruption afterwards but I think he did not privately blame himself too much. His continued quest to clear his name in the following years does point to that.

I think what probably gave him consolation was that even his best efforts wouldn’t have had much, if any, effect on the outcome of the disaster. Even a marginal effort would have all but cleared his name.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

To be honest, even a few years ago I did not think that what I now do about Lord's limitations of intelligence. But after reading Paul Lee's The Titanic & The Indifferent Stranger and especially Sam Halpern's Strangers On The Horizon, I thought more about the "why" of the situation and formed the conclusion that I mentioned in the previous post above. There cannot be any other explanation for Lord's post-disaster manner.

While one can feel that covering Number One might have played a part in Lord's testimonies, it would not explain his apparent lack of personal guilt over what happened.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

he hearing wasn't held because, if it had been held, Lord would then have had the opportunity to call witnesses in his defense. I believe Captain Lord would have been able to refute the charges or establish reasonable doubt.

Believe it or not, you're singing my song on this one. I think on the whole it's obvious that Lord and Company dropped the ball, but it wasn't out of malice. It was simply a horrible mistake.

That said, had criminal charges been pressed, all the defense would have to do is in fact establish reasonable doubt. With the questionable witnesses available at the time, this would have been child's play for any lawyer with the IQ of week-old roadkill.

The whole Titanic affair was enormously embarrassing enough so this is the last thing anybody wanted or needed.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Keep in mind that Lord had to eventually realize that the SOS position was wrong the next morning, and that what was seen the previous night to his SE was probably where Titanic actually foundered, despite Stone telling him that the rocket-firing ship disappeared to the SW around 2am. Capt. Moore realized that the SOS position was wrong, but unfortunately, nobody believed either one. They believed Rostron who said Boxhall's position was perfect, which we now know is bunk, and that Carpathia never got to that position, and in fact was incapable of achieving the claimed speed needed to do so no matter how hard the stokers flamed the fires in her boilers. So part of Lord's rationalization could have been that if he tried that night to go to the SOS position, having awakened Evans of course, it would have taken him hours to get there, only to find that that was an erroneous position, and he would have been too late anyway, even if he went directly toward the rocket-firing vessel. Therefore, no guilt for loss of life.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

That said, had criminal charges been pressed,

Failure to go to the aid of another vessel in distress is a misdemeanor, not a criminal offense. Besides, the only thing he had to claim is that his own ship was surrounded in loose ice near the edge of vast field of pack ice, and in moving his ship, he would have put his ship and all those aboard, in grave danger.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

A misdemeanor IS by definition a criminal offense. That said, yes, he could have offered that defense and if that didn't work, Attila the Lawyer would move in to confuse the issue and win.

Lord Mersey wasn't about to take that chance.

Better to leave a verdict in place that couldn't be challenged because legally, nothing happened.

 

[Julian Atkins]

I have hesitated to comment on this further.

Groves gets the head up on all this because he did wake up Evans. Not for reasons relating to Titanic, but his general practice when he left the bridge and finished his watch at that time of night just after midnight.

I would suggest that Groves waking up Evans that particular night created some very great difficulty for Captain Lord the next morning.

His junior Officer had done exactly what Captain Lord did not do.

Captain Lord must have been fully awake at 1.10/1.15am when he got up from the chart room to go into his bunk that was in a separate room to answer Stone on the speaking tube. I do not believe that having been told of rockets seen by Stone at that time (and we have a contradiction in the accounts of Stone and Gibson) that Captain Lord could have fallen fast asleep without being on alert of something going on.

We know that if he raised the question of ‘company signals’ it was entirely spurious. Because there were none.

I think that views about Captain Lord are becoming very much more critical, and I agree with this.

 

[Steven Christian]

A misdemeanor IS by definition a criminal offense. That said, yes, he could have offered that defense and if that didn't work, Attila the Lawyer would move in to confuse the issue and win.

Lord Mersey wasn't about to take that chance.

Better to leave a verdict in place that couldn't be challenged because legally, nothing happened.

Yes. Misdemeanors can be elevated to a criminal offence. In my youth I had to go court a few times. 20 mph over the limit. I can't drive 55.

 

[marina_irc]

I agree with Sam. To call Stanley Lord a 'coward' would be bit short sighted IMO. He went to the sea at an early age and to rise to the rank of Captain in one's 30s, he must have been good professionally. Being a sailor in any capacity did involve some risk at the time, especially in the pre-wireless days which was when Lord started his career. An outright coward would never have made it that far.

My personal view is that for all his martinet manner, Lord was not very bright. In fact, his stern and forbidding personality might have been a front to disguise his limitations in lateral thinking. Yes, I know that one did not have to be a rocket scientist to think that a ship firing off rockets at night could be in distress, but Lord's reaction - or the lack of it - means that there was a reason. Lord was probably half-asleep when he was told about the other ship and the rockets and with some people in that state it takes a while to clear one's mind.

Reading Lord's bio, one thing stood out in my mind. Whatever Lord faced or did not face from officialdom after the Titanic disaster and whatever direction his own career took or did not take, he did not really appear to harbour much personal guilt over the matter. At first glance that would seem rather odd because for all his mistakes that night, even his worst detractors have to agree that Stanley Lord was not a bad, heartless man. He had a wife and child himself and so later realization about the extent of loss of life, especially the children, should have made him privately feel very guilty had he come to believe that he could have saved many lives if he had reacted effectively. That suggests that Lord really believed that he had done nothing wrong that night. Of course, he would have felt sorry for the deaths and disruption afterwards but I think he did not privately blame himself too much. His continued quest to clear his name in the following years does point to that.

He had probably totally rationalised what had happened by that point and really believed he was 19 miles away and that he couldn't have offered any assistance so he had in fact done nothing wrong except expose himself to social shame from angry people. Humans are extremely good at this.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

He had probably totally rationalised what had happened by that point and really believed he was 19 miles away and that he couldn't have offered any assistance so he had in fact done nothing wrong except expose himself to social shame from angry people. Humans are extremely good at this.

I'm a bit confused. Precisely what 'point' are are you referring to?

My point (pun not intended) is that AFAIK at any stage during either Inquiry or thereafter Captain Lord did NOT state that his ship was surrounded by ice to such an extent that he considered it dangerous to his crew to move it at all. Like Sam says, he might have said so had this case been escalated to legal proceedings but since that did not happen, we cannot be certain. But Lord did say a few times that he (and his crew) believed that the lights that they saw were not from the Titanic and going by the position that he was later given, the sinking WSL ship was 19.5 miles away from his Californian. And although he did not use precise words to that effect, Lord hinted a few times that the two ships were therefore too far apart for the Californian to be able to render any assistance.

My question is, how did Lord - or anyone else on board the Californian - know that at the time they saw lights of another ship or even after the first rocket was fired? Lord and his crew found out only later that the ship was indeed the Titanic and it had sunk over 2 hours and 40 minutes; of course, all of us know that in retrospect. We now know that the Titanic and the Californian were more like 12 miles apart rather than the 19.5 miles quoted by Captain Lord, but that is immaterial from his perspective and for the purposes of this discussion. We have already been though the fact that even at 12 miles away, the Californian could have done very little in the 1 hour and 53 minutes left after the Titanic sent out its first distress call and 1 hour 33 minutes left after the first rocket was fired. But that's besides the point.

To explain what I am on about, let us consider for the sake of arguement Lord's supposed belief during that night that the Titanic was 19.5 miles away from the stopped Californian. That would have been "too far away" only if Lord and his crew knew that the Titanic had only 1 hour and 33 minutes to live after the first rocket was fired. But of course, they could NOT have known that at the time; for all they knew, the ship that fired that first distress rocket might have had 4 more hours left. Since Evans was asleep and the Californian had not received any distress calls, they would not have had a clear idea if other ships, if any, were coming to the rescue. One or both Inquiry Committees could have challenged Lord or Stone on that point but they didn't; in fact, Stone was not even called to testify at the US Inquiry.

I'm considering a "What If" situation below ot make my point.

Theoretically, if the Titanic still had 4 hours to go at 12:47am when the first rocket was fired and Evans on board the Californian had been woken up immediately and things moved positively, the Californian could have arrived near the Titanic with over 2 hours left without taking any major risks. With W/Os on both ships communicating with each other and other ships as necessary, any positional errors could well have been soon corrected for all concerned. In such a scenario, the Californian might have been able to accommodate all those on board the Titanic for a few hours till more ships arrived to help.

 

[marina_irc]

@Arun Vajpey you were talking about years after the sinking. By then Lord’s mind had probably created a narrative in his memories in which it seemed his story was true and there was nothing that could have been done about the sinking and loss of life by his crew. We know human memory works that way.

 

[Steven Christian]

Yes. And after years of thinking about it he could have come to the right conclusion. It was about the optics of the situation. We couldn't have made it there in time. No matter what I did or didn't do.

 

[Julian Atkins]

AFAIK at any stage during either Inquiry or thereafter Captain Lord did NOT state that his ship was surrounded by ice to such an extent that he considered it dangerous to his crew to move it at all.

Captain Lord could have said to both Inquiries that he should not endanger his ship and crew at night and in ice that he did not have to go to the rescue of a vessel in distress. That reasonable response - at least on paper - he did not avail himself of.

It was part of the Leyland Line instructions, and also in UK legislation not going to the aid of a vessel in distress.

The contrary view is that Captain Rostron did put not only his ship and crew but also his passengers at risk in his over exaggerated rescue dash (at least as to speed).

What could Captain Lord do after the event? Knowing what subsequently Captain Rostron had done? It would be very tricky to claim the exclusion in legislation for inaction when Captain Rostron disregarded it.

What we then have is a whole lot of nonsense when The Californian docked at Boston, and then at the British Inquiry Stewart and Captain Lord having quoted back at them parts of their wreck commissioners’ statements.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

This line of hypothetical questioning of Lord is rather interesting. Remember, the commission was told by Lord that he was called around 1:15am by Stone informing him that a rocket was sighted, and they all knew the SOS position which they thought was perfect.

7403. Supposing you had known at 1.15 a.m. that the “Titanic” was in distress somewhere to the southward and westward of you, could you, in fact, have reached her before she sank? - What time did she sink?
7404. (The Commissioner.) Do not you know? - I have heard so many different rumours of that out in the States that I really do not know.
7405. What time do you think she sank? - Somewhere between 2 and 3.
7406. (Mr. Dunlop.) Assuming that she sank somewhere between 2 and 3, could you, in fact, if you had known at 1.15 a.m. in the morning that the “Titanic” was in distress to the southward and westward of you, have reached her before, say, 3 a.m.? - No, most certainly not.
7407. Could you have navigated with any degree of safety to your vessel at night through the ice that you, in fact, encountered? - It would have been most dangerous.
The Commissioner: Am I to understand that this is what you mean to say, that if he had known that the vessel was the “Titanic” he would have made no attempt whatever to reach it?
7408. (Mr. Dunlop.) No, my Lord. I do not suggest that. (To the Witness.) What would you have done? No doubt you would have made an attempt? - Most certainly I would have made every effort to go down to her.
7409. Would the attempt from what you now know in fact have succeeded? - I do not think we would have got there before the “Carpathia” did, if we would have got there as soon.

Dunlop (who represented the Leyland Line) first asked 'What would you have done?" if he knew it was Titanic in distress. Then, before allowing Lord to answer, he tells Lord what to say, "No doubt you would have made an attempt?" So what was Lord to say after the way Dunlop express it? Would he have dared to say, "No, it was too dangerous?" Lord gave the answer that Dunlop was looking for, "Most certainly I would have made every effort to go down to her."

A most ridiculous statement. It kind of tells me, that if were up to the representatives of the Leyland Line, it was too dangerous to try to help a vessel in distress, but if they knew that it was Titanic, then they would make every effort.
It also sys something about Mersey.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Yes, that entire section (and probably others) were filled with suggestive leading questions and enforced ambiguous answers. Question 7407 was in particular double-edged, as was the answer; Dunlop's query was almost a trap and so Lord's had to sit on the fence with this response. He said "it would have been most dangerous" to go for the rescue but did not say that was the reason that he did not go. Then in 7408, after denying that he was not being deliberately suggestive, Dunlop contradicted himself by asking a very specific leading question to Lord and as Sam says, Lord responded with what Dunlop wanted to hear.