Nichols' six: WHO were they?

[chrs burton]

Have any of you any idea what might have been going on in the navigation departments of the Superintendent's offices of The White Star Line at London, Southampton and at Liverpool immediaterly after the disaster?

Well I have no idea what goes in a Superintendent's office navigation department, before or after a disaster.

I can guess - soul-searching; blame game; excuse making; prevarication ;depression; cv updating etc . . .

. . . or are navigation departments just concerned with testing recruits and chronometers and buying/supplying charts and almacs ??

Why is it a navigation issue anyway ?? - surely avoiding floating objects is just basic ship-driving ??

Perhaps Jim would be kind enough to tell us ( in simple terms ) . . . . .

 

[Jim Currie]

I can only guess, Chris. But from past encounters with Super's offices, I would be very surprised if, following the disaster, the four surviving Deck Officers were not asked to make detailed, individual reports in writing and sign them These reports would be much the same as the reports requested by Captain Lord of his 2nd & 3rd Officers and the Californian's Apprentice, James Gibson.

The Deck Superintendents would be interested in all the navigation data from Noon April, 14 until the moment of impact. They would be particularly interested in the nature of any advice and actual information they and others had given to Captain Smith.
From these, they would build a picture of Titanic's movements up until the moment of impact.
Unlike most of the members of this and other Titanic sites,the Deck Superintendents would all have been experienced mariners. As such, they could instantly conjure-up a mind's eye picture of what went on on the bridge of Titanic. Once they had done this, they would know if there had been anything unusual in the way Titanic had been 'driven'. More to the point, if the officer's reports reflected the evidence these men gave at the official imquiries, then the Suprintendents must have known without a doubt, that the distress position sent out was completely wrong.

In fact. a great deal of what was known at the time was buried. Not only by the Superintendents, but also on the other side of The Pond; in the halls and corridors of Washington DC.

 

[Harland Duzen]

Or even a Spin-Doctor for all those shady characters who are trying to destroy the US of A? Sorry! Couldn't resist it since there is nothing esle on the TV over here. back to the subject. here is a list of all the little ships. i know of at last one that is not n that list:

List of Dunkirk Little Ships | Association of Dunkirk Little Ships

I wonder if Lightoller would have objected to owning Sundowner, had he known it was also built in 1912!

 

[vonfrieddorf]

OK, well let's start by assuming the story of six sailors trapped below with Boatswain Nichols is accurate.

So then we need to consult the Deck Crew list for the names of lost seamen, who are as follows:

BRADLEY, Mr Thomas Henry 29

CLENCH, Mr George James [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)]31[/bcolor]

COUCH, Mr Frank 28 [253]

DAVIS, Mr Stephen James 39

HOLMAN, Mr Harry [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)]29[/bcolor]

MATHERSON, Mr David [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)]30[/bcolor] [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)][192][/bcolor]

SMITH, Mr William [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)]26[/bcolor]

TAYLOR, Mr Charles William Frederick [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)]40[/bcolor]

TERRELL, Mr Bertram 19

Note the bracketed numbers for Seamen Couch and Matherson, indicating their bodies were recovered - highly unlikely if they were trapped below. In addition, Fireman Frederick Doel later claimed that he was ordered in to Boat C by Seaman Matherson, who was a close acquaintance of his, indicating that Matherson was above decks late in the sinking.

So that leaves us the following candidates to accompany Boatswain Nichols
:
BRADLEY, Mr Thomas Henry 29
CLENCH, Mr George James [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)]31[/bcolor]
DAVIS, Mr Stephen James [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)]39[/bcolor]
HOLMAN, Mr Harry [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)]29[/bcolor]
SMITH, Mr William [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)]26[/bcolor]
TAYLOR, Mr Charles William Frederick [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)]40[/bcolor]
TERRELL, Mr Bertram [bcolor=rgb(252, 252, 255)]19[/bcolor]

If Nichols chose the most experienced hands, likely Terrell, being the youngest, and an ordinary seaman, would not have been chosen. But it's not as if they were all standing there in alphabetical order, as I have them above, like some sort of seagoing smorgasbord of personnel. Like everyone else that night, Nichols would have used whoever was on hand.

So, if the story is true, I would suggest the most likely sailors involved to have been Thomas Bradley, George Clench, Stephen Davis, Harry Holman, William Smith, and Charles Taylor. Sad they were all lost in a futile attempt to save more lives.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Good conjecture above but I find it hard to believe that an experienced boatswain like Nichols would have allowed himself or his men to be trapped that way. I do not necessarily disbelieve that Lightoller gave such an order to Nichols - in fact, I think he might have done. But IMO Nichols would have checked to see from the outside where the water level was and decided that either he could not have carried out that order or opened a higher deck gangway door. Nichols might well have taken 6 men below decks to explore the possibility and those seamen might even have come from your list of possibilties. But I think they returned to the deck unable to carry out Lightoller's order but by then the Second Officer had gone below one deck to try his window opening shenanigans for Lifeboat #4. In his absence Nichols likely reported to Wilde who then could have told the boatswain to either forget the whole thing or open the higher D-deck gangway door instead. Either way, Nichols and his men dispersed to other tasks soon afterwards and none survived.

I know it is conjecture, but it would explain several things:

• The reason why no one on Lifeboat #6 saw an open gangway door. Nichols did not open the one on E-deck and even if he did open the D-deck door some 10 minutes later (following a possible order from Wilde), #6 had long gone past by then.
• The reason why a few others - Johnstone on #2 said that Nichols asked him to "watch the star" and later Barrett reportedly saw Nichols near #13 and was told to "take an oar" - reported seeing Nichols quite some time after the Lightoller order.
• The reason why Lightoller himself never saw Nichols again after 01:05. By the time Nichols returned to the boat deck to report that they had not opened the door on E-deck, Lightoller had gone down to A-deck to attend to #4 where he remained for some time. That would be the time #2 had started loading and tallies with Johnstone's statement; it is likely that Nichols left that spot before Boxhall finished launching his rocket and arrived to take charge of #2. From Barrett's report we can assume that Nichols then went to the aft starboard side to help and remained there or thereabouts till the end. In doing so he would have surely interacted with Murdoch and Moody but neither of those two gentlemen nor Wilde survived. Lightoller did but he would not have known about Nichols presence on the aft starboard side.

 

[vonfrieddorf]

OK, back to your original post from Thursday:

"What I want to know is, is there any information anywhere about the possible identities of any of the six sailors that Nichols took with him below decks? As far as I know, no surviving crew member came forward to claim that he was one of those six and so they must all have perished in the disaster one way or another. If that was indeed the case, it lends weight (but not proof) that Nichols and his men were caught out by the rising water levels while trying to open the gangway door. But looking at it another way, it might be the fact that none of those six sailors survived to tell the tale that prompted researching Titanic writers to assume that they had all died with Nichols during that ill-fated attempt to open a gangway door."

So let's see if I understand you correctly; since Thursday, you have decided it is more likely that Nichols and his six seamen were not trapped below, but either returned to the deck or never went below at all - and all died while performing other tasks above decks? In that case, I would return to the original list of nine lost seamen as potential candidates, since none of the surviving seamen mention having been involved in such as assignment.

Here's another avenue of research to explore: Other than Fireman Doel's account mentioning Matherson, are there any surviving accounts mentioning the activities of those nine men during the sinking? That might be telling.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

So let's see if I understand you correctly; since Thursday, you have decided it is more likely that Nichols and his six seamen were not trapped below, but either returned to the deck or never went below at all - and all died while performing other tasks above decks? .

Your right in a sense but not just since Thursday. Since none of us will ever know for certain, we all have to make educated guesses which will not be exactly similar. I personally have believed for a while that Lightoller did give that order and Nichols and his men did do an exploratory trip below decks to check out the possibility of carrying it out. But for one reason or another - most likely due to the impracticality of that order - they did not carry it out and returned above decks. I do not believe that they were trapped and died below. If you look at several older posts about gangway doors etc, I have made my impressions clear.

But the reason that I phrased my original post from this thread that way is because I know that other members think differently about that incident and I did not want to ruffle any feathers and start another argument. All I wanted to know was IF (as I believe) Nichols chose 6 men to go below with him in response to Ligtholler's order, who those 6 men were. I agree that at least some of them might have come from your shortlist.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

"I told the Bosun's mate to take 6 hands and open the port lower-deck gangway door, which was abreast of number 2 hatch. He took his men and proceeded to carry out the order, but neither he or the men were seen again. One can only suppose that they gave their lives endeavouring to carry out this order...."

Sorry to rejuvenate this thread and topic but as I was reading it, something about Lightoller's somment struck me as odd. I can understand and accept that he never saw Nichols again but that does not mean that the boatswain died while trying to carry out Lightoller's order. The First Officer moved to A-deck to sort out Lifeboat #4 shortly after he lowered #6 at 01:10 am and if, as I believe, Nichols had returned to the boat deck soon afterwards, the two men would have missed each other. After that, it is perfectly possible that they were working in different parts of the ship and considering the darkness, increasing crowds on the boat decks and general chaos, could easily have missed eack other.

But since Lightoller would not have known which men Nichols had chosen to take with him belowdecks, how could he comment that "neither he nor his men were seen again"? Only Nichols and the men themselves knew their identities and so Lightoller could not have known that none of the 6 men were seen again that night. For all he knew, a couple of them could have worked alongside him later - for instance be part of the 'ring' of crew members that Lightoller formed around Collapsible D.