Possible setback of clocks before collision

[Samuel Halpern]

I agree with you about the fabrication of the delayed turn to fit Boxhall's erroneous CQD.

I'm in shock! We agree on something.

 

[Rob Lawes]

Given that Captain Lord was held by many to be the man who did nothing, I doubt he would have agreed to any sort of cover up of Boxhall's navigational errors. In fact you would have thought Lord would have made a good deal of capital out of it.

 

[Jim Currie]

Getting into a different thread, Rob. However, the 'many' consisted of those who probably knew better but were looking to divert attention. The subsequent very many either haven't a clue what they are looking at, are too lazy to work it out for themselves or haven't the courage to own up to the fact that their deductive processes might just have been wrong.

Lord was not, I think, a man who suffered fools gladly, but he would understand the concept of a DBS...a Distressed British Seaman. He had first hand experience of the vindictiveness of the press at that time. Rather than receiving specific orders to suppress any ideas about Boxhall's navigation; perhaps he was simply a decent human being who did not wish to add to the stress Boxhall and his shipmates were going through in the aftermath of that appalling disaster. After all, the ship was gone. In 1912, it would have been hard to believe that in the distant future, man would be able to, or even want to, rummage about on the ocean floor at such a depth.

Sam: The ancient Roman do ut des seems appropriate in this case.

 

[Scott Mills]

If the QMs had a clock set back Rowe&Hichens would have relieved at 12 o'clock. Rowe claimed he was relieved late but Hichens did not said so. The collision most likely get the crew confused if there was a clock set back or not. All show's there was none.

There is also a letter of a fireman Harry Giles to Walter Lord claiming he was making ready for the 12 to 4 watch. He was an imposter.

I am not trying to challenge you, but am only curious. Is there proof that this man was was not what he said he was? I ask because:

The real fireman from the 12 to 4 watch were clear in their 1912 reports that there was no clock set back and so no call to go on watch. After the collision several went back to bed and only roused again to leave the room as water was rising the deck below. Later they were called for their watch (as firemen Harry Oliver stated) and when starting to dress they were called to go on deck and help with the boats. (The black gang of the 8 to 12 watch is the one with the lowest surviving rate.)
I know some like to put also the stewards into that discussion, but stewards did not share the same watch and the night watch start their duty despite the clock set back.

This is something that has always bothered me about Titanic research. The assumptions that:

1. Memory isn't social--all of memory research says it is. In other words, conversations about events (particularly traumatic ones) actually create memories of things. Sometimes false ones.
2. That the testimony of the crew can be trusted as being 100% factual, or even 100% factual as remembered by the crew. I think most researchers would agree that there was some whitewashing on the part of the officers. This very well could have extended to the other crew, all of whom relied on White Star for their livelihood. The extent to that white washing is what we should be talking about; is there significant dishonesty, or only small alterations to help mitigate White Star's (and their) liability?

We should then go from there to decide whether or not, in whatever case we are talking about, there was incentive to lie. Either way, we should move from there to comparing everyone's testimony about the thing we're looking at, their later recollections recorded elsewhere, and the physical evidence (if there is any) before we make pronouncements on conclusions.

 

[Ioannis Georgiou]

I am not trying to challenge you, but am only curious. Is there proof that this man was was not what he said he was?

Name and address did not match, his story also changed badly from the 1912 newspaper account.

I think most researchers would agree that there was some whitewashing on the part of the officers. This very well could have extended to the other crew, all of whom relied on White Star for their livelihood. The extent to that white washing is what we should be talking about; is there significant dishonesty, or only small alterations to help mitigate White Star's (and their) liability?

No, most crew members hired for one voyage. They could have go over easily to another line. Many crew members also gave newspaper accounts.

 

[Scott Mills]

Name and address did not match, his story also changed badly from the 1912 newspaper account.



No, most crew members hired for one voyage. They could have go over easily to another line. Many crew members also gave newspaper accounts.

1. It wouldn't be surprising that a story changed over 40 years. That's how memory typically works, but its fair to point out that it usually means your "memory" is even more fanciful than your first recollections were (and even these can be fanciful).

2. Here is what I mean about White Star. It isn't that crew would lie because they felt they owed something to White Star. They would lie because if they were the ones who spoke out against White Star, their careers would effectively be over. Even without any intervention on the part of White Star, nobody is likely to hire the stoker who threw his former employer under the bus. Plus, White Star did make them promises about getting them back to the United Kingdom and replacing their seaman books, which would have been very costly for the crew to replace.

 

[Ioannis Georgiou]

1. It wouldn't be surprising that a story changed over 40 years. That's how memory typically works, but its fair to point out that it usually means your "memory" is even more fanciful than your first recollections were (and even these can be fanciful).

So then why using a story told over 40years later as a proof?

2. Here is what I mean about White Star. It isn't that crew would lie because they felt they owed something to White Star. They would lie because if they were the ones who spoke out against White Star, their careers would effectively be over. Even without any intervention on the part of White Star, nobody is likely to hire the stoker who threw his former employer under the bus. Plus, White Star did make them promises about getting them back to the United Kingdom and replacing their seaman books, which would have been very costly for the crew to replace.

Some crew members use alias names or those of friends or brothers. Who would control what which person said? Also several crew members criticize the white star line in newspapers. If you have some information that these people did not find any job you might want to share it with us.

 

[B-rad]

Here is something I found.

 

[Scott Mills]

So then why using a story told over 40years later as a proof?
Some crew members use alias names or those of friends or brothers. Who would control what which person said? Also several crew members criticize the white star line in newspapers. If you have some information that these people did not find any job you might want to share it with us.

I think this important. You do see some significant divergence in testimony, particularly among the crew members who were not officers; what I am saying is that you cannot trust the testimony to be completely truthful, because many of these people would be under tremendous social and economic pressure to maintain a narrative that was favorable to White Star--and you absolutely cannot trust the officer testimony.

To your points though, if these men were using the names and credentials of their siblings then they still have an incentive to lie. "Sorry, big brother. I know I was using your name, and your sea book to sail on Titanic, but I totally threw White Star under the bus. Here is your stuff back, good luck getting a job!" If someone were using an alias, it is likely that they needed to keep using that alias given how experience was recorded and how the unions worked.

Most men who would sell their story to a newspaper would do so anonymously, which is untrustworthy for different reasons; or you were Harold Bride and you work for Marconi, not White Star, so you can say what you want (as long as it makes Marconi look good).

If you really think about it, even today when whistle blowers have codified legal protection, "telling" on your employer will often mean the end of your job, and possibly career in a particular field. Now think about the world of the early 20th century, how the working man was treated, and remember whistle blowers were offered no codified protection.

The best we can do is take the statements of survivors--passengers and crew--and pay attention to how they differ, how they are the same, and how they changed over the years then put this with what physical evidence we have after the discovery of the wreck. Hopefully this triangulates us towards the truth.

 

[Jim Currie]

That is a very interesting newspaper cutting, Brad. I hope all the rest of you have read it carefully- in particular the first line of the second paragraph.

If so, now compare it with the following:

"I stopped work at 9 o'clock on Sunday night, and I came up again and walked up and down the alleyway. I went into my bunk and fell asleep. That was about 10 o'clock - about a quarter to 10. I fell asleep, and was sound asleep, and exactly at a quarter past 11 I was wakened up. I had a clock by me, by my bed, and my clock was five minutes fast, and it was exactly a quarter past 11 when the ship struck the iceberg, and it wakened me."

The above is an extract from the evidence given by a member of Titanic's crew who was a day worker and would have had fully retarded time on his clock. It proves beyond reasonable doubt that impact took place at exactly 2 minutes past midnight April 14, unaltered time...not 11-40 pm unaltered time.

Incidentally, Leading Stoker Barrett was in the same boat as Beesley and told him that when the accident happened he was due off duty in 15 minutes. Barratt was due off duty when the partly altered clock reached midnight.

While the Doubting Thomas-es among you are figuring ways to refute the foregoing, ask yourselves why it was that the Lookouts, who were also due to be relieved at altered midnight were relieved "in the fullness of time".

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Sorry to have to tell you this Jim, but the article printed in the Northwestern Christian Advocate on April 24, 1912 differs somewhat from the one given to the Toronto World and printed April 19, 1912. In the April 19 Toronto World version, the send paragraph read:

"I had been in my berth for about ten minutes when, at about 11:46 p.m., I felt a slight jar, and then soon after a second one, but not sufficiently large to cause any anxiety to anyone, however nervous they might have been."

 

[Jim Currie]

Really, Sam? You are sorry? Mmmmmm.

So where do you think the NWCA got it's story from? Where did the impact time of 11-15 pm come from. As far as I can determine, only one crew member gave 11-15 pm as the time of impact and that was given by Assistant Baker Collin at Washington on April 24, the day after the NWCA published Beesley's story.
You will find that the conditions of publication in the NWCA were that the contributor had to send the manuscript in writing to the editor for approval before publication. You will also find that the NWCA was a weekly and was published every Wednesday. The Beesley submission appears in the No. 17 edition of Volume 60, dated Wednesday, April 24. 1912. This was 6 days after Carpathia arrived in New York on April 18. I don't know what the postal delivery time was from New York to Chicago in 1912 but that story had to have been posted in New York very soon after April 18 for it to arrive on the editor's desk. in sufficient time for vetting. If you read it very carefully, you will discover that, except for ", I read from about quarter-past eleven to the time we struck, about quarter to twelve." it faithfully follows the manuscript of Beesley's book "The Loss of the S. S. Titanic: Its Story and Its Lessons." which he had published two months after the disaster. The source of the story in the NWCA was, without a doubt, Lawrence Beesley himself. Why the NWCA ? Beesley was a devout Christian and contributed to other Christian publications. Did he lie about the time of impact? I don't think so, do you?

 

[Samuel Halpern]

I can only tell you that the same lengthy account, which was written by Beesley while on board Carpathia, was published in the Toronto World on April 19th and contained the wording I quoted. What Beesley wrote in his book was different from these earlier accounts regarding when the ship struck and long he had been reading. As pointed out, in his book he said that he read from about 11:15 to the time they struck which he gave as about 11:45.

 

[Jim Currie]

You forget to mention that he also wrote the following in his book:

"but at any rate the stokers in our boat had no such illusion. One of them—I think he was the same man that cut us free from the pulley ropes—told us how he was at work in the stoke-hole, and in anticipation of going off duty in quarter of an hour,—thus confirming the time of the collision as 11.45,"

How do you get round that one, Sam?

 

[JJAstorII]

Curious to know if changing the stateroom clocks was part of the crews duties e.g. changing the sheets, heating the beds with a bed pan and bringing a bucket of coal to each cabin and lighting the fire each night. It was a very cold night. Would they be up an down the corridors attending to the service bells for more coal and people asking for the correct time?



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Heya! Just an fyi there were no coal fireplaces on the Titanic. All the fireplaces in the 1st class rooms were facades and fake. They had an electric heater in the hearth. The only functioning fireplace was in the Smoking Room.