Prelude To An Allision - Titanic's Fatal Encounter Revisited

[Arun Vajpey]

This exchange is very telling

Indeed it was. In fact, a major slice of Captain Lord's testimony on Day 7 of the British Inquiry (14th May 1912) was about his exchanges with Stone & Gibson about the rockets fired by the Titanic and Captain Lord's interpretation of and reaction to them. No less than 81 questions - from #6880 to #6960 - covered that subject and Lord's responses were both often monosyllabic and unconvincing. There were times when it looked as though Captain Lord was willingly placing his own head on the chopping block, like the excerpt posted by Sam above suggests. He said that when he was informed of a ship firing rockets at night, he enquired Apprentice Gibson if they could have been company signals to which the latter said that he did not know; then Lord admitted that he was not satisfied with Gibson's answer and yet remained in the chart room rather than going up to the bridge himself!

So we have a captain who admitted that he was not satisfied with what his subordinate told him, admitted that what was reported to him may have been a distress signal, and yet then stayed below in the chart room waiting for more information to come down to him by using a method (the Morse lamp) that had been unsuccessful all along, to find out what was going on.

Yes and a couple of Lord's responses to relevant questions were intriguing at least.

6917. What did you think he was sending up a rocket for?
- I thought it was acknowledging our signals, our Morse lamp.
Was it standard or even an acceptable practice to acknowledge Morse Lamp signals from another ship with rockets?

6941. That you were not satisfied it was a company's signal. You did not think it was a company's signal?
- I inquired, was it a company's signal.
Was it usual for a ship to fire up company signal rockets in the middle of the night far out on the ocean over 400 miles from nearest land?

 

[Mike Spooner]

The blame loss of the Titanic comes fair and squire on what happen on the bridge, and not what happen on the Californian bridge. In legal wise Titanic and the WSL got away with it. What would of happen if captain Smith was found guilty?

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Lawyers know how to get the answers they want to hear not the one you put forward.

Many of the answers put forward by witnesses like Stone and Lord came across as simply blowing smoke.
It is very hard to remain objective when you hear answers to questions such as given to 7844-7847.

Q. What do you think they [the white rockets that you said came at intervals of about three or four minutes apart] meant?
A. I thought that perhaps the ship was in communication with some other ship, or possibly she was signaling to us to tell us she had big icebergs around her.

Q. Possibly, what else?
A. Possibly she was communicating with some other steamer at a greater distance than ourselves.

Q. (The Commissioner.) What was she communicating?
A. I do not know.

Q. Is that the way in which steamers communicate with each other?
A. No, not usually.
The Commissioner: Then you cannot have thought that. Just attend to the question.

Stone had just described what every merchant marine officer knew like the back of the hand. He just described seeing signals of distress but tried his best not to admit to it. He fooled no one.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Many of the answers put forward by witnesses like Stone and Lord came across as simply blowing smoke.

Agreed. Any argument that Captain Lord was not given enough opportunity to defend his position is absolute, unadultrated nonsense; he was given more opportunities to do so than he actually deserved considering the circumstances. It was Lord himself who chose to blow those chances and shoot himself in both feet.

If one looks at the aforementioned series of 81 questions from 6880 to 6960, the Wreck Commission asked Lord repeatedly to clarify his ambiguous and often monosyllabic responses to the all-important questions about those rockets fired by the Titanic. Yet Captain Lord kept making the hole that he had dug for himself deeper and deeper for reasons best known to himself. I believe that Lord was a reasonably intelligent man and knew the position that he, as the Master of the Californian, was finding himself in but his self-destructive responses collectively appeared almost like a death wish. I wonder it it was a combination of stubborn pride and guilt complex, especially since by the time the British Inquiry came about he would have had a good idea of his own crew members' stances.

 

[Mike Spooner]

I regard the inquires was no more than just an introduction for the real inquiry to follow on. Which could of taken over a year if not more for a proper inquiry. As for the Costa Concordia disaster 2012 where huge amount of information was know beforehand, yet still took over 5 years for the verdict. To blame the crew members on the Californian for not rescues all is nonsense. Even if they had set of at 1.00 where was the rescue plan for them to so. Like I have said before the loss of Titanic lies fair and square what happen on the bridge, or more of the case what didn't happen. Where poor old captain Lord get used as the escape goat. I can only think why they wanted the inquiry over and dusted with so quickly was for political reasons. If captain Smith was found guilty what of been the outlook for the WSL?

 

[Arun Vajpey]

To blame the crew members on the Californian for not rescues all is nonsense. Even if they had set of at 1.00 where was the rescue plan for them to so. Like I have said before the loss of Titanic lies fair and square what happen on the bridge, or more of the case what didn't happen. Where poor old captain Lord get used as the escape goat. I can only think why they wanted the inquiry over and dusted with so quickly was for political reasons

Mike, don't you think that you are becoming more than a bit repetitive raising those same points over and over again despite others putting forth both individually and collectively explanations as to why they felt that Lord and his crew had to be asked the questions that they were? In the end, they were NOT directly blamed for the loss of life involved and were only rightly censured for Lord's lack of any action despite there being enough evidence to have tried. Neither inquiry held Lord or his crew directly responsible and they were not prosecuted; Lord's dismissal by Leyland Line was their own company decision. Despite claims to that effect from some quarters, Captain Lord was NOT made a scapegoat for the tragedy officially but no one could do anything about public opinion.

Remember that Captain Rostron of the Carpathia did not save any more lives other than those people who were already in lifeboats. Of course he could not have done and had Captain Lord only tried to go to the rescue but also failed to save anyone else, subsequent investigations would very likely have agreed that he could not have done more. But following Rostron's actions and Lord's lack of it, the former was hailed as a hero and the latter, if not labelled as a villain, was rightly censured.

 

[Bob Read]

While hobby horses may be fun to ride, they are really tiresome to listen to for the umpteenth time.