The bodies in Collapsible A

[Arun Vajpey]

When Fifth Officer Lowe commandeering lifeboat #14 helped 12 survivors out of the damaged and waterlogged Collapsible A, there were supposed to have been 3 more people on board, but sadly deceased by then. I understand that the bodies were left adrift in the boat.

I believe one of the three bodies was that of First Class passenger Thomson Beattie. Who were the other two?

PS: There is the possibility that one of the other two bodies was that of Third Class passenger Edvard Lindell. But although Lindell died in the boat after making it in, some accounts say that his body was released into the sea by the other occupants to make the waterlogged Collapsible A lighter.

 

[Jason D. Tiller]

Hi Arun,

I believe one of the three bodies was that of First Class passenger Thomson Beattie. Who were the other two?

Yes you're correct that one of the bodies was Thomson Beattie. We know it was definitely three male passengers. It has been speculated that one of the bodies was Arthur O'Keefe. From O'Keefe's biography:

"On the night of the sinking it is speculated that O'Keefe was one of the men who managed to pull themselves aboard the waterlogged collapsible lifeboat A and was the man that Norwegian passenger Olaus Abelseth tried to help. Abelseth had shared a carriage on the boat train to Southampton with a New Jersey man who he later encountered in boat A, lying freezing, so he propped him up and attempted to revive him, telling him to brace himself and that a ship was coming. The man would say "leave me be," and "who are you?" before he died of exposure. The body of this man was left in the boat when Officer Lowe arrived to transfer her survivors. A month after the sinking the Oceanic came across the drifting collapsible A, the three bodies were recovered and buried at sea."

However, a passenger aboard the Oceanic by the name of Sir Shane Leslie, described the scene:

‘The sea was calm at noon when the watch called out that something could be seen floating ahead. The ship slowed down and it was apparent that the object was an open ship’s lifeboat floating in mid Atlantic. What was horrifying is that it contained three prostrate figures. Orders from the bridge dispatched a lifeboat with an officer and a medical officer. What followed was ghastly. Two sailors could be seen, their hair bleached by exposure to sun and salt, and a third figure, wearing evening dress, flat on the benches. All three were dead and the bodies had been tossing on the Atlantic swell under the open sky ever since it had seen the greatest of ocean liners sink. The three bodies were sewn into canvas bags with a steel bar at the end of each. Then one after the other the bodies were draped in the Union Jack, the burial service was read, and they splashed into the sea.’

An account written on May 13, 1912 by an unknown passenger who was aboard the Oceanic, describes it differently:

"I crossed the Atlantic one month after the Titanic catastrophe. We picked up one of the lifeboats with two n****r-like unrecognisable corpses of a passenger in evening dress and two firemen, wedged below the seats.

“The arms came off in the hands of the Oceanic boarding officer.

“Women’s rings were found.”

“The bodies were buried and the prayer service read. The lifeboat then hauled on to our deck when I cut this piece out of the boat covering.”

In Elin Lindell's biography:

"Despite briefly reaching Collapsible A Elin died. Edvard held her wedding ring in his hand when she drowned, the ring came to be on the bottom of collapsible A that was not taken up by Carpathia. It was found by crew from the Oceanic 13 May 1912".

While in her husband's bio, it is less clear:

"Once the ship went under Wennerström and Lindell climbed into the boat. Wennerström saw Mrs Lindell in the water and grabbed her hand. Weakened by the cold he was unable to assist her further and after a while she drifted away. During the night according to Wennerström "Edvard's hair turned all gray in lesser time than 30 minutes". He died soon afterwards and lost Gerda's wedding ring which he had been holding. Neither his or Gerdas bodies were found, he was probably lowered overboard to make the unstable boat lighter."

Since Lindell apparently perished soon after his wife, there obviously would have been no need to keep his body on board the boat. Furthermore, his body was never found so that eliminates Lindell as being one of the bodies in the boat. That leaves O'Keefe being one of the bodies and possibly a fireman.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Thanks very much. From what I have read and understood so far, although both Lindells were almost in Collapsible A at one stage, they were among many washed away when the 'wave' hit. After that, AFAIK only Edvard Lindell managed to get on board but Elin Lindell could not. Wennerstrom held on to her arms as long as he could but did not have the strength to drag her on board. In the end, she froze to death and he had no choice but to let go.

Then, when Wennerstrom and the others realized that Edvard Lindell too had gone, they gave him a sea burial to join his wife and at the same time lighten the lifeboat that was severely waterlogged.

Both Shane Leslie and the other Oceanic passenger mentioned that one of the 3 bodies was that of a man in evening dress; clearly, that must have been Thomson Beattie. But both witnesses described the other two as "sailors" or "firemen"; since Arthur O'Keefe was a Third Class passenger, could they have mistaken his working man's attire for a sailor's uniform?

 

[Jason D. Tiller]

But both witnesses described the other two as "sailors" or "firemen"; since Arthur O'Keefe was a Third Class passenger, could they have mistaken his working man's attire for a sailor's uniform?

Yes I consider that to be very likely. It's certainly within the realms of possibly being the reason, O'Keefe was mistakenly identified.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

I have read that Richard Norris Williams' fur coat was found at the bottom of Collapsible A by the crew of the Oceanic and was returned to him. They reportedly also found Elin Lindell's wedding ring but I have not come across any information about what they did with it. Was the ring returned to the Lindell family?

 

[Jason D. Tiller]

I have read that Richard Norris Williams' fur coat was found at the bottom of Collapsible A by the crew of the Oceanic and was returned to him.

According to Williams' biography, it was never in the boat to begin with:

"A month later Collapsible 'A' which had been abandoned by the Carpathia was recovered by the White Star Liner Oceanic, as this letter, from R.N.Williams to fellow Titanic survivor Colonel Archibald Gracie shows, its discovery led to a certain degree of confusion regarding Williams and his father":

'I was not under water very long, and as soon as I came to the top I threw off the big fur coat. I also threw off my shoes. About twenty yards away I saw something floating. I swan to it and found it to be a collapsible boat. I hung on to it and after a while got aboard and stood up in the middle of it. The water was up to my waist. About thirty of us clung to it. When officer Lowe's boat picked us up eleven of us were still alive; all the rest were dead from cold. My fur coat was found attached to this Engelhardt boat 'A' by the Oceanic, and also a cane marked 'C.Williams.' This gave rise to the story that my father's body was in this boat, but this as you see, is not so. How the cane got there I do not know.'

The overcoat was also mentioned in a letter from Mr Harold Wingate of the White Star Line to Colonel Gracie:

'The overcoat belonging to Mr Williams I sent to a furrier to be reconditioned, but nothing could be done with it except dry it out, so I sent it to him as it was. There was no cane in the boat. The message from the Oceanic and the words 'R. N. Willians, care of Duane Williams,' were twisted by the receiver of the message to 'Richard N. Williams, cane of Duane Williams,' which got into the press, and thus perpetuated the error.'

Was the ring returned to the Lindell family?

Yes it was. According to this article, Titanic centenary: Swedish dreams of a new life lost at sea
"The ring was reunited with Elin's (my paraphase) father in Sweden after her brother saw a note about it in a local newspaper."

 

[Arun Vajpey]

'I was not under water very long, and as soon as I came to the top I threw off the big fur coat. I also threw off my shoes. About twenty yards away I saw something floating. I swan to it and found it to be a collapsible boat. I hung on to it and after a while got aboard and stood up in the middle of it. The water was up to my waist.

That obviously is what Williams himself said about his fur coat and makes sense. Richard Williams and Carl Jansson managed to swim to Collpsible A as it was floating away and somehow got on board. There is an account in OASOG that they were forced to stand knee deep in the waterlogged boat (We have to assume that Williams' "waist deep" was a figure of speech", especially as the canvas sides of the lifeboat were not properly pulled up).

But look at this quote that young Cam posted last year. The quote was from the book Titanic: First Accounts by Tim Maltin but I am not sure whether the quote was by Steward Brown or Dr Washington Dodge; I'll have to check (Not certain what Dodge had to do with Collapsible A); I have the book somewhere.

I am forced to the same conclusion in young Williams' case after an analysis of his statement that he took off his big fur overcoat in the water and cast it adrift while he swam twenty yards to the boat, and in some unaccountable way the fur coat swam after him and also got into the boat.

I thought that it was very funny. A swimming fur coat!

My fur coat was found attached to this Engelhardt boat 'A' by the Oceanic

That is a quote by Williams again and so he does not deny that the fur coat was in (or attached to) Collapsible A; the difference of opinion is only about his father's cane (or not). Somehow, the fur coat made it to the boat.

But if Williams threw off the fur coat before stating to swim to the lifeboat but it was later found in the Collapsible A, I can only conclude that some other survivor on board that lifeboat found it on the deck of the sinking Titanic where Williams had thrown it before jumping in the water. Williams appears to have jumped overboard with his father just before the wave hit and so it is not impossible that someone else found it moments later. That person could have worn it for warmth before the wave swept him overboard and he eventually swam to Collapsible A.

I wonder if it could have been Carl Jansson. From what I have read, he was on the boat deck near the bow in those final minutes and could have found the coat. He then heard a few shots and was running towards the stern when the wave hit and washed him over.