David G. Brown
RIP
Time...time...time. It is not just a matter of o'clock hour. Time can be measured in three different ways with regard to this discussion: 1.) o'clock time (hour); 2.) duration; and, 3.) chronology.
One admission at the outset: 1912 pocket timepieces lacked the accuracy of today's quartz movements. Most gained or lost within a minute or so a day. But, every watch and clock on the ship had to be reset at least once a day during the voyage. This resetting increased the likelihood that most timepieces ticked within a minute or so of one another.
Let's start with o'clock hour. Sam has presented an excellent grouping of recollected o'clock times for the sinking. They center around the generally-accepted 2:20 a.m. time. But, are they accurate enough for forensic examination of events during the breakup? Let's examine them.
The most curious is Annie Robinson. She claimed 2:20 a.m. but with an important codicil. She said her watch showed "altered time," but she did not specify how it was altered. We cannot compare the real reading of her timepiece with her correction to see if the math was done properly. So, her claim is inadequate to be useful in forensics. It must be considered an artifact of the Titanic story and not a hard fact.
The times quoted by Mrs. Thayer, Daisy Minahan, and Lawrence Beesley must also be questioned because they are not the personal experiences, but what courts of law call "hearsay." None of these people actually recorded their quoted o'clock times themselves. They all got the 2:20 a.m. from an unidentified second party. Without examination of those second party timepieces, we must to discount these time claims as more likely having been memories gained aboard Carpathia than first-hand experience in lifeboats. This confines these memories to the category of artifacts and prevents them from being hard fact for use in reconstructing the breakup.
Pitman, mentioned by Sam, is one of two officers who claimed to have read personal timepieces. Just out of curiosity, I acquired a modern pocket watch with a dial similar in visual characteristics to a 1912 gentleman's timepiece. It is virtually impossible to read the dial even in what I would call modern "city darkness," which is full of light pollution. At night in mid-ocean without a moon...I totally discount any claim of reading a personal timepiece unless it is accompanied by additional information about where the light to see the dial came from.
One o'clock time stands up to all of this. Boxhall claimed he had both a lamp and a timepiece. His o'clock time of the sinking was 2:20 a.m. So, in Boxhall's timing of the sinking we seem to have the hard fact we seek. But, nothing can be accepted at face value. Every detail must be checked for hidden errors.
We can check Boxhall's time against the stopped timepieces carried by other survivors and victims who found themselves in the water as the ship sank. The earliest such time was 1:27 a.m. on postal clerk March's stopped timepiece. March seems to have changed his timepiece to April 15th hours, which when converted to April 14th time equals 2:14 a.m. Halfway between is 1:50 a.m., which was the time in the crew's bridge hours shown on the stopped timepiece of ship's barber Weikman.
We know Weikman washed off when the front of the boat deck went under, so it is likely that is when March went in as well. The March/Weikman timepieces do not establish the time of sinking, but rather the moment when water came over the forward end of the boat deck at 2:14 a.m.
Of course, 2:14 a.m. was not the sinking. Rather, it was the moment when water came over the front of the boat deck. That event took place some minutes prior to when the taffrail disappeared. So, the March/Weikman stopped timepieces do not argue against Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. time of the sinking and may even support it.
Robert Norman's watch was found stopped at 2:20 a.m. on his body. This stopped timepiece seems to substantiate the Boxhall claim.
Trouble for Boxhall's claimed time of the sinking shows up on the stopped timepieces of Col. Gracie and Jack Thayer. Both showed 2:22 a.m. — two minutes after Boxhall's time. Agreed, the accuracy of 1912 mechanical timepieces would allow for a minute or two difference, but there is more to this story. Both Thayer and Gracie got wet when water was only in way of funnel #2. Much of what is now the "bow section" and all of the "stern section" of the ship was still above water.
The disappearance of the ship was still some measurable duration in the future when the Gracie and Thayer timepieces stopped. Yet, these timepieces had continued ticking until after Boxhall's testimony had the ship already sunk.
More trouble for the Boxhall o'clock time of the sinking came from the stopped timepiece of Austin Partner which showed 2:25 a.m. This problem of Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. time being too early for the sinking is corroborated by Beesely's testimony that the ship disappeared at 2:30 a.m. This testimony is hearsay and not admissible as hard fact in this discussion, but it does raise curious possibilities.
Duration is something else to consider. The stopped timepieces coupled give a duration of 11 minutes measured from when March/Weikman were washed off the boat deck to when Austin Partner went into the ocean and his timepiece stopped. If Beesley's hearsay is considered, this duration rises to 16 minutes.
While Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. as the time of the sinking was close enough to be accurate for general conversation, it quite obviously not precisely correct. The fourth officer seems to have pegged the "disappearance" of the ship about one-third of the way into the duration of the whole event.
My suggestion is that he measured time for when the lights were extinguished and Titanic's dark shape merged into the dark night on a dark ocean. Looking at the artifact times, they support Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. reading. If the artifact times contain any authentic record of that night, it is probably not the time of the sinking, but the time when the ship went dark.
(Reminder: A white iceberg is not expected to be seen more than a quarter mile, or less than two of Titanic's shiplengths away on a moonless night. You certainly can not ask inexperienced observes to see a black hull on a dark night at any greater distance.)
So, the o'clock time data available indicates what would be expected — that the breakup was not instantaneous, but occurred over a duration of many minutes. And this brings up the hardest aspect of time for humans to grasp. Our minds do not have built-in clocks by which to measure duration. Even trained radio announcers have difficulty estimating time spans as short as 30 or 60 seconds. Instead, they rely on digital clocks and stopwatches. One person's "just a second" is another's "it seemed a lifetime." Stress, cold, and other factors greatly influence our ability to estimate time.
Having shown that the facts do not contravene a supposition that the breakup began prior to 2:20 a.m. and continued for some duration after that moment, we now realize the importance of chronology: what happened first, second, etc. If events of the breakup occurred over time, then to understand those events we must put them in proper sequence.
Cause must always come before effect. It is possible to "prove" some event did not happen by simply affixing the wrong sequential position to it. Likewise, a non-existent event can be created in similar fashion.
How long did Titanic float after the initial breakup? The answer is unknowable. I threw out the suggestion of up to 20 minutes based on testimonies about the length of time the screaming continued in the dark, and upon the 16 minute span from March/Weikman to Beesley described above.
However, duration is the hardest part of time for humans to estimate. How long would even 30 seconds seem to a woman listening to her widowhood coming across the water? Do we really want to ponder this question?
-- David G. Brown
One admission at the outset: 1912 pocket timepieces lacked the accuracy of today's quartz movements. Most gained or lost within a minute or so a day. But, every watch and clock on the ship had to be reset at least once a day during the voyage. This resetting increased the likelihood that most timepieces ticked within a minute or so of one another.
Let's start with o'clock hour. Sam has presented an excellent grouping of recollected o'clock times for the sinking. They center around the generally-accepted 2:20 a.m. time. But, are they accurate enough for forensic examination of events during the breakup? Let's examine them.
The most curious is Annie Robinson. She claimed 2:20 a.m. but with an important codicil. She said her watch showed "altered time," but she did not specify how it was altered. We cannot compare the real reading of her timepiece with her correction to see if the math was done properly. So, her claim is inadequate to be useful in forensics. It must be considered an artifact of the Titanic story and not a hard fact.
The times quoted by Mrs. Thayer, Daisy Minahan, and Lawrence Beesley must also be questioned because they are not the personal experiences, but what courts of law call "hearsay." None of these people actually recorded their quoted o'clock times themselves. They all got the 2:20 a.m. from an unidentified second party. Without examination of those second party timepieces, we must to discount these time claims as more likely having been memories gained aboard Carpathia than first-hand experience in lifeboats. This confines these memories to the category of artifacts and prevents them from being hard fact for use in reconstructing the breakup.
Pitman, mentioned by Sam, is one of two officers who claimed to have read personal timepieces. Just out of curiosity, I acquired a modern pocket watch with a dial similar in visual characteristics to a 1912 gentleman's timepiece. It is virtually impossible to read the dial even in what I would call modern "city darkness," which is full of light pollution. At night in mid-ocean without a moon...I totally discount any claim of reading a personal timepiece unless it is accompanied by additional information about where the light to see the dial came from.
One o'clock time stands up to all of this. Boxhall claimed he had both a lamp and a timepiece. His o'clock time of the sinking was 2:20 a.m. So, in Boxhall's timing of the sinking we seem to have the hard fact we seek. But, nothing can be accepted at face value. Every detail must be checked for hidden errors.
We can check Boxhall's time against the stopped timepieces carried by other survivors and victims who found themselves in the water as the ship sank. The earliest such time was 1:27 a.m. on postal clerk March's stopped timepiece. March seems to have changed his timepiece to April 15th hours, which when converted to April 14th time equals 2:14 a.m. Halfway between is 1:50 a.m., which was the time in the crew's bridge hours shown on the stopped timepiece of ship's barber Weikman.
We know Weikman washed off when the front of the boat deck went under, so it is likely that is when March went in as well. The March/Weikman timepieces do not establish the time of sinking, but rather the moment when water came over the forward end of the boat deck at 2:14 a.m.
Of course, 2:14 a.m. was not the sinking. Rather, it was the moment when water came over the front of the boat deck. That event took place some minutes prior to when the taffrail disappeared. So, the March/Weikman stopped timepieces do not argue against Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. time of the sinking and may even support it.
Robert Norman's watch was found stopped at 2:20 a.m. on his body. This stopped timepiece seems to substantiate the Boxhall claim.
Trouble for Boxhall's claimed time of the sinking shows up on the stopped timepieces of Col. Gracie and Jack Thayer. Both showed 2:22 a.m. — two minutes after Boxhall's time. Agreed, the accuracy of 1912 mechanical timepieces would allow for a minute or two difference, but there is more to this story. Both Thayer and Gracie got wet when water was only in way of funnel #2. Much of what is now the "bow section" and all of the "stern section" of the ship was still above water.
The disappearance of the ship was still some measurable duration in the future when the Gracie and Thayer timepieces stopped. Yet, these timepieces had continued ticking until after Boxhall's testimony had the ship already sunk.
More trouble for the Boxhall o'clock time of the sinking came from the stopped timepiece of Austin Partner which showed 2:25 a.m. This problem of Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. time being too early for the sinking is corroborated by Beesely's testimony that the ship disappeared at 2:30 a.m. This testimony is hearsay and not admissible as hard fact in this discussion, but it does raise curious possibilities.
Duration is something else to consider. The stopped timepieces coupled give a duration of 11 minutes measured from when March/Weikman were washed off the boat deck to when Austin Partner went into the ocean and his timepiece stopped. If Beesley's hearsay is considered, this duration rises to 16 minutes.
While Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. as the time of the sinking was close enough to be accurate for general conversation, it quite obviously not precisely correct. The fourth officer seems to have pegged the "disappearance" of the ship about one-third of the way into the duration of the whole event.
My suggestion is that he measured time for when the lights were extinguished and Titanic's dark shape merged into the dark night on a dark ocean. Looking at the artifact times, they support Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. reading. If the artifact times contain any authentic record of that night, it is probably not the time of the sinking, but the time when the ship went dark.
(Reminder: A white iceberg is not expected to be seen more than a quarter mile, or less than two of Titanic's shiplengths away on a moonless night. You certainly can not ask inexperienced observes to see a black hull on a dark night at any greater distance.)
So, the o'clock time data available indicates what would be expected — that the breakup was not instantaneous, but occurred over a duration of many minutes. And this brings up the hardest aspect of time for humans to grasp. Our minds do not have built-in clocks by which to measure duration. Even trained radio announcers have difficulty estimating time spans as short as 30 or 60 seconds. Instead, they rely on digital clocks and stopwatches. One person's "just a second" is another's "it seemed a lifetime." Stress, cold, and other factors greatly influence our ability to estimate time.
Having shown that the facts do not contravene a supposition that the breakup began prior to 2:20 a.m. and continued for some duration after that moment, we now realize the importance of chronology: what happened first, second, etc. If events of the breakup occurred over time, then to understand those events we must put them in proper sequence.
Cause must always come before effect. It is possible to "prove" some event did not happen by simply affixing the wrong sequential position to it. Likewise, a non-existent event can be created in similar fashion.
How long did Titanic float after the initial breakup? The answer is unknowable. I threw out the suggestion of up to 20 minutes based on testimonies about the length of time the screaming continued in the dark, and upon the 16 minute span from March/Weikman to Beesley described above.
However, duration is the hardest part of time for humans to estimate. How long would even 30 seconds seem to a woman listening to her widowhood coming across the water? Do we really want to ponder this question?
-- David G. Brown
