The Parisian on the night the Titanic sank

[Arun Vajpey]

Our friend Julian Atkins has mentioned several times in the recent past that in his opinion the Allan liner Parisian, which was on a westbound journey from Glasgow to Halifax & Boston, was in some way culpable in not doing more to try and assist after the Titanic collided with the iceberg, started sinking and sent out distress calls. But I am finding a bit difficult to work this out based on the information available.

Even though the Parisian was not 'standing still' as such, I guess that this is the best heading to post this thread.

I strongly suggest that the Parisian was more than a bit player in all this and potentially as culpable if not more culpable than The Californian.

In working out the position of the Parisian that night the only decent source that I can find at present is Sam Halpern's Strangers On The Horzon; I don't have Paul Lee's Titanic and the Indifferent Stranger to hand right now. There is surprisingly little on the web about the Parisian, including on ET.

The following is what it says on the Titanic Inquiry Project:

10:25 p.m., westbound, Glasgow - Halifax - Boston. Transmitter a position call ("50 miles west-southwest") to Titanic that was acknowledged by Titanic. Her radio operator, Sutherland, then went off the air until 8 a.m. April 15.

On ET there is just a line mentioned:

The Parisian, commanded by Captain Hains, was one of the ships in the near vicinity of the Titanic on the night of the disaster.

But was it really "in the vicinity" of the disaster?

Of course, there is an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer from 19th April 1912 mentioned on ET: PARISIAN'S WIRELESS EXPERT OFF DUTY WHEN TITANIC STRUCK BERG . But the prefix below perhaps gives an idea how reliable that piece could be.

But for This It Is Believed the Stricken Giant's Cries for Help Would Have Been Heard in Time to Save All

From Sam's book I worked out that the positions of the "3 icebergs" as reported by the Parisian and then the Californian were based on dead reckoning and could not both be accurate because that would have required the bergs to have drifted 3 miles eastward within 1 hour and 17 minutes, a highly improbable scenario. Unless of course, the two ships were reporting different sets of icebergs.

If they had been the same set of 3 icebergs - and since the bergs would have moved very little in those 77 minutes - Sam reckons that when the Parisian saw them, it was14 miles ahead of the Californian and continuing westward before turning southwest. The Parisian was a marginally faster ship than the Californian and so the distance between them would have increased by the time Captain Lord ordered the latter stopped for the night. It was significantly later that the Titanic sent out its first distress call, and from that it seemed to me that the Parisian would have moved even further south and west from the scene of the disaster and of course the Californian itself.

No one asked Captain Hains why he sent Marconi wireless operator Sutherland to bed early on some very spurious excuse to rescue the Deutschland - that never happened. And had no wireless record of specifically reporting to Titanic anything of skirting round the eastern side of the ice field and warning anyone of this iceberg they encountered at 8pm. Very very close to where Titanic hit it’s iceberg from the now known wreck position.

Even if the Parisian had seen those icebergs 'very close' to where the Titanic later collided with one, how would it make the Allan liner culpable? At the time and position that the Parisian saw those bergs, the Titanic was still considerably east of it wlthough as a much faster ship it was closing the distance. From Sam's Fig 11.11 on p288 of his book, it appears like at 9:49pm the Parisian was some 30 miles south (based on the scale within the diagram) of what would later become the Titanic's SOS position. If I understood Sam's reasoning correctly, it was at that point that Captain Hains turned his ship due west once again and it was more than 2 hours later that the Titanic's first distress call was sent out.

Is there any evidence that Hains actually "sent" his wireless op Sutherland to bed? During his US Testimony, Captain Lord stated that he had no clear idea about Evans' working hours or even if he had been on duty that Sunday night. Is it possble that Sutherland, being a lone operator like Evans, simply turned in for the night albeit a bit earlier than expected?

 

[Gordon Mooneyhan]

I agree with you, Arun; I would like to see something more than circumstantial evidence that the Parisian was, to quote Julian, "The Parisian was more than a bit player in all this and potentially as culpable if not more culpable than The Californian."

 

[Arun Vajpey]

I am still trying to understand the information in and implications of the (probable) path of the Parisian as decpited in that Fig 11.11 of Sam's excellent work. If the Parisian was at the spot indicated in the diagram at 9:49pm, it would have been some 30 miles south of and less than 5 miles east of what would later become the Titanic's SOS position. If the Parisian had changed course as shown from southwest to due west at that point, it would have very quickly crossed the Titanic's (later) SOS longitude and continued on its westerly course.

If the Titanic's first distress call went out at 12:27am ship time, by then the 13-knot Parisian would have been more than 30 miles west and about the same distance south of the position where the WSL ship was sinking. Also, assuming that Captain Hains had changed back from his southwesternly course to a due west one at 09:49pm because he had reached and passed the southern tip of the ice field, the Parisian would have been well past the ice and to the west of it.

I hope Sam would clarify if this line of thinking is correct.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Julian Atkins said:
I strongly suggest that the Parisian was more than a bit player in all this and potentially as culpable if not more culpable than The Californian.

Julian, I cannot comprehend why you suggest that Parisian was potentially as culpable if not more culpable than Californian.?

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Sam, may I request that you show us on a diagram similar to the Fig 11.11 on p288 of Strangers On The Horizon the most likely position - in your opinion - of the Parisian at 12:27am, the time when the first distress call from the Titanic went out? By my own rough calculation, I make it 45 to 50 miles southwest of the Titanic, but you might disagree.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Parisian's clocks were 1h 49m ahead of NY time. Californian's were 1h 50m ahead of NY. Thus, at 9:49pm Parisian it was 9:50pm on Californian, about half an hour before Californian came to a stop around 10:20pm. Titanic didn't hit the berg until 11:40pm on Titanic, or 11:28 on Californian, which had been been stopped a little over an hour by then. Meanwhile, Parisian at 13 knots heading westward, would have been some 21 miles west of that 9:49 point on the the chart when Titanic struck. The1st CQD was sent out 47 minutes later, and Parisian would have steamed another 10 miles by then, or to a point about 31 miles west of that 9:49 point shown on the chart. Her position cannot be shown on the chart above. It would be off to the left.
Your distance from the wreck site would not be too far off. I get around 47 miles WSW, roughly.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

OK, Arun, as asked for. Red line is straight line distance from Parisian to wreck site when 1st CQD went out. (Ignore the longitude numbers on the lower left of course.)

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Thank you very much for that Sam.

Why did not Hains via Sutherland on the Parisian send a further MSG to The Californian of encountering the ice field and further ice bergs? And that MSG would have been overheard by Titanic surely?

Having sent an earlier ice message to the Californian, Captain Hains might have considered that he had done his duty and it was now up to the other ships to look out for themselves and forward ice related messages. Also, is there the possibility that Hains knew that the Californian had stopped for the night? The Leyland Liner's 11:07pm message to the Titanic mentioned that they had stopped and were surrounded by ice; could the Californian have sent a similar message to the Parisian?

Even if that was not the case, I find it difficult to accept that the Parisian could be held accountable in any way to what happened to the Titanic. For most of the night it was significantly ahead of the Titanic even though the distance narrowed because of the latter's greater speed. It is not as though the Parisian was aware of the dynamics on board the Titanic and so could not be expected to anticipate that the larger ship was in danger any more than the other ships in the region of ice. If Cyril Evans on board the Californian that was significantly closer felt OK to turn-in for the night after speaking to his opposite number on the Titanic and being rebuffed for his efforts, I cannot see why Sutherland being allowed to do so was questionable.

As for after the collision, being 47 miles WSW of the Titanic and on the other side of the ice field, there was nothing that the 13-knot Parisian could have done to save more lives. Moreover, with the wireless operator off duty, they could not receive any distress calls. Unlike the Californian, the Parisian could see neither the lights of nor the distress rockets fired later from the sinking Titanic. So, how could they have been culpable?

 

[Julian Atkins]

Ok, I’ve now found this new thread. Could I please ask the Moderators to add this to the existing Parisian thread of some considerable consequence going back many years rather than split the debate please.

I think we can then deal with all this tomorrow or in the next few days as I’m now off to bed!

Cheers,
Julian

 

[Julian Atkins]

I will just add that from the Parisian longstanding thread that I think this should be combined with, Paul Slish, and then Sam, as is then in ‘Strangers on the Horizon’ on page 286 onwards, and page 29, and importantly footnote 26 on page 33 is that at 5.11pm when the Parisian sent her MSG to The Californian the Parisian was just 14 miles ahead of The Californian, and The Californian would have been able to see the Parisian ahead and certainly see her smoke.

It is the last contemporaneously recorded and verified MSG from the Parisian until the following morning on the 15th.

 

[Gordon Mooneyhan]

Having sent an earlier ice message to the Californian, Captain Hains might have considered that he had done his duty and it was now up to the other ships to look out for themselves and forward ice related messages. Also, is there the possibility that Hains knew that the Californian had stopped for the night? The Leyland Liner's 11:07pm message to the Titanic mentioned that they had stopped and were surrounded by ice; could the Californian have sent a similar message to the Parisian?

At the time, wireless was, in effect, a party line. You could operate on 600 or 300 meters but forget about a specific frequency. The ability to choose a specific frequency wouldn't come along for years. On February 22, 1916, Ernst Alexanderson received a patent for a selective tuning device for radios that became an integral part of modern radio systems and led to his being honored in the Inventors Hall of Fame.

It's quite possible that the Parisian picked up the Californian's message to Titanic.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

It's quite possible that the Parisian picked up the Californian's message to Titanic.

I agree and think that it is more than possible. Evans sent out that last ice warning to the Titanic at 11:07pm the latter ship's time. The Titanic struck the iceberg some 33 minutes later, which meant that it had been still some 12 miles east of the point of impact when the Phillips told Evans to shut-up. Also, the post-impact second helm order - hard-a-port - had resulted in the Titanic's bow pointing northwest before it stopped and so I am not sure to what extent Captain Smith's post-impact engine room orders changed its position, but it could not have been much.

Meanwhile, having turned due west again at 9:49pm, the 13-knot Parisian would have moved in that direction for around an hour (I am not an expert in calculating times and ship positions and so that estimation might be a bit off). Therefore, when Evans on the Californian sent out that final ice message to the Titanic, there was probably not a big difference in the distances between the Titanic and Californian and the Parisian and Californian albeit in different directions. Unless there is definite evidence that Sutherland had turned in by then, we can assume that he also got that message and realized that the Californian had stopped for the night.

 

[Gordon Mooneyhan]

I read an article yesterday that quoted Parks Stephenson as saying that if a ship only had one Marconi operator, the usual practice was for him to shut off his radio at 11:00 p.m. I assume that means ATS (Apparent Ship Time)

 

[Arun Vajpey]

I read an article yesterday that quoted Parks Stephenson as saying that if a ship only had one Marconi operator, the usual practice was for him to shut off his radio at 11:00 p.m. I assume that means ATS (Apparent Ship Time)

But how strictly did operators adhere to it? Also, when the Titanic received the Californian's message at 11:07pm, it was significantly east of the Parisian. I might be off here but I think it would have been closer to 10:30pm ATS on the Allan liner at the time.