Titanic Voyager: The Odyssey of C. H. Lightoller

It is a hundred years since the world shook at news of the greatest maritime disaster in history; an event of such magnitude that it will remain forever as a reminder of man’s folly in daring to dream that science and engineering hold power over nature.

Titanic Voyager is the life story of Charles Herbert Lightoller,`Lights’ to his friends, shipmates and colleagues, who is best known as the only senior officer to survive the sinking of Titanic, cheating death by a whisker after being sucked down by the sinking liner when all the lifeboats had gone, a good number of them loaded and lowered under his own energetic supervision.

However, his good fortune in living through the event thrust him headlong into a new ordeal, that of having to face as the most senior surviving crew member the exhaustive inquiries and courtroom battles which followed. In this updated and revised edition of Titanic Voyager the author reveals startling new evidence relating to the sighting of the iceberg (refuting the longheld
view that negligence on the part of the captain and crew contributed to the collision), evidence that demands a re-evaluation of the official findings.

In this book, the author provides a fascinating account of Lightoller’s life and sea career which began as a 13-year-old apprentice in sail. He was shipwrecked four times (once on a genuine desert inland), survived a fire at sea, a near drowning, and frostbite and starvation while taking part in theYukon Gold Rush.

During the First World War Lightoller commanded a destroyer which rammed and sank a German U-boat, yet the legacy of his part in the Titanic disaster haunted his post-war career, his association with the White Star Line ending in acrimony. Yet, the call of the sea and the adventure and dangers it offered found Lightoller once again engaged in a great maritime enterprise when, in
1940 at the age of 66, he took his motor yacht over to Dunkirk to rescue troops from the beaches. This was the day ‘Lights’ discovered that what the sea could take from him, she could also give back.

The story of his life and sea career is among the most remarkable of modern times. Herbert Lightoller, in every sense of the
word, was truly a Titanic Voyager.