Titanic and the Mystery Ship

by Senan Molony

  7094. …Well, I was waiting for further information. I had a responsible officer on the bridge who was finding things out for me.

  7304. Have you any reason to doubt that Mr Stone, the officer, is speaking the truth? — I do not see why he should not tell me the truth.

  7305. [The Commissioner] Is he a reliable, trustworthy man? — As far as I know of him he is.

  Such confidence now appears somewhat misplaced. Here is what Stone went on to say in evidence:

  7869. I think you said you left it to him to judge. Did he answer back? — Yes.

  7870. What was his answer? — He asked me, ‘Are they Company’s signals?’

  7871. What was your answer? — I said, ‘I do not know, but they appear to me to be white rockets’.

  7872. Is that all you told him? — Yes; that I had called her up on the Morse lamp.

  7874. That you had called them up on the Morse lamp? — Yes, and received no answer whatsoever.

  7875. When did you call her up on the Morse lamp – after the five rockets were seen? — Previously, and during the time that they were being sent up.

  7876. Did that suggest anything to you – a ship showing five rockets, you signalling with your Morse lamp, and getting no answer? Did that suggest anything to you? — No, because I have often signalled ships before, and got no answer from them.

  7877. Now, having given this communication to the Master, and having got his reply, did you continue to keep this vessel under observation? — Yes.

  7878. Did the Master, when you had this communication through the tube, tell you to go on Morsing this vessel? — Yes.

  7879. And did he tell you that you were to send him any news and give him any information that you had got? — When I received any information to send the apprentice down to him with it.

  7880. That is Gibson? — Yes.

  7881. Was Gibson on the bridge at the time? — No, he did not see the first of the rockets.

  7882. He came later, did he? — Yes.

  Here, Stone again gives the impression that he called the master after five white rockets were seen. But the answer to question 7875 could also mean that he called Lord during the firings, and therefore could not have told the captain of a full five. We know that Gibson, who was on deck at 12.55 a.m., says he was told by Stone that he had contacted the master after seeing the ‘second rocket’ and that more rockets had then been fired. If five rockets had been reported fired, the captain’s reaction may well have been different. Here is Gibson again:

  7476. Now, I just want to get what happened after that. You have told me that the Second Officer said to you that the ship had fired five rockets? — Yes.

  7477. Did he tell you anything else about what he had been doing while you had not been there? — He told me that he had reported it to the Captain.

  7478. Did he tell you what the Captain had instructed him to do? — Yes.

  7479. What was it? — To call her up on the Morse light.

  7480. Did he tell you whether he had tried to call her up on the Morse light? — Yes.

  7481. Had he? — Yes.

  7482. What had been the result? — She had not answered him, but fired more rockets.

  Lord’s sworn evidence of being told of only one rocket has already been cited. He remained unequivocal throughout:

  6880. [The Attorney General] Did you know she had fired a number of rockets? — I did not.

  6881. According to you did she fire only one rocket? — Only one rocket.

  And again:

  6898. But you saw one rocket fired? — I heard of one rocket. I did not see it fired.

  6899. You heard of one? — Yes.

  6900. That was before you went to the chart room? — No, at a quarter past 1.

  6901. Were you on deck then? — No.

  6902. Did you remain in the chart room when you were told that a vessel was firing a rocket? — I remained in the chart room when he told me this vessel had fired a rocket.

  This, it will surely be seen, was a difficult position for Lord to adopt. He maintained this account long before Gibson gave corroborative evidence, which would be studiously overlooked. Lord was duly attacked:

  6910. What did you think this vessel was firing rockets for? — [Lord] I asked the Second Officer. I said, ‘Is that a company’s signal?’ and he said he did not know.

  6911. Then that did not satisfy you? — No, it did not.

  6912. I mean, whatever it was, it did not satisfy you that it was a company’s signal? — It did not, but I had no reason to think it was anything else.

  6913. [The Commissioner] That seems odd. You knew that the vessel that was sending up this rocket was in a position of danger? — No, my Lord, I did not.

  6914. Well, danger if she moved? — If she moved, yes.

  6915. What did you think the rocket was sent up for? — Well, we had been trying to communicate with this steamer by Morse lamp from half-past 11, and she would not reply.

  6916. This was a quarter past one? — Yes, we had tried at intervals from half-past eleven.

  6917. What did you think he was sending up a rocket for? — I thought it was acknowledging our signals, our Morse lamp. A good many steamers do not use the Morse lamp.

  6918. Have you ever said that before? — That has been my story right through – my impression right along.

  Given the fact that Stone did not think there was anything alarming about the steamer firing rockets that might have been ‘communicating with us’, there can be little reason to doubt Lord’s own first impression.

  6919. [The Attorney General] Just let me put this to you. When you asked him whether it was a company’s signal he said he did not know. That would not satisfy you? — [Lord] No.

  6920. Was it then you told him to Morse her and find out what ship it was? — Yes.

  6921. After the white rocket had been sent up? — After the white rocket had been sent up.

  6922. And did you tell him to send Gibson the apprentice, down to let you know his reply? — Yes.

  6923. You did? — I did.

  6924. What was the message that Gibson brought down to you then? — That morning? I did not get it, not to my knowledge. I never got it.

  6825. You had seen the rocket or you had heard of the rocket? — Yes.

  6926. You want to know what the rocket is? — Yes.

  6927. You have been trying to find out by Morsing him? — Yes.

  6928. And you have failed? — Yes.

  6929. Then you say to him that Gibson was to come down and tell you what the result of the Morse signalling was? — Yes.

  6930. And then, I suppose, you remained in the chart-room? — I remained in the chart-room.

  6931. Then, so far as you were concerned, you did not know at all what the rocket was for? — No.

  6932. And you remained in the chart room? — Yes, I remained in the chart room.

  6933. And you did nothing further? — I did nothing further myself.

  6934–5. If it was not a company’s signal, must it not have been a distress signal? — If it had been a distress signal the officer on watch would have told me.

  6936. I say, if it was not a company’s signal must it not have been a distress signal? — Well, I do not know of any other signals but distress signals that are used at sea.

  6937. You do not expect at sea, where you were, to see a rocket unless it is a distress signal, do you? — We sometimes get these company’s signals which resemble rockets; they do not shoot as high and they do not explode [Stone would testify that the rockets were ‘low-lying’ and ‘half the height of the masthead light’].

  6938. You have already told us that you were not satisfied that was a company’s signal. You have told us that? — I asked the officer, was it a company’s signal?

  6939. [The Commissioner] And he did not know? — He did not know.

  6913. Very well, that did not satisfy you? — It did not satisfy me.

  6944. Then if it was not that, it might hav
e been a distress signal? — It might have been [agreeing now that it might have been, after the fact, in light of what was subsequently known about the Titanic sinking].

  6945. And you remained in the chart-room? — I remained in the chart room.

  6948. Expecting Gibson, the apprentice, to come down and report to you? — Yes.

  Lord is more succinct in his American evidence when he tells his version to the Senators (p.729):

  At a quarter past [one], he said, ‘I think she has fired a rocket’. He [Stone] said: ‘She did not answer the Morse lamp and she has commenced to go away from us’. I said, ‘Call her up and let me know at once what her name is’. So, he put the whistle back, and, apparently, he was calling. I could hear him ticking over my head. Then I went to sleep…

  Lord is now in the arms of Morpheus, and in the hands of the two crewmen above. No further attempt would be made by them to get in contact with their captain until 2 a.m. – horribly late.

  This question is for the reader: is Lord credible about being placed in what would turn out to be a false sense of security?

  OPTIONS AND TIMES

  All hope for Titanic has now disappeared. There was but one single conversation about lights in the sky with the Californian’s skipper before 2 a.m. Nothing thereafter can save lives on the Titanic. It is important to stress that this was one conversation – one opportunity alone – because those with a determination to saddle Captain Lord with blame are apt to repeat a ridiculous mantra that he was called ‘three times’ about rockets. The implication of that is obvious, but the reality of what happened very different. There was, perhaps, just one opportunity to grasp the significance of the initial rocket or rockets. And it has passed by. No other instance could have afforded the remotest possibility of saving life. The next information transmitted to Lord came at 2 a.m., Californian time. Titanic sank at 2.20 a.m., her time.

  Since 1912, there has been much sifting of the options available to Captain Lord on receipt of the original rocket-firing message. Yet this overlooks the fact than neither Stone, the message-imparter, nor Lord, its recipient, invested this first communication with much importance. Stone thought the firing could have been an acknowledgement of his own Morsing attempts. Lord received that impression as well, as we have seen. In fact the conversation between the two men – Stone reporting white lights, not knowing if it was a company signal – seems to have had what might be called a ‘shrug factor’ about it. At the same time, a resting Captain Lord was still awake to at least monitoring the situation.

  Yet even if the enormity of what was unfolding on board the Titanic, wherever she was, had somehow got through – first to Stone, and through him to Lord – the prospects of effecting any rescue were bleak. Even if Lord had started engines at 12.45 a.m., the moment Stone first saw a rocket (although Stone, understandably, having seen ‘shooting stars about’, took no initial action), it is clear from our earlier study of Californian’s location that she could not have reached the Titanic’s position until half an hour or more after she sank (US Inquiry, p.722):

  Senator Smith: If you had received the CQD call of distress from the Titanic Sunday evening… how long, under the conditions which surrounded you, would it have taken you to have reached the scene of the catastrophe?

  Lord: At the very least, two hours.

  Sen. Smith: Two hours?

  Lord: At the very least, the way the ice was packed around us, and it being night-time.

  This was at Lord’s estimated distance of 19½ to 20 miles to the position cited in the SOS. A wrong location! The Titanic’s actual collision point, backtracked from the wreck site, was over 20 miles away, and in a different direction to the SOS transmitted. Think of Californian at the apex of a pyramid – the SOS location and Titanic’s actual sinking position were 13 nautical miles distant from each other at opposite ends of the baseline below the ‘cap’ of the pyramid, where the Californian sat with engines idle.

  WHY DIDN’T THEY WAKE THE WIRELESS MAN?

  This common question is, sadly, easily disposed of. But first of all, let it be borne in mind that this was only the Californian’s third voyage with a wireless operator aboard. Her Marconi man, Cyril Evans, first joined the vessel as recently as 29 November 1911, and stated ‘I have had three trips on the Californian’ (US Inquiry, p.733). The Californian had been using wireless for only four and a half months! The full possibilities of the new medium were hardly second nature to her captain. And on this night, Lord in his own mind had no reason at all to wake the wireless operator aboard Californian. As far as he knew, a nearby steamer was departing, and in apparent acknowledgement of several Morsing attempts by the Californian, had fired a rocket. As Lord said: ‘I thought it was acknowledging our signals, our Morse lamp. A good many steamers do not use the Morse lamp’ (6917). Stone’s impression, even after seeing five rockets, was of other ordinary causes:

  7844. What do you think they meant? — I thought that perhaps the ship was in communication with some other ship, or possibly she was signalling to us to tell us she had big icebergs around her.

  7845. Possibly, what else? — Possibly she was communicating with some other steamer at a greater distance than ourselves.

  Stone did not offer any thoughts to Lord, but his initial report cannot have carried any urgency.

  If Lord thought an acknowledgement was the reason why the steamer had fired a rocket, meanwhile, then he does not have to find out why it was fired. Because he has already made a humdrum assumption, linked to the fact that the steamer is now underway, moving off by Stone’s report. And if the nearby steamer did not even have a Morse lamp – and it appears she did not – then she was hardly likely to have a fully-equipped wireless room and a night operator standing by! Lord is questioned about this:

  7082. When you were in doubt as to the name of this ship and as to the meaning of her sending up a rocket, could you not have ascertained definitely by calling in the assistance of your Marconi operator? — When? At 1 o’clock in the morning? [Clearly it was an entirely new idea – wireless operators slept at night]

  7083. Yes? — This steamer had been in sight, the one that fired the rocket, when we sent the last message to the Titanic, and I was certain that the steamer was not the Titanic, and the operator said he had not any other steamers, so I drew my conclusion that she had not got any wireless.

  The same logic must have applied to Stone and Gibson, neither of whom thought the steamer they saw at the time of the rockets was in any distress. If they had thought so, then clearly it was open to Stone to act independently and to rouse the wireless man! The fact that he was not roused may simply be a proof that nothing was thought to be amiss. Certainly, Stone would have had no anxieties about the extent of his powers. He was the officer of the watch, and his brother officer, Groves, who ranked below Stone, had had no difficulty in going into Wireless Operator Evans’ cabin after midnight ‘for a chat’ when the latter was in bed!

  Elsewhere in evidence Lord continues to explain why the Marconi man was not summoned:

  7090. Would not it have been quite a simple thing for you at that time when you were in doubt as to what was the name of the ship, and as to what was the reason of her sending up rockets, to have wakened up your Marconi operator and asked him to speak to this ship? — It would if it had worried me a great deal, but it did not worry me. I was still thinking of the company’s signal.

  Even if Lord had somehow divined that waking the wireless operator could have thrown light on the subject, he would have received Titanic’s SOS and wrong position:

  7091. At all events, now in the light of your experience would it not have been a prudent thing to do? — Well, we would have got the Titanic’s signals if we had done.

  7092. If you had done you would, in all probability, have got the message from this vessel? — No. I do not think so. In my opinion that steamer had not got wireless at all.

  7098. What reason have you for thinking that this steamer, a steamer which you say wa
s, at all events, as big as your own, had not got wireless? — At 11 o’clock when I saw her, the operator told me he had not got anything, only the Titanic. I remarked then, ‘That is not the Titanic,’ judging from its size and the number of lights about it, and if he only had one ship, then it was not the Titanic.

  If the wireless operator – who was attached to the Marconi Co. although nominally under the captain’s charge – had been at his set, he would have got the Titanic’s signals, as Lord acknowledges. Yet we know today that the Titanic sank 13 nautical miles east (and a little south) of the location cited in the distress messages. Lord would have gone there, as he did the next morning, and found nothing! As Mount Temple and Birma did, and found nothing. Because of serious Titanic error, Californian, even with the best will in the world, could not actually have saved any extra lives.