by Senan Molony
I went out to the after end of the ship to relieve the man I should have relieved at 12 o’clock, a man by the name of Rowe. We stood there for some moments and did not know exactly what to do, and rang the telephone up to the bridge and asked them what we should do. They told us to bring a box of detonators for them – signals. Each of us took a box to the bridge. When we got up there we were told to fire them – distress signals.
Rowe separately says: ‘I took them to the forebridge and turned them over to the Fourth Officer. I assisted the officer to fire them…’ (p.519). Bright was asked who fired the rockets, and replied: ‘Rowe and I, and Mr Boxhall, the Fourth Officer’ (p.832). This reply in itself seems to suggest two firing parties. On the one hand, Rowe and Bright, on the other, Boxhall. That telling comma between the two quartermasters and mention of Boxhall appears in the transcript, the stenographer indicating Bright’s pause. And Boxhall’s tale of lone firings and shepherding people away by himself serves to confirm what Bright is saying. Bright then says, when asked how many ‘you’ fired: ‘Six were fired in all, I think’ (US Inquiry, p.832). It would seem that he is speaking only for his firing party. Because if ‘six in all’ means everybody aboard the Titanic, then Bright cannot be right. Californian undoubtedly saw eight rockets. And of course when Bright answers as to how many ‘you’ fired, he is not answering in a context that includes Boxhall’s use of rockets before Bright and Rowe came up from the stern.
So here we are – Boxhall had previously been able to fire rockets alone, and now there are at least three designated men and three separate boxes of rockets on the bridge, which has available firing sites to port and starboard. And yet we are asked to believe that Titanic fired only eight rockets!
Let us return to boat No.1 (an ‘emergency’ boat, in that she and her companion on the port side, boat No.2, were kept permanently swung out, ready for lowering in case of a man overboard or other incident). It was located all the way forward on the starboard side. Symons is in charge of this boat (lowered at 1.10 a.m., according to the findings of the British Report), and says rockets were fired ‘simultaneously’, while they were ‘also working the port and starboard Morse lamps’. Fifth Officer Lowe was helping to fill and lower boat No.1. He says of rockets fired in this location: ‘Yes; they were incessantly going off…’ (US Inquiry, p.401). When Symons’ phrase – ‘simultaneously, minute intervals’ – is compared with Lowe’s phrase – ‘incessantly’ – it vouches for Symons’ concept of great rapidity of firing. Eight rockets would be quickly expended in such a scenario!
Lightoller, in his 1935 book Titanic and Other Ships, meanwhile, said rockets went up ‘every minute or two’ (p.161). We remember that he spoke in evidence of ‘about eight’ rockets, all from the starboard side. Minimalists who prefer only eight rockets would have to deal with a maximum firing time of sixteen minutes by this account, compared to Rowe’s forty minutes of firing after they got their boxes of rockets to the bridge.
Perhaps the earliest survivor account was composed by a Japanese passenger, Masabumi Hosono. Writing on Titanic stationery he had on his person aboard the rescuer Carpathia, Hosono told of being up on deck: ‘All this while, flares were signalling emergency and were being shot up into the air ceaselessly, and the hideous blue flashes and noises were simply terrifying’. He told how four lifeboats on the port side, aft, were quickly filled. He managed to jump into one when it halted on the way down. Once away from the vessel, he turned back towards the sinking ship and wrote: ‘The Titanic was still shooting up one emergency flare after another’. Hosono’s report, then, is of ‘ceaseless’ rockets, one after the other, over some period. Even allowing for natural hyperbole, his account clashes with the British Inquiry’s preference for a paucity of just eight rockets fired.
Meanwhile, it seems Rowe and Bright are not on the starboard side where boat No.1 was located, but helping with the incessant, simultaneous rockets by separately sending them up from the port bridge wing.
TIMINGS & INTERVALS
It is now worth looking at times and the gaps between Titanic rocket firings as cited by different witnesses, to see whether only eight rockets were fired. A single man, if he were firing those eight at the intervals suggested by Boxhall (five minutes) would be done and dusted in forty minutes. So what say the rocket-firers? Here is Quartermaster George Thomas Rowe:
17683. Did you take any part in firing distress rockets? — Yes.
17684. How long do you think it was from the time you commenced firing the rockets till you finished firing the rockets? — From about a quarter to one to about 1.25.
17685. Yes, that is right. You gave evidence in America about it, and I see what you said there was ‘I assisted the officer to fire them, that is, rockets, and was firing distress signals until about five and twenty past one’. That is accurate? — Yes.
But Boxhall had been firing rockets before Rowe made his way to the bridge! Boxhall meanwhile indicated that he himself continued firing rockets until 1.45. Rowe’s watch may have been put back twenty minutes at midnight. So when Rowe cites 1.25 as a stop time, this is actually 1.45, and agrees with Boxhall. Both parties are firing rockets for forty minutes –’simultaneously’, says Symons. And Boxhall specifically states that he began firings before Rowe had even telephoned the bridge. So, just eight fired in all?
Bright says that he and Rowe each brought a box of rockets to the bridge. Presumably those two boxes did not contain just a couple of rockets each. No – the evidence is trying to tell us something very much to the contrary; two firing parties with separate boxes each must have managed far more than eight rockets.
If Bright’s six are married to Boxhall’s maximum of a dozen, then eighteen rockets seems to be the outer limit sent into the night sky by the drowning Titanic. Steward Alfred Crawford says not only a dozen, but probably more:
17972. After the boat was launched that you were in, did you see any rockets sent up? — Yes, from the Titanic. I also saw the Morse code being used. [This agrees with Symons, earlier]
17973. About how many rockets did you see sent up? — I should say I saw about a dozen go up, probably more.
17974. A dozen rockets from the Titanic? — Yes, they kept going up.
17975. And you could see those quite distinctly? —Yes.
And, in the US Inquiry (p.828):
Senator Smith: Did you see any rockets?
Crawford: Yes, sir; plenty of them went up from the Titanic. [Would eight be plenty?]
Yet the Californian saw only eight.
It is not clear when Boxhall began firing the very first rockets of all. But the evidence we have is capable of suggesting that he was busy for some time before that telephone rang on the bridge, allowing him to summon Rowe and Bright.
In parts of his evidence, Boxhall implies that he had been firing rockets early in the night, when the mystery ship was just a pair of masthead lights: ‘I had been firing off rockets before I saw her side lights. I fired off the rockets and then she got close…’ (US Inquiry, p.910). Was this before Rowe and Bright were summoned up to the bridge? It would appear so. And Boxhall is firing rockets in the plural. In fact, Boxhall had obtained rockets as soon as he saw a light. And think about this – the Titanic, as soon as she knew she was sinking (which was very early indeed) was bound to send up distress rockets whether there was a ship in sight or not.
Here is Boxhall:
15393. …I could see the light with the naked eye, but I could not define what it was, but by the aid of a pair of glasses I found it was the two masthead lights of a vessel… but she was too far off then.
15394. Could you see how far off she was? — No, I could not see, but I had sent in the meantime for some rockets, and told the Captain I had sent for some rockets, and told him I would send them off, and told him when I saw this light. He said, ‘Yes, carry on with it’. I was sending rockets off and watching this steamer.
This was early in the night, then. But how early? Quartermaster Rowe indicates in his
evidence that the Titanic’s mystery ship had approached and was close by the time he got to the bridge (US Inquiry, p.525):
Senator Burton: When did you first see her [the mystery ship]?
Rowe: When I was on the bridge firing the rockets. I saw it myself, and I worked the Morse lamp at the port side of the ship to draw her attention.
She was close enough to Morse, in Rowe’s opinion. But Boxhall had been ‘firing off rockets before I saw her side lights. I fired off the rockets and then she got close’ (US Inquiry, p.910). A number of rockets had already been fired by Boxhall then, according to his own evidence, before he had the good fortune to be able to summon Bright and Rowe. Can we make further progress and establish when exactly Boxhall began this mysterious number of pre-telephone rocket firings? We return to Boxhall (US Inquiry, p.910):
Senator Fletcher: I understood you to say that you saw a steamer almost ahead of you…
about the time of the collision?
Boxhall: Shortly afterwards…
Sen. Fletcher: And how soon after the collision?
Boxhall: I cannot say about that. It was shortly after the order was given to clear the boats.
Not to lower the boats, or even to man the boats, but simply to take the covers off the boats. So Boxhall strongly implies that he was firing rockets long before any boat had been lowered, and indeed Rowe and Bright only came to the bridge from aft after seeing a boat in the water for the first time. AB George Symons supports this view. He gave a deposition to the British Consul in America on 2 May 1912, which was later read into the record of the British Inquiry. It reads in part (11721):
Shortly after I had got on the boat deck I noticed rockets being fired at very frequent intervals from the bridge, Morse signals being used, and at about 12.30 I saw about one point on the port bow, distant some five or six miles, a light…
Symons (sent away in boat No.1 at 1.10 a.m.) appears to place ‘very frequent’ rockets being fired shortly after he got on the boat deck. His arrival was just after midnight because he referenced something else happening (11418) at about 11.55. He said: ‘as I was on my way to the deck, they struck eight bells in the crow’s nest [meaning midnight]’. So what do Boxhall and Symons mean by their word ‘shortly’ in this context? How early can Boxhall’s first rocket firings be placed? There is no point in exhaustively examining times. What appears to be indicated is that rockets had been fired before Rowe and Bright brought two more boxes of rockets forward, which were used next. If Symons is right about ‘very frequent’ rockets, then three men would certainly dispose of only eight rockets in a very short time.
Rowe said however (17684) that the second phase of firings (in other words those rockets that he himself took part in firing), lasted forty minutes. Bright says half an hour, but this is a guess, whereas Rowe gives specific times for the beginning and end of his firings. Meanwhile the distress regulations called for rockets at ‘short intervals’, akin to Symons’ ‘very frequent’. Even if five-minute intervals (incompatible with distress) are considered, then the parties should have fired six in half an hour, or eight in forty minutes, on top of whatever Boxhall had already sent up before he got the telephone call from the stern docking bridge where Rowe and Bright were standing by with other boxes. So here we are – Boxhall was firing rockets. He is later joined by Rowe and Bright and all three take part in the further firings. A number of Titanic witnesses talk of seeing a dozen rockets or more – ‘plenty’.
Boxhall only refers to firing on the starboard side, and is there alone. He says he fired six to twelve, a guess very similar to Lightoller’s estimated eight, which the latter emphasised were ‘all from the starboard side’.
Bright’s figure of six is the lowest mentioned by anyone. But this must be wrong as a Titanic total, since at least eight were fired because eight were certainly seen. If however, Bright’s six refers to all those fired on the port side alone, then the judgment of other witnesses makes sense. Six from port and eight from starboard makes fourteen, and we remember a couple of witnesses mentioning a dozen or more. But the Californian saw just eight. She may have missed a number. Perhaps because she was very distant?
WHITE OR COLOURED?
The Californian also saw only white rockets. Not that there was anything significant in this, since distress rockets could be ‘of any colour or description’ and company signals sometimes carried white, although usually with other colours. But the Titanic witnesses talk of firing coloured rockets, at least alongside the white. Third Officer Herbert Pitman suggests that they were ‘various colours’ (US Inquiry, p.293). Quartermaster Robert Hichens states: ‘I did not take no particular notice of the colour, Sir. Some were green, some were red, and some were blue – all kinds of colours – and some white, Sir. I think, if I remember rightly, they were blue’ (question 1198). Lookout Reginald Lee was asked whether there were coloured rockets, or only white ones? He replied: ‘No, coloured rockets’ (question 2584). Passenger Major Arthur Peuchen saw ‘different colours flying down’ (US Inquiry, p.352). Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall observed: ‘Just white stars, bright… not red’ (US Inquiry, p.910). Second Officer Charles Lightoller saw rockets that were ‘principally white, almost white’. (question 14154). So, Boxhall and Lightoller emphasise the white, yet they are hardly emphatically exclusive. Their brother officer Pitman is in no doubt about various colours. Boxhall says in his US evidence (p.911): ‘we did not have time to use any of those things’, referring to coloured signals other than distress rockets. But he may be speaking only for himself – it will be remembered that Rowe and Bright had been asked to bring up detonators from aft. Rowe specified ‘the detonators, such as the distress signal rockets, green lights, and blue lights’ (US Inquiry, p.522). It is a puzzle. The evidence of various colours is there, yet the Californian saw only white.
FLARES UNSEEN
Joseph Boxhall, in emergency cutter No.2 of the Titanic lifeboats, burned green flares during the night to attract attention. They were not seen by anyone aboard the Californian. Boxhall stated (US Inquiry, p.244): ‘I had been showing green lights most of the time. I had been showing pyrotechnic lights on the boat’. Boxhall claimed that ‘this was a box of green lights’ he had deliberately asked a quartermaster to put into boat No.2:
15448. In your boat did you also put in some green lights? — Yes, there were some green lights lying in the wheelhouse. I told the Quartermaster or someone who was around there to put them in the boat.
These appear to have been green flares, intended to be used as White Star Line company signals, with which Titanic could indicate her identity to other ships. They may have been brought up from aft by Rowe and Bright. The nature of the flares is not indicated in the manifest of pyrotechnic items carried by the Titanic (British Report, ‘Description of the Ship’, p.19), since company signals were not regulated. Captain Arthur Rostron of the rescue ship Carpathia knew what they were: ‘I saw the green flare, which is the White Star Company’s night signal…’ (25394). A fireman in emergency boat No.1 also saw them, as related by passenger C.E.H. Stengel: ‘One of the stokers said: “The green light is the company’s colour”’ (US Inquiry, p.973). Passenger Archibald Gracie spoke of a lifeboat ‘steering ahead of us, with green lights, and throwing up rockets, I think, or making lights every little while – not rockets, but making a light. I do not know what kind of light they had, but it was a green light that was every little while conspicuous’ (US Inquiry, p.996). Boxhall described just how conspicuous his flares were (US Inquiry, p.248):
Senator Smith: Did they make a brilliant light?
Boxhall: Yes; a very brilliant light.
Sen. Smith: You think the Carpathia steamed toward these lights?
Boxhall: They did.
Passenger Hugh Woolner could see ‘a green light that appeared, not all the time, but most of the time, down to the south’ (US Inquiry, p.890–1):
Sen. Smith: That was probably the green light that was on Officer Boxhall’s boat?
; Woolner: Very likely. I did not identify it.
Sen. Smith: How far away?
Woolner: I could not tell, but I should think about half a mile or a mile.
And it was claimed the green lights could also be seen at an extreme distance by the rescue ship. The Carpathia’s captain, Arthur Rostron said: ‘At 20 minutes to three, I saw the green flare…’ (25394). Rostron repeated his estimations of 2.40 a.m., suggesting the green flare was visible for several miles at least, because it would take him another hour and twenty minutes of steaming to reach the light.
25401. Will you go on and tell us? — At twenty minutes to three I saw a night signal, as I was saying, and it was just about half a point on the port bow, practically right ahead. At a quarter to three I saw what we knew was an iceberg by the light from a star… from then on till four o’clock we were altering our course very often to avoid the bergs.
At four o’clock I considered I was practically up to the position and I stopped, at about five minutes after four. In the meantime I had been firing rockets and the Company’s signals every time we saw this green light again.
At five minutes past four I saw the green light again, and I was going to pick the boat up on the port bow, but just as it showed the green light I saw an iceberg right ahead, of me. It was very close, so I had to put my helm hard-a-starboard and put her head round quick and pick up the boat on the starboard side. At 10 minutes past four we got alongside [the lifeboat].
Rostron had given the same evidence in the US Inquiry (p.21):
At 2.40, I saw a flare, about half a point on the port bow, and immediately took it for granted that it was the Titanic itself, and I remarked that she must be still afloat, as I knew we were a long way off, and it seemed so high.