The Titanic sank 111 years ago, but while the ship was considered unsinkable, what unfortunately don’t seem to be unsinkable are the various myths and over-simplifications surrounding it. There’s the idea that so many died because there weren’t enough lifeboats (an oversimplification). The idea that First Officer Murdoch shot and killed a passenger and and then shot himself (an idea that started when it was depicted in the film Titanic, James Cameron actually deeply regrets his depiction of Officer Murdoch):
And you get more implausible stuff too, the Titanic was switched with the Olympic, the Titanic was deliberately sunk, something,something aliens. Oh, and there was a bit of a misdirect at the start there, did you know that the idea that the Titanic was considered unsinkable is a myth? So while the ship was very much sinkable, sadly the idea that it was considered unsinkable is, ironically, unsinkable. But none of these are what I’d like to talk about today, the idea I hope to “sink” today (I promise to stop doing that now), is that Second Officer Charles Lightoller was a hero. I won’t deny that he saved some lives, however, due to his utter callousness and disregard for human life, the amount of people who died because of him greatly outnumbers the amount of people he saved.
The order given by Captain Smith was “women and children first”. Contrary to popular belief, this was never an actual law, it was at the discretion of the captain of a ship whether this rule was put into force or not. In fact, I only know of three examples of the women and children first policy being put into practice, the Poland, the HMS Birkenhead, and the Titanic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_children_first
There were other attempts to implement such a rule, such as on the SS Arctic, but due to the ensuing chaos it was not possible to implement such a rule:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Arctic_disaster
First Officer Murdoch was in charge of the lifeboats on the starboard side of the ship, and women and children were loaded onto the boats first. However, Murdoch saved many male passengers, because he was more than willing to allow men to board the boats if, once all women and children in the area had boarded a given boat, there were still still empty seats. So, regardless of what somebody thinks of the women and children first rule, Murdoch seemed to genuinely want to save the highest amount of lives possible:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboats_of_the_Titanic
Now, time to talk about what the other guy did. Lightoller was for all intents and purposes in charge of the port lifeboats. (Officially this was the responsibility of Chief Officer Henry Wilde, but for reasons nobody is quite sure about, Lightoller ended up taking over this responsibility.):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Tingle_Wilde
Lightoller’s policy was a bit different from Murdoch’s, it was “women and children only”. That’s right, this “hero”, would, with very, very few exceptions (I’ll get to those in a bit), not allow any men onto the lifeboats. If men took it upon themselves to occupy seats not used by women and children in a lifeboat, he would order them to get out, and send the lifeboats on their way with empty seats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lightoller
For reasons that ultimately, will probably never be known by anyone, Lightoller sacrificed an unbelievable amount of lives that night. Had he acted differently, there would still have been a great loss of life, but it wouldn’t have been as high as 1500. It’s bizarre to think that some of the lives that were ended that night came down to one man’s absolutely absurd morality.
So, what exceptions did Lightoller allow? The first one barely qualifies as an exception. He allowed Major Arthur Peuchen to board a lifeboat due to his experience as a yachtsman, the boat not having a sufficient number of crewman on board. This isn’t an exception per se, Lightholler wasn’t breaking his no men rule, he was merely allowing a passenger to function as a crewman.
The other exception was, and, let me explain this, it wasn’t just no men, it was, “no teenage boys”. When thirteen year old John Ryerson tried to enter a lifeboat, Lightoller initially stopped him. His father argued that because he was only thirteen, he should be allowed on, and Lightoller relented. From this we have to assume that every teenage boy before this was prevented from entering a lifeboat. But what about after this? We’re not sure. There have been claims that after letting John Ryerson into the boat, Lightoller grumbled, “no more boys”.
The other exception was when Hugh Woolner and Mauritz Steffansson jumped onto a lifeboat when the ship was only minutes away from going under. Lightoller considered going down to order these men out of the boat, but decided against it. Given the way he acted all through the sinking, my best guess is that it wasn’t out of any compassion for these men, but that it would have been simply impractical to get them out of the lifeboat given that the ship was about to sink:
Incidentally the story of how these two guys escaped is really interesting, so I’d recommend watching this video in its entirety. Also I’d recommend watching the rest of the videos on the Historic Travels channel, it taught me loads of stuff about the Titanic I was unlikely to find elsewhere.
Lightoller was offered a space on a lifeboat, but he refused it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Tingle_Wilde
So, the only defence I can sort of offer is that at least he applied his bizarre logic to himself also. But this isn’t much of a defence, if somebody wants to sacrifice their own life in a disaster, that is their perogative, but he sacrificed the lives of many others.
When the ship went down, Lightoller managed to make his way to Collapsible Lifeboat B, which was upside down due to a rushed attempt to launch it as the ship went down. There were thirty men already standing on this boat. Now, this is where he may have actually saved lives. He got on top of the boat, and, as the seas got more choppy, he instructed the other men on how to shift their weight so that the boat wouldn’t be swamped:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lightoller
So, Why Has This Lightoller Character Gotten Me Worked Up?
I first got really interested in the Titanic when I was about 12, and from there became interested in the Lusitania and the Britannic. It got to the point where I could name half the passengers and crew of these ships without any difficulty (not literally half, I’m not actually Rain Man, also I’m allowed to make jokes about being Rain Man.) But recently, I became interested in shipwrecks again, I began to learn about the SS Arctic, the SS Atlantic, and soon enough I was back on the Titanic again.
As mentioned at the start, there is an absolute tonne of details held in the public imagination about the Titanic that are either half truths or are completely false. I knew I was going to do a blogpost about the Titanic, but I wasn’t sure on what. And then I watched A Night To Remember, which is generally considered the most accurate film about the Titanic (this is broadly true, though James Cameron’s Titanic actually has a lot of accurate details that A Night To Remember doesn’t have, but since the main story in Titanic was fictional, I think the title of most accurate should go to A Night To Remember.)
And, after coming back to A Night To Remember, this being the most accurate Titanic film, I noticed despite it’s attempts to tell the true story, it had this almost weird hero worship of Lightoller. In A Night To Remember, when John Ryerson mentioned previously, tries to board the lifeboat, Lightoller after relenting cheerfully says, “Go on, look after your mother.” There is no evidence he said this, but some evidence that he grumbled, “No more boys.” Lightoller forcing men out of half empty boats is depicted, but somewhat downplayed. And the depiction of him standing on top of Boat B without a lifebelt is, well, just weird, it’s like, look how awesome and strong he is, he doesn’t even need a lifebelt! Now, I can’t say for certain, maybe he did lack a lifebelt, but it seems very unlikely he wouldn’t have drowned without one, having to dealing with the freezing cold sapping his energy.
So, why has it got me so wound up that an officer on the Titanic was callous and cruel literally 111 years ago? It could be a lot of things. It could be that Murdoch, the officer who tried to save as many people as possible, basically had his reputation ruined by James Cameron (while James Cameron regrets this and apologized for it the damage is already done.)
But, I think there’s something else, a few weeks ago, as I was learning about the SS Arctic, I learned about Anna Downer, one of the crew of the ship, who as that ship went down, operated the water pumps to try and get as much water out of the ship as possible, until her hands were bloody from the effort. When the captain of the Arctic told her there was no point in continuing and that she might as well get to a lifeboat, she said she would stay at her post, and ultimately died trying to save people. Is there any film about her? That’s right, there isn’t. In fact, I first only heard about her a few weeks ago.:
And at the time, attempts to have a statue built of her were very strongly opposed, because, and this is quite depressing, people didn’t want a statue of a black woman:
So maybe my point with all of this is, history isn’t always accurate, and history isn’t always fair. People with little regard for human life like Lightoller can be made heroes, and heroes like Anna Downer can be completely forgotten. So writing and reflecting on all this has got me thinking, what historical figures who have been celebrated deserve no such celebration, and what figures who deserve to be considered heroes are completely absent from the historical record? Anna Downer was just one example of a forgotten hero that I found out about by chance, who else is out there that shouldn’t have been left out of the history books?
Ponderings Of An Autist 
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