Charles Lightoller was a Titanic hero. The name of the town he was born in was Chorley, Lancashire, and his mother Sarah did not even get to see her baby boy because she died after she delivered her son. On 8 December 1952, Charles Herbert Lightoller passed away. If you have any corrections or something to add please get in touch. Madeleine donated the whistle to Walter Lord, the historian who had kept the memories of that night alive by collecting firsthand accounts from the survivors. WHAT TIME DID THE FIRST LIFEBOAT DEPART THE TITANIC? For his successful efforts in fighting the fire and saving the ship, Lightoller was promoted to Second Mate. "Not damn likely" was Lightoller's reply and he stepped back on deck. Lights led Captain Smith, Wilde and the remaining officers to the locker in the First Officer's cabin. Commander Lightoller kept his eye on the Stuka till the last second – then he sang out to me "Hard a port!" About halfway down it was realized that there was only one seaman in the boat. Lifeboat 8 went away with 24 women, a seaman, two stewards and a cook with orders to row towards the lights of the ship that was still visible but not responding. Charles Lightoller TranscriptAccount at Auction, Why Lightoller denied the chance to get in the boat, Mr Howard Millar Chapin, RMS Carpathia Passenger, A Titanic Mystery: Exploring the Escape of Robert W. Daniel, RMS Titanic facts, history and passenger and crew biography. At 8:55pm Captain Smith arrived on the bridge and remarked to Lightoller about how cold it was. Charles Lightoller's career at sea began in 1888 at the age of thirteen and was a harrowing one almost from the start. Picture of Lightoller on Carpathia: Am I dreaming or does this picture exist ? At 9:20 the Captain left Lightoller with these instructions: "If in the slightest degree doubtful, let me know." Mavis served in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, and Doreen in the Political Intelligence Unit. He was pinned against the grating for some time by the pressure of the incoming water, until a blast of hot air from the depths of the ship erupted out of the ventilator and blew him to the surface. Collapsibles A and B were still lashed upside down to the roof of the officers' quarters. [20], As the senior surviving officer, Lightoller was a key witness at both the American and British inquiries. Mr. LIGHTOLLER. On the 1 June 1940, the 66 year old Lightoller, accompanied by his eldest son Roger and an 18 year old Sea-Scout named Gerald, took the Sundowner and sailed for Dunkirk and the trapped BEF. She was 52 feet long by 12,2 feet wide, powered by a petrol-paraffin Parsons 60 hp. His watch would last until 10:00 that night. As the Titanic went under, the forward funnel broke loose and toppled his way, narrowly missing him. He was cremated at Mortlake Crematorium and the ashes scattered in the Garden of Remembrance. All surviving crewmembers would find that being associated with Titanic was a black mark from which they could not hope to escape. Under this misapprehension, Lightoller's plan was to fill the lifeboats from the waterline and sent 10 men to open the gangway doors in the ship's port so that passengers would have access. [23][24] Lightoller was subsequently given command of the River-class destroyer HMS Garry. Captain McGiffin ended up as White Star's Marine Superintendent in Queenstown during the period 1903-1912. As soon as Lightoller received the orders, he started loading women and children into lifeboat 4. While setting out for an island, his ship was dismasted in a storm and had to get pulled into Rio for emergency repairs. Lightoller was now given a new command, the destroyer Garry. During the alleged ensuing engagement, Fürbringer claimed he had seen the skull of an 18-year-old member of his crew being split open by a lump of coal hurled by a Royal Navy sailor. [36] In a boat licensed to carry 21 passengers, Lightoller and his crew repatriated 127 British servicemen. While initial accounts varied, it is now believed there were only 17 people aboard the lifeboat, out of a capacity of 40. There was no sign of undue alarm on the bridge so they returned to their cabins to await orders. At 5pm on 31 May 1940, Lightoller got a phone call from the Admiralty asking him to take the Sundowner to Ramsgate, where a Navy crew would take over and sail her to Dunkirk. Oceanic had two captains, a Royal Navy skipper, Captain William Slayter, and Captain Henry Smith, who had been the commander of the Oceanic for the last two years. She was put on Northern Patrol. "[25], Geoffrey Brooks, who translated Kapitänleutnant Fürbringer's memoirs into English, later commented, "Regarding the alleged atrocity committed against survivors of UB-110, the normal procedure would have been to report the matter to the German military legal authorities at the earliest opportunity. Lightoller climbed on the boat and took charge, calming and organising the survivors (numbering around 30) on the overturned lifeboat. His grandson, A.T. Lightoller, served in the Royal Navy, commanding the submarine HMS Rorqual in the early 1970s.[46]. [28] At the time of the engagement, UB-110 had two confirmed hits on British ships, and a total kill-count of 30 civilian seamen. He was able to send it down to the flooded deck. Madeline Astor was John Jacob Astor’s wife. Thirty men had climbed onto the overturned Collapsible B. Lightoller, a veteran of a previous shipwreck, knew differently and sought the permission of the Captain to lower the boats. On an Australian run on board the SS Suevic in 1903, Lightoller met Australian Iowa Sylvania Zillah Hawley-Wilson, known as "Sylvia", on her way home to Sydney after a stay in England.[10]. And with that he left the bridge knowing that navigationally speaking, this was the most crucial part of the Titanic's voyage. Exactly. On the return passage, she travelled with him as his bride. They including two First Class passengers, Second Officer Lightoller, Colonel Gracie, the two Marconi Operators Phillips and Bride. The crew then formed a ring around the lifeboat and allowed only women to pass through. He took the British inquiry more seriously and wrote "it was very necessary to keep one's hand on the whitewash brush" as he "had no desire that blame should be attributed either to the B.O.T. Whilst captain of HMTB 117 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for engaging Zeppelin L31 in a prolonged night battle. Mr. LIGHTOLLER. [8] He helped to fill several lifeboats with passengers and launched them. The 17,000 ton, 700ft vessel was far to big and totally unsuited for the waters in which she was sailing. He worked his passage back as a cattle wrangler on a cattle boat. Browse Encyclopedia Titanica without any adverts Annual Membership. His mother, Sarah Jane Lightoller (née Widdows), died of scarlet fever shortly after giving birth to him. Lightoller’s next voyage saw him sail to Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, India, where he survived a cyclone, a fire at sea and managed to keep all his fingers after a number of them became trapped inside the mouth of a captured shark. His ashes were scattered at the Commonwealth Garden of Remembrance at Mortlake, Surrey, next to the River Thames. [18] Following this, he saw Collapsible B floating upside down with several swimmers hanging on to it. This they did under the guise of an elderly couple on vacation in their yacht. Fürbringer later recalled, "As if by magic the British now let down some life boats into the water. Senator SMITH. That was the water rushing down below as she was going down. The swine are going to murder us anyhow." [8] A long-time pipe smoker, he died during London's Great Smog of 1952. ", but with no success. I think it was the boilers again, but I do not distinctly remember. During the evacuation, Lightoller took charge of lowering the lifeboats on the port side of the boat deck. On the night of the disaster he was in charge of the ship until 10 … Elizabeth cherished the silver whistle until the day she died in 1961. In 1915, he served as the first officer during the trials of another former passenger liner, RMS Campania, which had just been converted into an aircraft carrier. This caused the original Chief Officer Murdoch to step down to First Officer, while Lightoller was dropped to Second Officer. Once again he found himself supervising the lowering and loading of lifeboats. Levine, Joshua, in association with the Imperial War Museum, "Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk", Ebury Press, London, 2010, "Evacuation". Charles Herbert Lightoller was born in Chorley, Lancashire, England on 30 March 1874. LONDON, Dec. 8 --- Comdr. Just before Christmas 1915 Lightoller got his own command, the torpedo boat HMTB 117. During the final months of the war, he was killed during a German Commando raid on Granville on the North French Coast. Lightoller returned to duty with White Star Line, serving as a mate on RMS Oceanic. [39][40] Unknown to Lightoller senior, Trevor had already been evacuated 48 hours before Sundowner reached Dunkirk. Depositions would then have been taken from all available witnesses. Lightoller joined the crew of the clipper ship Duke of Abercorn for his return to England.[7]. By now, the A-deck windows had been opened and Boat 4 was able to be loaded. Boat lifeboat 12 was the last boat to be rescued by the Carpathia with Second Officer Lightoller in command. Lightoller was 'demobbed' in 1946 at age 72. After makeshift repairs, she was again dismasted in another storm in the Indian Ocean and on 13 November 1889 ran aground on St. Paul, an uninhabited, four and a half square mile island in the Indian Ocean. Then, as water flooded down one of the forward ventilators, Lightoller was sucked under. He first assignment was as Fourth Officer of the Medic, a 12,000 ton passenger-cargo liner on the Britain - South Africa - Australia run. A life well lived, I think. Charles Lightoller started sailing at the tender age of 13. Lightoller died December 8 th, 1952, aged 78, of chronic heart disease. Ten minutes later, Fourth Officer Boxhallentered his cabin and informed him that "the water was up to the F deck in the Mail Room." CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "From the Titanic to Dunkirk: the unbelievable life of Charles Lightoller", "TIP – United States Senate Inquiry – Day 1 – Testimony of Charles Lightoller, cont", http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301011h.html#ch44, "Sundowner | Association of Dunkirk Little Ships", "THE LIFE OF TITANIC OFFICER CHARLES LIGHTOLLER", "Titanic | Deutschland 1942/1943, Spielfilm", BBC Radio Interview with Charles Lightoller about Dunkirk Evacuation, Agreement Concerning the Shipwrecked Vessel RMS Titanic, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Lightoller&oldid=1018521788, Recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom), Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War I, Articles needing additional references from August 2017, All articles needing additional references, Articles needing additional references from January 2017, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2016, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2017, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2021, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 18 April 2021, at 14:28. Charles was born in Chorley, in 1874, into a family of cotton mill spinners. The original second officer, David Blair, was excluded from the voyage altogether, while the ship's roster of junior officers remained unchanged. In 1895 aged 21, already a veteran of one shipwreck, a fire at sea and a cyclone Lightoller obtained his Mates ticket. Lightoller called for a seaman and Major Arthur Peuchen volunteered that, while not a seaman, he was a yachtsman. As Titanic went under Lightoller was nearly killed by the ship’s collapsing forward funnel. Yet the trapped army was saved. Lightoller and collapsible A (126 posts) Charles Lightoller (85 posts) Lightoller BBC interview (70 posts) Did Lightoller's panic cost lives? He managed to persuade about 25 people to get into lifeboat 6 and started lowering it. They were rescued by the Coorong and taken to Adelaide, Australia. Their eldest son, Roger, served in the Royal Navy and was killed in March 1945 during the Granville raid whilst commanding a Motor Torpedo Boat. Unsuccessful in this quest, he had a brief stint as a cowboy in Alberta, Canada. Photo Disclaimer: Public Domain – Wikipedia Abandoning the sea, Lightoller went to the Yukon in 1898 to prospect for gold in the Klondike Gold Rush. They paddled away from the remaining swimmers, fearing that they would swamp them. [45] Trevor joined the army and gained the rank of lieutenant colonel, serving under General Bernard Montgomery's command for the duration of the war. When Fürbringer attempted to help a wounded officer to swim, he was told, "Let me die in peace. In his 1933 memoirs, Kapitänleutnant Fürbringer accused Lightoller of heaving to (stopping) and ordering his crew to open fire on the unarmed survivors of UB-110 with revolvers and machine guns. Boat 12 went away at 1:25am with 40 women and children. The cargo of coal caught fire while he was serving as third mate on board the windjammer Knight of St. Michael, and for his successful efforts in fighting the fire and saving the ship, Lightoller was promoted to second mate. None of the surviving officers from the Titanic ever got their own commands. Gerald Ashcroft later recalled "We attracted the attention of a Stuka dive bomber. Lights now found himself as the observer in a Short 184 seaplane. Although the Sundowner had never carried more than 21 persons before, they succeeded in carrying a total of 130 men from the beaches of Dunkirk. [3] Lightoller wrote that whilst in command of the Falcon, he kept the ship in a constant state of readiness; the ship's guns were loaded and cleared for action at all times. More info may be available, sign-in for instant updates and the latest version. While loading this boat, Lightoller was ordered by First Officer Wilde to go with her. How did you get released from that? The Lightollers opened a guest house and after a few years had some minor success in property speculation. He served on this ship as the ship's First Officer until it ran aground and was wrecked on the notorious Shaalds of Foula on 8 September 1914. He only found 4 people alive and one died before being rescued by the carpathia. It was hard work.” Charles Lightoller passed away on December 8 1952, aged 72. Lightoller boarded the Titanic just two weeks before her maiden voyage, and sailed as First Officer for the sea trials. On sailing day Lightoller and Wilde supervised the departure from their station on the forecastle. He let Murdoch know that the lookout had been instructed to lookout for small ice, he then set off on his rounds, which meant covering a mile or more of deck and hundreds of feet of ladders and staircases. In February 1888 at the age of 13, he began a four year sea-going apprenticeship making his first trip aboard the Primrose Hill a steel hulled, four-masted barque of 2,500 tons. The Chief Mate was killed in the shipwreck, and after eight days the survivors were rescued by the Coorong and taken to Adelaide, Australia arriving Christmas 1889. Lightoller described the shock of the water as being like "a thousand knives being driven into one’s body".[18]. In addition to the three crew members, there were two crew members who had been rescued from another small boat, the motor cruiser Westerly. [29] He was promoted to acting lieutenant-commander in July[30] and was placed on the retired list on 31 March 1919, with the rank of commander.[31]. Asked by Wiki User. [42], After the Second World War, Lightoller managed a small boatyard in Twickenham, West London, called Richmond Slipways, which built motor launches for the river police. When he tried loading them he found that windows on A-Deck were locked, so he switched to loading lifeboat 6. During the night a swell arose, and Lightoller taught the men to shift their weight with the swells to prevent the craft from being swamped. Lightoller was quickly exonerated in a court martial for the loss of the ship, and he was commended for remaining on board the ship along with his first officer until the majority of the crew had been evacuated to the boats (apart from three officers who were left trapped in the stern and had to be rescued by a trawler). Then in the closing days of May 1940, after eight months of quiet known as the "phony war", Britain found itself on the edge of military disaster. Mr. LIGHTOLLER. His father, Fred Lightoller, abandoned young Charles and left for New Zealand. His mother, Sarah Lightoller, died shortly after giving birth to him. The original Second Officer, David Blair was forced to drop out. Senator SMITH. But towards the submarine men, one felt an utter disgust and loathing; they were nothing but an abomination, polluting the clean sea."[27]. I had no idea it was urgent. During a rebellion and a smallpox epidemic. Bride informed Lightoller that the Baltic, Olympic and Carpathia were on their way to rescue them. Two weeks before the sinking, Lightoller boarded the RMS Titanic in Belfast, acting as first officer for the sea trials. Charles Lightoller died of chronic heart disease on 8 December 1952, he was aged 78. [14] There were fears from some of the officers that the davits used for lowering the boats would not hold the weight if the boats were full, but they were unaware that the new davits on the Titanic had been designed to do so. She was dismasted in a storm in the South Atlantic, and was forced to put into Rio de Janeiro during a revolution and smallpox epidemic. Lightoller was the last survivor taken on board the RMS Carpathia. 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