I would like someone to clarify a point that has confused me for over 20 years. In his book THE NIGHT LIVES ON, Walter Lord mentions that around 01:15 hours some of the crew noticed water coming through the floor of Boiler Room 4, at a time when Boiler Room 5, just forward to it, had not yer completely flooded. Lord reasoned that it could have been due to a separate and hitherto unsuspected damage to the double bottom under Boiler Room 4.
Up to now I had not found any other allusion to that conjecture. But in the excellent new Titanic book ON A SEA OF GLASS by Fitch, Leyton & Wormstedt, there is the following sequence of events:
- Boiler Room 5 has remained relatively dry till around 01:10 hours although the forward bunker had flooded. But around that time Leading Fireman Fred Barrett saw a "terrific rush" of water coming into the boiler room and responded to an order by Engineer Herbert Harvey to leave by climbing the escape hatch. On doing so, Barrett noted that the water was coming along the alleyway from forward. (Presumably, Harvey stayed behind to help his colleague Jonathan Shepherd, who had a broken leg)
- About 5 minutes later, Trimmers Thomas Dillon and George Cavell noticed water starting to come though under the stokehold plates forward in Boiler Room 4. Within a few minutes after that they were ordered to leave their posts and go up to the boat deck.
My question is, where was the water coming into Boiler Room 4 at that time? Was it from Bolier Room 5 or from some other damage?