Bride under the boat

[Samuel Halpern]

Jim said: "It was very, very dark and the submerged boat was invisible to all on board it. Lightoller said his boat was "bottom-up" and Bride knew for sure, his boat was bottom up. In my book, that makes 2 boats bottom up."

No it doesn't. It simply means that person A knew his boat was bottom up, and person B knew that his boat was bottom up. If there was only one boat that was bottom up, then person A and person B got onto the same bottom up boat. This is not a case of 1 plus 1 equaling 2; it's a case of faulty logic on the part of one of our esteemed members.

 

[Mike Spooner]

Just to clear up that statement in Colonel Archibald Gracie book.
"The big wave carried the boat off. I had hold of an oar-lock and I went off with it. The next I knew I was in the boat. But that wasn't all; I was in the boat, and the boat was upside down, and I was under it. I remember realising I was wet through, and that whatever happened I must breathe, for I was under water. I knew I had to fight for it, and I did. How I got out from under the boat I don't know, but I felt a breath of air at last.
Was that Bride or Archibald in that position. Or both?

 

[Ioannis Georgiou]

Just to clear up that statement in Colonel Archibald Gracie book.
"The big wave carried the boat off. I had hold of an oar-lock and I went off with it. The next I knew I was in the boat. But that wasn't all; I was in the boat, and the boat was upside down, and I was under it. I remember realising I was wet through, and that whatever happened I must breathe, for I was under water. I knew I had to fight for it, and I did. How I got out from under the boat I don't know, but I felt a breath of air at last.
Was that Bride or Archibald in that position. Or both?

That is Bride, Gracie even mentioned it in his book that it is Bride's story.

 

[Mike Spooner]

That is Bride, Gracie even mentioned it in his book that it is Bride's story.

OK it was Bride, did he have a lifejacket on at the time?

 

[Ioannis Georgiou]

Senator SMITH. When Mr. Phillips sat down to the instrument did he have a life preserver on, and did you put one on?
Mr. BRIDE. Yes, sir.
Senator SMITH. And did you put one on?
Mr. BRIDE. Yes, sir.
Senator SMITH. Immediately?
Mr. BRIDE. Yes, sir.

I can not find any mention from Bride that he put it off again.

 

[Mike Spooner]

In your opinion does the life jacket or life preserver make it any easer to swim away from the turn up life boat?

 

[David G. Brown]

I've never worn a life jacket under an overturned boat. However, I know a fellow who was aboard a sinking vessel. Donning his auto-inflating vest, he went inside the wheelhouse to toss conventional foam-filled to the rest of the crew. Water rose deep enough to trigger the auto inflation of his vest. WHOOSH!!! He was suddenly far to big to fit through the only door leading to escape. Sometimes you don't want personal buoyancy until the right moment.

-- David G. Brown

 

[Mike Spooner]

Thinking about Bride lifejacket whether it was a disadvantage or not. I see his biggest challenge is the survival of plunging into the freezing cold water, where they had no training and prepare for the body shock!

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Under such circumstances, adrenalin takes over very fast Mike. The rest is instinct.

 

[Julian Atkins]

My own personal view is that a great deal of Brides' New York Times newspaper interview 'scoop' is highly suspect, also that his 'private' report/letter to the Marconi Company (which became part of the USA Inquiry evidence) is also unreliable, as is his evidence to both Inquiries.

I can't remember if he gave evidence in the Ryan case.

He then has a last word on the subject via his newspaper letter when Lightoller's autobiography was first published in 1935.

You can drive a 'coach and horses' through much of Bride's evidence.

Cheers,
Julian

 

[Mike Spooner]

Getting back to Bride under the boat.
I would agree they were a tougher breed to take the cold as ones are today.
I still think it was a living miracle that Bride survived the freezing cold water. Yet didn't quite get away with it as he was to suffer from frostbitten feet. What affect had to his fingers I don't know. But he still managed to operator the Marconi wireless on the Carpathia ship! Knowing myself when having had frost bite how painful it was when the body circulation returns back to normal. How an earth did Bride have that concentration to operator the wireless? Did they have pain killing drugs in those days?

 

[Seumas]

My own personal view is that a great deal of Brides' New York Times newspaper interview 'scoop' is highly suspect, also that his 'private' report/letter to the Marconi Company (which became part of the USA Inquiry evidence) is also unreliable, as is his evidence to both Inquiries.

I can't remember if he gave evidence in the Ryan case.

He then has a last word on the subject via his newspaper letter when Lightoller's autobiography was first published in 1935.

You can drive a 'coach and horses' through much of Bride's evidence.

Cheers,
Julian

His whole claim about bludgeoning the stoker trying to pinch Phillip's lifebelt has raised a few eyebrows as to whether it actually happened hasn't it ?

Getting back to Bride under the boat.
I would agree they were a tougher breed to take the cold as ones are today.
I still think it was a living miracle that Bride survived the freezing cold water. Yet didn't quite get away with it as he was to suffer from frostbitten feet. What affect had to his fingers I don't know. But he still managed to operator the Marconi wireless on the Carpathia ship! Knowing myself when having had frost bite how painful it was when the body circulation returns back to normal. How an earth did Bride have that concentration to operator the wireless? Did they have pain killing drugs in those days?

Yes, they had effective pain killing drugs in 1912 and the three doctors aboard the Carpathia would certainly have had them in their infirmary.

Calling his survival "a living miracle" is over the top. Many other people have survived shipwrecks in much more dangerous circumstances.

 

[Jim Currie]

As one who has had to escape from an upturned submerged S61 helicopter simulator in total darkness, several times, I can tell you without fear of contradiction, you cannot escape from that position while wearing a lifejacket.

Hypothermia effects the human body...every human body in the same way. It would have done so in 1912. The only difference is the speed with which your body core temperature drops. Age and physical condition are contributing factors as is body mass. The toughest individual will succumb to hypothermia very quickly when immersed in water at 32 F or 0C. "How quickly a person becomes hypothermic depends on a variety of factors, including personality, behavior, physical condition, clothing, and environmental factors,” I was wearing a survival suit.
The fact that Bride and so many others, survived after being immersed in sea water for so long, tells us something about the sea temperature. Have a look at this:

As an aside:
Bride is reported to have had frost bight in his feet. Normally, that can only happen to exposed skin. Only if Bride had taken his shoes off in the water and then had his I suggest that he did not have frostbite but in fact had a disorder which many seamen suffered from during WW2 and that was Immersion Foot.

 

[Julian Atkins]

The Carpathia certainly had painkillers amongst it's 3 Doctors on board. Ismay was given morphine, despite having no injuries; in effect he was sedated. (A well known message sent by Captain Rostron from the Carpathia to the Olympic was that "Ismay is under opiate". (Booth p.75)

When the Carpathia got to Gibraltar, Captain Rostron cabled a wireless message that Ismay was "mentally very ill" [when on Carpathia] (Booth p.87), and also denied that Cottam was prevented by his orders as Captain to delay sending Ismay's report of the sinking. (Which in any event was probably written down and instigated by Lightoller rather than Ismay).

Oh dear, too many brackets!

Bride's own evidence was that his feet were crushed by someone sitting on them, rather than frostbite per se.

Booth's assessment of the Carpathia Marconi message forms in 'The Booth Titanic Signals Archive'/'Titanic Signals Archive', from those that survived/kept, and were pasted into various 'albums' is that the vast bulk of the message forms were written out by Cottam.

I have found a 'wayback machine' load of stuff on Cottam, Bride, and Phillips, and although this follows the usual story of Bride being brought from the Carpathia's hospital to help out the exhausted Cottam, in fact the accounts are arguably more of a suggestion to me that Bride was brought to Cottam to be with his old friend, as Bride did very little to help Cottam from the available records.

Cheers,
Julian

 

[Julian Atkins]

Links to the wayback machine stuff I found:-

Harold Cottam

Senior Wireless Operator Jack Phillips

Harold Bride--too darn cute for his own good

I don't know who Aurora Brynn is, or for that matter what his sources are for the details that seem to be found only in these links. These suggest Cottam and Bride were firm friends from 1910 onwards, and continued their contact and correspondence after April 1912.

Cheers,
Julian

 

[Julian Atkins]

I can't seem to edit the above further at the moment, but Aurora Brynn is a she not a he.

Harold Cottam

i'm looking for information on the photo of Harry Cottom in Aurora Brynn's article on Wireless operators where he is pictured 'off the ship'.

www.encyclopedia-titanica.org