Burials

[Bonnie-Lynn Nadzeika]

This may be one of those questions that you all roll your eyes at and wonder what I could possibly be thinking to ask such a silly question, but nontheless, here I go.

Was just finishing up Senan Molony's "Irish Aboard the Titanic" when something struck me. How were decisions made as so which bodies were returned to land for burial and which were simply buried at sea? If I've read an answer to this somewhere along the line I forgot.

Best Wishes,
Bonnie

 

[Jan C. Nielsen]

Captain Larnder, of McKay-Bennet, maintained sort of a class system. First and second class bodies were kept. Some of third class and many of the crew members were dumped at sea - - until later, they were instructed to bring all bodies back. Even then, some of the bodies in really bad shape were buried at sea.

The matter of the bodies is something that I've been researching quite a bit. Because I, personnally, think that there was a cover up going on about having left the bodies out there. McKay-Bennett was commissioned for the task of recovering them, on the evening of April 16, 1912 - just one day after the disaster. Further, I think that her orders came directly from Bruce Ismay, on the Carpathia, since I've located wireless messages from McKay-Bennett addressed directly to Mr. Ismay, not to Philip Franklin, or some other White Star Line agent in Halifax.

It would make sense for Ismay to want to engage in as much damage control as possible.

In testimony before both the British and American inquiry boards and committees, Captain Rostron and Captain Stanley Lord insisted that they didn't see any bodies. Even Lawrence Beesley, describes only cork and miscellaneous junk on the surface where the Titanic went down. But I think that things like dead bodies floating around were just too awful for people of the Victorian mentality to even mention, publicly.

In fact, Rostron put passengers inside at a memorial service while he purportedly floated around, looking for more passengers.

John Collins, in his Senate committee testimony, says that he saw the Carpathia lowering lifeboats to pick up bodies that had washed alongside - - and only said this when the Senator persisted with his questioning about.

Many Titanic authors, including Don Lynch, has accepted the representation that there were no bodies seen floating around at daylight, from aboard the Carparthia. I simply don't believe this.

One of the boats, No. 14, was right in with the bodies at daylight. Then, it picked up people from the collapsibles, and rowed to the Carpathia.

The collapisble B was seen among the bodies by passing steamers, such as the S.S. Bremen.

My theory is that the bodies were there, Captain Lord and Captain Rostron saw them, and they left them there. Later, they lied and said they didn't see any bodies.

 

[Jan C. Nielsen]

Everytime I post something I find a mistake right after it's posted, never before. It's "Lardner," not "Larnder."

 

[Inger Sheil]

Joe - No. 14 was indeed amongst the bodies at daylight, but it went some considerable distance to get to the Carpathia. Lowe first returned to D and took it in tow, then sailed to the Carpathia - along the way picking up the individuals at A. He was able to cover quite a bit of ground (or water, rather) as he was under sail. Photos taken from the Carpathia show the lifeboats arriving, but no bodies.

I'm willing to buy that the Carpathia didn't look too hard for too long - not after the Californian arrived on the scene - but I doubt very much that Rostron and his officers lied about not seeing more than one or two bodies.

Tell you what though...there's not too many people who'd be game enough to call the Saintly Sir Arthur a liar My hat's off to you on that one.

Ing

 

[Fiona Nitschke]

Great question Bonnie, and I must admit this is something I've wondered about. Joe, I'm interested in your research and agree with you regarding Ismay, up to a point. And there's a few other things…

But I think that things like dead bodies floating around were just too awful for people of the Victorian mentality to even mention, publicly.

That's late/post Edwardian mentality. Queen Vic karked it approximately 11 years prior.

In fact, Rostron put passengers inside at a memorial service while he purportedly floated around, looking for more passengers.

It was more than 'purported' floating around. It was actual: he did it. It's in the inquiries and not just by Rostron's words.

John Collins, in his Senate committee testimony, says that he saw the Carpathia lowering lifeboats to pick up bodies that had washed alongside - - and only said this when the Senator persisted with his questioning about.

Fireman Collins did say this, but he was hardly pressed. Senator Bourne asked him once, then moved on:

Senator BOURNE. Why did the Carpathia lower any of her boats as long as none of your boats were in distress?
Mr. COLLINS. To take up some of the bodies that had been washed up by the side of her.

However, the Senator did press Fireman Collins on the subject of whether or not people were blocked from getting on Collapsible B (or if they were forcibly removed). It's a shame he didn't question Collins further about bodies alongside, as Collins is the only one to offer this version of events.

One of the boats, No. 14, was right in with the bodies at daylight. Then, it picked up people from the collapsibles, and rowed to the Carpathia.

Inger has already answered this point citing the photographs. Here's what AB Evans, who crewed in #14, had to say at the US enquiry:

Senator SMITH. At the time Lowe fired these shots (heading toward Collapsible A) were there many floating bodies about your boat?
Mr. EVANS. No, sir; no floating bodies, sir. We had come away from them.
Senator SMITH. You had come away from them?
Mr. EVANS. Yes, sir. They were around the wreck.
Senator SMITH. How many?
Mr. EVANS. I should think between 150 and 200. We had great difficulty in getting through them to get to the wreck.
Senator SMITH. The collapsible boat, according to this evidence, was from the Titanic and had been in the water from about 12 o'clock, or half past 12 that night, until daylight?
Mr. EVANS. Yes, sir; it was daylight when we seen it, sir.

Evans is quite clear: it was daylight and there were no bodies in the vicinity of Collapsible A (apart from the three on board).

My theory is that the bodies were there, Captain Lord and Captain Rostron saw them, and they left them there. Later, they lied and said they didn't see any bodies.

Let's suppose that Sir Arthur and Captain Lord decided, independently of each other and completely without collusion, not to mention any bodies for whatever reason. That still leaves us with several other potential eye-witnesses who also didn't see any bodies. For a start, you left Captain Moore of the Mount Temple off your list:

Senator SMITH. (asking Moore about steaming around the wreckage site) What did you see there, if anything?
Mr. MOORE. I saw nothing whatever, sir.
Senator SMITH. Any wreckage from the Titanic?
Mr. MOORE. I saw nothing; but I saw this tramp steamer, sir.
Senator SMITH. No wreckage?
Mr. MOORE. Nothing whatever, sir, in the way of wreckage.
Senator SMITH. Any floating corpses?
Mr. MOORE. Nothing at all, sir.
Senator SMITH. Any abandoned lifeboats?
Mr. MOORE. Nothing whatever, sir.
Senator SMITH. Any floating bodies?
Mr. MOORE. Nothing whatever, sir.

Major Peuchen, clearly made of sterner stuff than his 'Victorian mentality'

would suggest, actually looked for bodies amongst the flotsam as Carpathia steamed through: '…I was surprised, when we steamed through this wreckage very slowly after we left the scene of the disaster - we left the ground as soon as this other boat, the Californian, I understand, came along - that we did not see any bodies in the water. I understood the Californian was going to cruise around, and when she came we started off, and we went right by the wreckage. It was something like two islands, and was strewn along, and I was interested to see if I could see any bodies, and I was surprised to think that with all these deaths that had taken place we could not see one body; I was very much surprised. I understand a life preserver is supposed to keep up a person, whether dead or alive…'

But apart from Collins, there was another person to mention bodies seen from Carpathia: 4th Officer Boxhall. But he only saw one:
Senator SMITH. Did you see any bodies floating in the water?
Mr. BOXHALL. I remained on the bridge until he started off for New York direct. I do not know what time that was.
Senator SMITH. Did you see any floating bodies?
Mr. BOXHALL. I saw one floating body, sir.
Senator SMITH. That of a man or woman?
Mr. BOXHALL. A man, sir.
(Senator Smith went on to question Boxhall regarding the position of the body in the water)
Senator SMITH. Is that the only body you saw?
Mr. BOXHALL. That is the only body I saw.
Senator SMITH. The only body you saw either dead or alive?
Mr. BOXHALL. Yes; dead or alive.
Senator SMITH. There must have been hundreds of bodies in the water about the Titanic.
Mr. BOXHALL. No one ever saw any, at all.

That isn't many to go on in the way of evidence, but anybody can go to www.titanicinquiry.org and type 'bodies' into the search engine and see what turns up. Just like I did. (There's remarkably little, really.)

But, even if we suppose there may have been a whitewash on this subject at both enquiries, passengers and crew (irrespective of line) alike, why didn't the information come out at a later date? To me what really is of interest in this matter is that in the intervening years no one has come forward to mention all the bodies they saw from Carpathia: Titanic survivors, Carpathia passengers and crew. Interestingly enough, no on has come forward with stories they had from their great-grandmas or grandpas about seeing something nasty from the decks of Carpathia. This would suggest that they didn't see any bodies from Carpathia, and not because they didn't want to but because there weren't any to see. Joe, if you have found any new evidence or authenticated sightings I'd be very interested in learning of them - as, I'm sure, others would be too.

Please don't take any of the above the wrong way, Joe. I am genuinely interested in this subject, but honestly believe you are barking up the wrong tree at this point.

Sorry to bang on a bit but it's very late and I don't know when I'll have a chance to be on-line again for a few days. I have broken my rule not to post after midnight: my keyboard turns into a pumpkin, hence the typoes

. And so, to bed…

Regards, F

 

[Fiona Nitschke]

Hey Joe,

Everytime I post something I find a mistake right after it's posted, never before....

Don't we all, mate, don't we all. I was referring to Scullion John Collins, an assistant cook from the 1st class galley, Victualling Department, not Fireman Samuel Collins from Engineering. Assistant Cook, not Fireman, Assistant Cook, not Fireman. Oh the shame of it all.

(picks up dunces hat and retreats into the corner muttering, "post in haste, repent at leisure...")

 

[Mike Poirier]

Joe:
You really believe Ismay was concerned about bodies, when he knew he was facing court inquiries and lawsuits? I highly doubt it. As we've seen, he was in total shock on the Carpathia. Damage control about bodies was surely the last thing on his mind.
Also you can't negate the later accounts over the years by survivors ( Bill Sloper, Elmer Taylor, etc... ) and from Carpathia passengers ( the Fenwicks', etc... ). These people were very observant and not hidden below at the first sight of bodies. They were active participants on deck during this whole time. And my point is, they had nothing to hide in the later years when they published accounts. Their accounts are extremely graphic from the time the first passengers boarded the Carpathia till they arrived in New York.

Also re: Collins. Here was a young lad who wasn't sure of what he was seeing. What looked like Carpathia lifeboats being lowered were Titanic boats being raised. There is absolutely no other testimony about the Carpathia lowering lifeboats. Many Carpathia crewmembers talked at length of what went on over the years. None of them like John Cargill, ever mentioned the Carpathia sending lifeboats to look for bodies.

 

[Jan C. Nielsen]

Inger and Fiona,

I'll just make a couple of points that I haven't made before. Thanks for your feedback, and willingness to listen to a new theory. A lot of other buffs are fed up with hearing about cover ups and conspiracies.

First, when a witness mentions that he or she saw "one," in my experience, that is usually something to follow up on (which, of course, Senator Smith didn't). As more questions are asked, it comes out that there were more. "Oh yes, now that you mention it, I think I saw what looked like a life jacket in the distance - - that might have been a body, there were several . . ." The problem is that Senator Smith's and the Board of Trade's questioning was not very focused on this issue.

The Board of Trade questioning, to me, is ridiculous and all over the place. Oftentimes, I find myself asking "why, on earth, is this lawyer asking this witness that question? What does it matter at all?" They seem unprepared, and did kind of a milktoast job of it.

You are, of course, correct that the Boat 14 rowed a significant distance to Carpathia. I think Officer Lowe even used a sail. However, on April 20, 1912, the passengers aboard the S.S. Bremen reported that the bodies could be seen from a great distance ("all the way to the iceberg") because they had white life jackets. The Bremen passengers also saw Collapsible B amongst the bodies. At daylight, some of the lifeboats were near Collapsible B - - we know that because the men on board were picked up.

Collapsible A probably moved away from the bodies. In fact, eventually, it was found many miles away from the disaster site. Collapsible B was found by Bremen and by McKay-Bennett amongst the bodies.

Captain Moore was asked, as you point out, about seeing the bodies . . . however, if my memory serves me correctly, he discloses that he was on the other side of an ice pack, and basically that he didn't have the vantagepoint to see much of anything.

Captain Moore also confirmed that the current was very slow, approximately one-half knot - which means that there couldn't have been too much movement, or dispersal, after the sinking.

In the British inquiry, Captain Lord says he went right by the disaster site, and saw no bodies whatsoever. I just don't believe this. If you read his testimony, you can easily tell that he's been very carefully coached. His answers are short, and curt, like he wants to get out of there. He offers a quick answer to the question, little more. He sounds like someone protecting his own neck, and his employer's. Also, by asserting that he saw no bodies, he contradicts Roston and Major Peuchen.

Rostron is more expansive. But then, he is another of those who says he saw "one" body. Well, as I stated above, that statement is a ticket to follow up on - - and nobody very effectively did.

It is interesting to note that two German ships immediately passed right by the Titanic disaster site: the Rheim and the Bremen. Bremen's horrified passengers said they saw fields of bodies." Several passengers ran inside when they saw one woman floating out there and holding a baby. Why did the competing German lines do that? My theory is that they wanted to embarass the British competition before WSL could get a ship out there to retrieve the bodies.

As to why the information didn't come out over the subsequent years, this has to do with the Victorian-Edwardian and post-era mentality, I think. No one really talked about such horrible things as bodies floating around the North Atlantic. Some incidents were reported (the Bremen on April 20, the Oceanic and Collapisble A, a woman in a nightgown floating by a ship, some bodies struck by one ship's bow). For example, in Third Officer Pitman's testimony, he sometimes refuses to even answer questions put to him (such as the matter of people's screams at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912), because its so unpleasant. Lawrence Beesley, too, only talked about this reluctantly. Even today, on this board, when the matter is brought up members sometimes apologize for being "macabre."

So, I think your answer is that the bodies were something that wasn't much talked about. The Californian incident was talked about a lot - so there's volumes of information on that. In another conversation I'm researching the matter of suicides and PTSD among survivors. This, too, wasn't talked about. The information is sparse. In fact, at that time, death certificates were changed, etc., to cover up suicides and the like. It was to embarassing to families. In fact, the suicides and PTSD at least partly buttress my point, i.e., that much of this horrifying disaster was not talked about, and tragiclly proved too difficult and traumatic for some survivors to keep to themselves.

So, although the lack of focus on the issue is problematic, and there may not be much out there, the circumstantial evidence is fairly strong to suggest something went on here.

Anyway, this is getting to be a long post so I better move on. Thanks again for your interest, and I keep you posted on developments.

 

[Jan C. Nielsen]

In regard to Michael's point, this was raised by Dave Gittin in a previous conversation - - my response was, then, that Collins traveled aboard Carpathia, and obviously would have known that Carpathia picked up Titanic's lifeboats. He would have known this at the time he testified before Senator Smith's committee. Yet he stated as set forth above. So I rest my case.

With respect to the Carpathia passengers, I don't see any reason why they would be less reluctant to keep something quiet out of respect for the loss of the Titanic's passengers. It's worth at least mentioning that recently, a Carpathia passenger's letter was disclosed by Clive Cussler, at a press conference in Halifax. I appears that this letter's description of the recovery operation differs markedly with other accounts from the time period. Everyone was very quiet, there wasn't screaming and moaning, etc.

And yes, I do absolutely believe that Bruce Ismay was concerned with the bodies. Like any callous businessman, his immediate focus was upon damage control, i.e., gaining a handle on the flow of information, keeping out of the public eye the worst manifestations of the tragedy, finding some one else to lay the blame on, etc. - - all of these were his central focus. As I've said before, they do it today, they did it back then.

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

Fiona - EXCELLENT post re: the bodies.

I do believe the Carpathia saw very few bodies - as the lifeboats (spread out around the wreck site) saw the Carpathia, they rowed to her. And the Carpathia stopped for the first boats to get to her - short of the actual wreck site.

As someone said (Lowe?), the Carpathia was there to worry about live people, not dead bodies. They probably spent very little time looking around, once they determined that all boats had been picked up. Rostron got Lord and the Californian to agree to look around, while he took the survivors back to land.

And there's the coverup - how hard did Lord actually look? From the reading I've done, it appears they only did a very minimal job at it. There's even Grove's story about seeing moving figures on an ice floe - and Lord blew it off by saying "Seals"! Is this a man searching carefully?

Looks to me, that even the morning of April 15th, the debris of the sinking was starting to spread out. There was an area of light wreckage, totally separate from another area where hundreds of bodies floated. By the time the MacKay-Bennett got there a week or so later, the floating 'debris field' had scattered over dozens of square mile of ocean.

 

[Mike Poirier]

Joe:
So what if he was on the Carpathia> I've read his testimony. And he says the Carpathia was stopped a mile away from his lifeboat and from there he says, " She stopped in the one place, and, I THINK, lowered two or three of her own boats "
He then goes onto say when they arrived the supposed Carpathia boats were standing by the ship. Not a very credible witness who is a mile from the rescue ship and uses the words 'I think'. It is easy to see it was just the remaining Titanic lifeboats standing by waiting to be raised to the deck. He doesn't say there were Carpathia crew in them what so ever.
And I rest my case.

Clive Cussler's discovery is nothing new. There are a dozen accounts which tell of the silence aboard the ship and the hysteria is minimal. This is not a new fact by any means.

You base your theory of damage control on the 'fact' that Bruce Ismay was a callous business man? Where are your sources that Bruce Ismay was callous? The press of the day said he was callous, but many people involved in the Titanic story had nothing but kind things to say about him. He had his share of detractors, but to define him as callous would be incorrect.
He couldn't hide the fact that 1500 people died. What would be the point of ignoring the bodies?

 

[Bill DeSena]

Hi all,

I,m back and I see the question of bodies is still intriguing the board as it should because this is a mystery.

I think that it is a reasonable conclusion to think that Ismay wanted to have damage control since I'm sure his decision to save himself must have caused him a good deal of survivors guilt and having the evidence of bodies floating around I think would have just made it worse for his conscience to bear. No, I don't think he was a bad guy or callous, but all too human and like us if we had the power he had to make it go away who among us wouldn't use it. I try not to judge someone until I've walked a mile in their shoes.

Rostron lying, well that I find hard to believe I've studied human nature and character most of my life as a policeman and he's not the lying type. Lord callous, that seems to be the appropriate term for his actions throughout the tragedy.

Witness testimony, I know as prima facia evidence it seems that whatever a witness says is gospel, but again as a former police officer you must bear with me here if my experience shows that witnesses not only, lie, but recreate events in their minds for a host of reasons so testimony isn't always the best evidence either. Physical evidence such as that presented by the passengers and crew of the Bremen is a good deal more reliable.

The Bremen being a German vessel had a lot of reasons as stated elsewhere here to embarrass the English and WSL. I seem to recall it was a German ship that held the record for speed in crossing until they lost this prize to English liners and certainly WSL advertising the supremacy of the Olympic class ships was too rich a target not to explode with the fact they lost 1500 people and the bodies were still floating around in the North Atlantic.

But where were all those bodies? Obviously the Mackay-Bennett and the Bremen saw fields of bodies at or near the wreck site, or was it really the wreck site? Ballard after all spent quite a bit of time looking for Titanic at her reported location and found her elsewhere couldn't the body field have also been drifting to another location when seen? If Carpathia arrived and saw no mass of bodies floating could that be because she wasn't actually directly on top of the site Titanic sank at, or could the bodies have appeared like an ice flow from a mile or two being clad in white lifejackets and massed closely together. Perhaps Rostron looked through his glass and saw this grisly site and did a Nelson, "turned a blind eye to it." I think his correctness would support his statement that he saw only one body in this case because he would have refused to acknowledge the awful site of a carpet of lifejacketed corpses looking like a sheet of ice in the distance. This could account for the lack of any testimony about seeing bodies near Carpathia because if they were a mile or more away the naked eye unaided probably would miss them. I know that even when in my youth and as a sailor in the US Navy I needed glasses to see anything with any real perception more than a quarter mile off in the water.

Bill

 

[Mike Poirier]

So what your saying Bill is that after being immediately taken to the Doctor McGhee's cabin, Ismay and Rostron made the decision to ignore the bodies?
I hardly find that a reasonable scenario.

I'd also like to point out that Collins' said the
'reason' the Carpathia's boats were lowered were to pick up the bodies supposedly washing up against the side of the ship.
SO what he is saying is that some various bodies arrived at the Carpathia before the lifeboats.
A bit dubious to say the least.

 

[Geoff Whitfield]

I was intrigued to see Bill Wormstedt's mention of figures moving on an ice flow. Some years ago I was in touch with the family of third class passenger Eliezer Gilinsky (sometimes listed as Leslie Gelinski). They told me that following Eliezer's death, they were visited by "one of the group with whom he was travelling" who told the family that Eliezer, and many others had reached the sanctuary of an ice flow and could clearly be seen by those in the lifeboats, pleading for their lives. He went on to say that amongst them were some women. I had always thought that this would have been just a fanciful story on the part of the survivor as nobody else mentioned this. Why should one man have seen them yet nobody else claimed to have done? It seemed an incredibly cruel thing to do to the family if it were not true.I must admit that I had almost forgotten about it until I saw Bill's posting.

Geoff

 

[Maureen Zottoli]

Welcome back Bill. You have been very much missed Sir. I enjoyed very much your sharing above and find what you have shared very interesting.

I have wondered if anyone had found refuge on an ice flow, but ahven;lt dared to suggest it here. It is interesting to know that someone had testified to seeing it.

And agin, it is so great to see you here.
Maureen