Daniel Buckley and the locked gate

[Paul Lee]

Hi all,
We're all familiar with Daniel Buckley and his story of the gate that was locked, and then broken down by steerage passengers. It seems that many people place this on the foreward well deck, but why is this? Is there any reason for this, rather than the aft well deck?

Best wishes

Paul

 

[Michael H. Standart]

You can read His Testimony for yourself. My own read of it indicates that he was berthed up forward in the section that was flooded fairly early on. Since he indicated that the top of the stairs in question led to a first class area, it helps to know that this would be the B-Deck section up forward. The Stairs leading up from the well deck aft led to the 2cnd class promanade.

Oddly enough, there's something a it cotradictory in the last part of his statement.

Senator SMITH. I wish you would tell the committee in what part of the ship this steerage was located.

Mr. BUCKLEY. Down, I think, in the lower part of the steamer, in the after part of the ship; at the back.

Senator SMITH. That is all. Thank you.

It's odd because the steerage *aft* would have been one of the very last places flooded.

 

[Paul Lee]

Alternately, you could say that he went to the aft well deck via the working alleyway, along with dozens of other steerage passengers who were seen to traverse it!

Cheers

Paul

 

[Michael H. Standart]

But did Buckley say that? I didn't see anything in his testimony to indicate that he ever used Scotland Road for any reason.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

It is my understanding that single men travelling 3rd class were place in the fore part of the ship and single women travelling 3rd class were placed in the aft part of the ship. Many of the men befriended the women and came aft to get them when the accident happened.

Does anyone out there know exactly where Buckley's cabin was located; i.e., in what compartment and deck? Also, does anyone know where Carl Johnson's cabin was located?

 

[Paul Lee]

I've tried many times to figure out where he was. All I can say for sure is that he was in a (at least) four berth cabin, and was quite close to the damaged area as he woke up very soon afterwards and water was coming into his cabin.

Paul

htttp://www.paullee.com

 

[Daniel Klistorner]

Samuel,

I too thought that all single men were berthed forward, and single women aft, with a few of the aft sections dedicated to families. Exception seems to be the 2nd--alternate--3rd class section on G deck, where I think men, women and families were berthed together (not in the same cabins, just in the same area).

However, in the most recent Commutator there is an article: "Coosan Coleen; Bertha Mulvihill, A Titanic Survivor Story, by Tad Fitch" which indicates that the two women were berthed in the fore section of Titanic, as their cabin flooded after the collision. My guess is that they were on E deck, rather than in the more labyrinth areas of G or F deck.

Regards,

Daniel.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

I asked the questions regarding Carl Johnson and Danial Buckley because in ANTR Walter Lord mentions Johnson being in the third compartment from the bow, and also mentions Buckley being nearby. On F deck in both the 3rd and 4th compartments forward there were 3rd class cabins of 4, 6, and even 8 berths. On G deck the plans show open berth space for 3rd class in the both the 3rd and also the 4th compartments. And wasn't it 4/O Boxhall that inspected the 3rd class areas as low as F deck and found no damage early on? Yet both Johnson and Buckley stepped into water when they got out of their berths. If Walter Lord was right, this tells us something about flooding in the 3rd watertight compartment forward, which some people on this forum have thought was not damaged as severely as say the 2nd or 4th compartments were.

 

[David G. Brown]

Time is a human foible. On the one hand, we gauge our lives by clocks, yet few of us have a refined sense of the passage of time (or wrist watches would be unnecessary). Time seems faster to a condemned man than time does to an imprisoned man.

I find it curious that a large number of the crew in the bow were unashamed to admit they slept right through the impact. Yet, among passengers it would seem that the impact was like some giant alarm clock. Surely, the iceberg did not jostle working stiffs less than paying guests. Could it be that surviving passengers simply wanted to remember the impact whether they experieced it or not? What an embarassment to say "I slept through it" about such an important event.

There are instances in which people claim to have been awakened by "the impact" and then immediately stepped into water. Such statements make good news copy, but are they possible in the real world? If Titanic had been flooding so fast that within seconds the third class berthing areas were running with water, how did the ship float even another few minutes let alone 2 hours and 40 minutes?

It pays to put statements about water running over the deck into context not with what came before, but what came after. That is, the events surrounding the speaker's wet feet must be put into chronological context. It may be that water between the toes came a bit later in the real evening than in the memory of the witness.

Never forget that human nature, not science, governs memories--including the memory of the passage of time.

-- David G. Brown

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Carl Johnson, according to Walter Lord in ANTR, got up to see what was causing the commotion outside his cabin. No mention that he awoke because of the collision itself. But it probably was not too much later. But where was his cabin? Was it in the 3rd compartment as Walter Lord claimed or was it in the 4th? Was it on F deck or were there make shift cabins down on G deck in the open berthing space further down?

And as far as how fast did these compartments fill up, it is clear that some were flooding much faster than others. Theoretically, if the water would be allowed to flood the first four compartments but somehow kept in check in BR 6 and further aft, then the ship would not have sunk no matter how fast the first 4 compartments flooded. And as a little help, it was only the peak tank (only 190 tons) in the 1st compartment that was compromised. The rest of that compartment was dry until the ship's head sank so low that it would flood from overflow going forward from compartment 2 over bulkhead A at C deck. And this could not have happened until about 1:05 AM ATS when emergency lifeboat No. 1 was launched with lookout George Symons: "That lot of ports there [pointing on the model] was just awash under her name ...the second row."

Unfortunately, we know that the water was not kept in check in BR 6 very long, and damage seemed to spread progressively worse to BR 5, then BR 4 from the bottom as the stresses started to mount as her head got lower and lower. Yes, in 2 hour and 40 minutes or thereabouts, she was gone.