Is there any consensus regarding the shooting?

[Sarah S]

Good evening everyone,

I know this is a topic that gives a lot of people a headache, but while scrolling through various threads regarding the shootings, there was always a lot of opinions and debate. I’m not asking for the identity of the shooter, just any facts that have been collected. Is there any consensus regarding the shooting that killed passengers (not warning shots, but deadly shots), like:

At what time frame did it most likely happen?
Could it only have been an officer, or could it have been simply anyone (crew or passenger) that possessed a gun that shot around?
Is the [alledged] suicide considered a fact and if yes, then
Did the suicide follow immediately after shots were fired at passengers? Are these two things (passenger shot-suicide followed after) connected?
Is there any agreement on if deadly shootings happened around Collapsible C or A? The titanic movie portrayed the deadly shootings around the near end, around collapsible A, with all the shots prior to that being merely warning shots


Is their any general consensus, or is everything about deadly shootings unconfirmed and doubtful? I‘d like to know if there are any aspects about the deadly shooting that historians have agreed on.


Thank you

 

[Seumas]

No, there is no consensus.

Both "for" and "against" have evidence in their favour, but it only goes so far for both sides of the argument. Between them, there is a massive grey area.

Personally, neither side has ever convinced me of their arguments, and I have found that quite a number of advocates on both sides have rather an unhealthy, ghoulish obsession with the subject.

The so called "Portrush letter" which some people regard as a game changer I cannot take seriously. In fact, I seriously question whether the letter even existed in the first place. A professional historian would not use such a dubious so-called "source". Let's either see the original letter or a copy of it, otherwise it has to be classed as psuedo-history.

I also really don't understand why so many people get so upset about the idea of people being shot and completely fail to see why any stigma should be attached to it. Just supposing Wilde and/or Murdoch did have to open fire on a couple of men trying to jump from the deck into a collapsible boat, then they would only have done so only out of concern for the women and children in a fragile collapsible that could have been upset and it's occupants pitched into the sea. They wouldn't have done it for the sake of a thrill or outright cruelty, they would have had a perfectly legitimate reason for doing so.

 

[Sarah S]

This is really strange that among all the plenty of evidence and accounts we have of survivors, none of them could give a factual and universally accepted account of the shooting, although firing shots and the possibility of people being killed because of that was like an elephant in the room. Why are survivor accounts so divided regarding this topic? I expected there was at least something about the shots where historians agreed on, but seems like this will be a debate for eternity.

Is the portrush letter the one that was alledgedly written by Lightoller where he confirmed a shooting happened but nobody killed? I wonder how that accusation even came to existence.

I also dislike the stigma around it. I don’t know how problematic it was considered before 1997, but it could be the Cameron movie portrayed the Murdoch shooting (combined with the bribe that never even happened) as a weakness of character, so a lot of people made a connection between these acts and now established an irrevocable association in their mind that whoever fired the shots, was showing weakness or incompetence (which is not an opinion I share at all)

 

[Arun Vajpey]

In the first place, considering the sheer number of witnesses who reported shootings with at least some correlation to independent statements, we have to accept that shots were fired on board the Titanic that night. But regarding the details of by whom and to what outcome, opinions are highly debatable.

That is one of the reasons to buy the superb On A Sea Of Glass. The so-called "Officer suicide incident" is covered in an unbiased and very exhaustive manner, taking into account all witness statements. It is in Appendix K (pp 305-321 of the hardcover) and is a very good read, like rest of the book. You are asked to form your own views afterwards.

At what time frame did it most likely happen?

Although you might be referring to the incident around Collapsible A, shots were fired earlier. Fifth Officer Lowe himself testified that he fired 2 or 3 shots along the side of the ship to deter potential rushers into Lifeboat #14 just as it was about to be lowered at about 01:25 am.

Lightoller might have waved his gun around during the final loading and lowering of Lifeboat #12 at about 01:30 am. As far as I could make out, he did not actually fire a shot; he later even claimed that his gun was unloaded.

Murdoch and/or McElroy likely fired 2 shots into the air during loading of Collapsible C, again to deter rushers. It was probably Murdoch, but Jack Thayer said that it was McElroy and since I believe that the active 17 year-old First Class passenger would have been familiar with the Chief Purser, I don't want to altogether dismiss that it could have been McElroy. Collapsible C was lowered at about 01:58 am.

Did the suicide follow immediately after shots were fired at passengers?

My answer to that would be that IF a couple of passengers were shot (which is not certain) and then the shooter was very likely an officer. IF that officer shot himself (again, not certain), then it is likely that it was immediately after. Finally, IF that collective incident did happen (yet another uncertainty), it would have been sometime between 02:10 am and 02:15 am, before the 'wave' hit.

During my extended research scatteringly between 1985 and 1996 into scullion John Collins' experience, some clues (and no more) emerged about this incident. It was during the pre-internet days and one of the sources, Collins' daughter Mary McKee, was not the most forthcoming with information. But over those years, two things stood out: Collins was briefly near Lifeboat #16 and saw that The "Senior Mate, the one next to the Captain" was in charge. Later, while Collins and an unnamed steward were trying to get to Collapsible A with the kids, he saw Murdoch (whom he knew by sight as the 'Scots Officer') knocked overboard with several others when the wave hit. At that stage, there was no mention of any shooting.

I was working with that bit of information when over two years later Mrs McKee told me somethng that she had heard from her older brother in America - a genuine Titanic enthusiast - about the shooting incident. Please understand that the conversation was difficult and sketchy over several phone calls but the final picture that emerged was that Collins saw/heard the shooting incident a few minutes before the 'wave' arrived. While there was no direct quote mentioned, the strong impression was that the officer involved was the same "senior mate" mentioned above and NOT Murdoch. I do not want to say any more about this.

This is really strange that among all the plenty of evidence and accounts we have of survivors, none of them could give a factual and universally accepted account of the shooting, although firing shots and the possibility of people being killed because of that was like an elephant in the room. Why are survivor accounts so divided regarding this topic?

That's hardly surprising. IF the incident took place, it would have been between 02:10 and 02:15 am, by which timeframe all eventual survivors remaining on bard the Titanic would have had their own chances of survival foremost in their minds and so would not have been capable of recording unrelated events accurately. So, they later stated what they thought they saw and heard and if you add newspaper embellishment to those statements, you have the answers to your questions.

 

[Seumas]

This is really strange that among all the plenty of evidence and accounts we have of survivors, none of them could give a factual and universally accepted account of the shooting, although firing shots and the possibility of people being killed because of that was like an elephant in the room. Why are survivor accounts so divided regarding this topic? I expected there was at least something about the shots where historians agreed on, but seems like this will be a debate for eternity.

Everyone is agreed that what I would describe as "frighteners" were fired by Lowe (three shots) at Boat No. Fourteen, by Murdoch (one or two shots) at Collapsible C and by Wilde (one or two shots) at Collapsible D.

As for the evidence of shots fired directly at people, it only goes so far for both sides of the argument.

• Those who claim that the shootings took place must concede that the evidence is often frustratingly contradictory and confusing.
• Those who argue against the shootings must concede that too many survivors reported witnessing a targetted shooting incident for them all to be lying.

The answer ? I don't know and I doubt we'll ever know.

Is the portrush letter the one that was alledgedly written by Lightoller where he confirmed a shooting happened but nobody killed? I wonder how that accusation even came to existence.

Aye, that's the one.

All we know is that the alleged recipient of the letter did exist and did know both Murdoch and Lightoller.

However, no one has ever actually produced the actual letter (or a copy of it) for examination. It all rests on "X knew Y who knew Z the original recipient". That is not simply good enough. A court would not accept such evidence, nor would a professional historian treat it as a source. Therefore, the "Portrush letter" is most decidely pseudo-historical.

I personally don't believe the "letter" ever existed, and it was all just a tall tale.

 

[Sarah S]

I knew about the warning shots being fired by Lowe, but I am mostly referring to the deadly shots - which alledgedly killed passengers

That's hardly surprising. IF the incident took place, it would have been between 02:10 and 02:15 am, by which timeframe all eventual survivors remaining on bard the Titanic would have had their own chances of survival foremost in their minds and so would not have been capable of recording unrelated events accurately. So, they later stated what they thought they saw and heard and if you add newspaper embellishment to those statements, you have the answers to your questions.

There have been strong opinions that deadly shots were also fired at Collapsible C which was lowered before 2 am if I am correct. Although most of the reports of fatal shootings happening around Boat C were told by syrians who were reported to have been in that vicinity are considered by the majority of people as a tale and false, yet „something“ seems to have happened around Collapsible C as well, which was more than 20 minutes before the ship disappeared from the surface.
If deadly shootings indeed happened around Collapsible C, then quiet a lot of survivors would have seen that, wouldn’t they? I agree that if shootings happened around 2:10 / 2:15 am, it is most likely most people died who could have reported of it. I know these are many „if’s“, I just find it strange that we have only shallow evidence but no general consensus and so many witnesses telling different things

 

[Sarah S]

is there a possiblity that passengers were targeted around Collapsible C and A, and during the latter one the shooter commited suicide right after? Or is it only possible that passengers were shot at only one of these boats….?
I feel like if people were shot around boat C then there need to be more witnesses cause it happened still way before the decks started flooding and majority of people dying who saw it

 

[Seumas]

All I can add Sara is that I'm firmly in the middle. Neither side have convinced me. I really don't know what happened and wouldn't want to speculate further without new evidence.

The only (and a very slim one at that) hope of finding out more would be if a substantial (preferably all) amount of the original (now long missing) depositions of the surviving crew were to be found.

Let's just suppose for a moment that they were found and several surviving crewmen who had still been on deck from 02:00 onwards reported witnessing targeted shootings and named the officer in question, then that would be enough to sway me. However, as I've said a few times before, I suspect that the depositions were all incinerated in 1941 during the London Blitz.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

There have been strong opinions that deadly shots were also fired at Collapsible C which was lowered before 2 am if I am correct. Although most of the reports of fatal shootings happening around Boat C were told by syrians who were reported to have been in that vicinity are considered by the majority of people as a tale and false, yet „something“ seems to have happened around Collapsible C as well, which was more than 20 minutes before the ship disappeared from the surface.

I have tried to read all available good sources about incidents during loading and launching of Collapsible C and do NOT believe that there were anything more than a couple of warning shots fired into the air, possibly by Murdoch.

We have to remember that a couple of contemporary works may actually be doing a disservice to those Lebanese-Syrian women on board Collapsible C while apparently quoting them. Most, if not all, likely had limited knowledge of English and had probably lost friends and relatives in the sinking. Therefore, there is a high likelihood that a lot of what they said was greatly embellished by newspaper and other accounts. That said, given the circumstances, their reports have to be taken with more than just a pinch of salt.

Without mentioning names, there is a certain dreadful book that I made the mistake of buying about Syrian passengers on board. If you choose to believe such trash and an even more dreadful blog (which our friend Suemas and I have sometimes laughed about) about the shootings, there were reportedly over 25 people shot dead, including by passenegers shooting at the crew, a man 'executed' while sitting next to his girlfriend in a lifeboat, shot people dumped over the side and similar nonsense.

 

[Sarah S]

Let's just suppose for a moment that they were found and several surviving crewmen who had still been on deck from 02:00 onwards reported witnessing targeted shootings and named the officer in question, then that would be enough to sway me. However, as I've said a few times before, I suspect that the depositions were all incinerated in 1941 during the London Blitz.

Wow I hadn’t heard of the last one, this is really sad.

I already guessed while making this thread I was beating a dead horse and that most users here have had at least a dozens of discussion about this topic before and would rather stay miles away from going through the same arguments again, that’s why I purposefully left out the question regarding the shooter - I just hoped to find some common facts where people agreed on, but I guess most is simply up for subjective interpretation

 

[Arun Vajpey]

I suspect that the depositions were all incinerated in 1941 during the London Blitz.

Sorry to be picky, but I was under the impression that the London Blitzes were in 1940 and again in 1944? Unless of course, you are referring to a specific building's destruction during an isolated bombing raid in 1941.

 

[Sarah S]

I have tried to read all available good sources about incidents during loading and launching of Collapsible C and do NOT believe that there were anything more than a couple of warning shots fired into the air, possibly by Murdoch.

We have to remember that many contemporary works may actually be doing a disservice to those Lebanese-Syrian women on board Collapsible C while apparently quoting them. Most, if not all, likely had limited knowledge of English and had probably lost friends and relatives in the sinking. Therefore, there is a high likelihood that a lot of what they said was greatly embellished by newspaper and other accounts. That said, given the circumstances, their reports have to be taken with more than just a pinch of salt.

Without mentioning names, there is a certain dreadful book that I made the mistake of buying about Syrian passengers on board. If you choose to believe such trash and an even more dreadful blog (which our friend Suemas and I have sometimes laughed about) about the shootings, there were reportedly over 25 people shot dead, including by passenegers shooting at the crew, a man 'executed' while sitting next to his girlfriend in a lifeboat, shot people dumped over the side and similar nonsense.

I know which book you are talking about. I find it sad that all major sources of information regarding my people who were on the ship contain unbelievable nonsense and exaggerations that make one discount their reliability.
Though I do remember watching a video of Fatimah Muslamani‘s modern day relative who tearefully reported about Fatimas cousins being shot while trying to enter a boat. Apparently Fatimah did tell her family members after the sinking that her cousins were indeed shot by an officer. I personally can’t believe she would lie to her own family about it. In most cases reporters do indeed twist and turn survivors accounts, or survivors purposefully spread lies in the media for attention, but when it comes to one‘s own family, Fatimah would at least be honest to them about what really happened.. Though I do doubt her reports

 

[Seumas]

Sorry to be picky, but I was under the impression that the London Blitzes were in 1940 and again in 1944? Unless of course, you are referring to a specific building's destruction during an isolated bombing raid in 1941.

Bombing went on into the first couple of months of 1941 (Aquitania and Lusitania's hometown, Clydebank, just up the road from me also got hammered in early 1941) but after double-checking there I realise I've got the date wrong.

The PRO (where the Titanic documents were kept) was hit by incendiaries in September 1940 and the archives suffered a catastrophic fire.

Millions (by their own admission - millions) of documents went up flames. These included official government, legal and military papers. I strongly suspect that the depositions of the Titanic's surviving crew were amongst the irreplaceable documents burnt to oblivion.

Two examples of how that fire effects us today are - Only 30% of the British Army personal records from WW1 survive today because the rest went up smoke, which is an absolute kick in the teeth for family history freaks like me ! Another is that the transcripts of many (in)famous criminal trials at the Old Bailey do not survive at all or only partially because of this fire.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Apparently Fatimah did tell her family members after the sinking that her cousins were indeed shot by an officer. Fatimah would at least be honest to them about what really happened.. Though I do doubt her reports

I do not believe that Fatimah or most others consciously lied but I do believe that over the decades such reports have been "upgraded" and taken out of context.

While there is no conclusive evidence that Fatimah Muslamani was rescued on Collapsible C, let us assume for the sake of this discussion that she was. If so, she could have peripherally seen the shots fired into the air - certainly would have heard them. In the melee around the lifeboat, she would not have been certain in what direction the shots were fired and could have wrongly assumed that people had been shot. Also (and probably more likely), if she later told someone that an Officer fired a couple of shots without details, over time that could have easily morphed first into "at people" and then naturally evolved into "killed those people".

Finally, if we want to push boundaries of both coincidence and probabilities far enough, then there is a very outside chance that IF an Officer shot a couple of passengers and then turned the gun on himself in those final frantic minutes, then those two could have been Fatimah's cousins. But that is really stretching things a bit.

Also, contrary to what a certain member/author alleges, there is nothing "Eurocentric" about doubting the Syrian/Lebanese survivors' accounts - assuming that they were indeed first hand accounts. Since shots were fired in the vicinity of Collapsible C and later Collapsible A, many such reports would have come from the Lebanese passengers, a lot of whom just happened to be there at the time. That said, such and other reports from survivors of European origins have been equally questioned by members during various discussions here - that's whay they are called forums.

 

[Sarah S]

The way Fatima‘s descendants conveyed it, then her cousins were shot and their bodies thrown overboard, which we all know is completely false. But apparently Fatimah saw that happening and reported it to her relatives. I doubt this is a myth that evolved with time. Fatimah died in the 70s, and apparently spread the story of her cousin being shot down her family line. Either she was lying or her modern day relatives are lying and fatimah never reported such a thing. I am not sure if written documents exist where fatimah described the incident. We don’t know either in which boat she was saved, which makes it even harder to verify her account. But that was just a side note from me, as her account is of course doubtful at all fronts