Terence Keefe
Guest
It’s good to see that, in the feverish run-up to the 100th Anniversary, new theories are still appearing. But Senan Molony’s defence of his view that ‘Lifeboats from the Titanic extinguished their lights in order not to become attractive beacons for swimmers after the sinking’ is seriously flawed in a number of respects. It would take an article of equivalent length to demonstrate this in detail, but here are a few preliminary pointers.
1) Any theory that rests almost exclusively on testimony from the two Inquiries needs to be checked carefully against extensive evidence from memoirs, letters, interviews, newspaper items, and other sources.
2) Any theory based on the assertion that something must have happened — ‘It happened, because it must have happened’ (italics original) — is inherently weaker than one resting on direct testimony that it did — of which there is, at the moment, none.
3) The fact that someone, at a given moment, did not see lights does not constitute proof that they were not there at that time (‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’). Strangely, Molony admits that ‘For those with the keenest night vision, the maximum visibility in the inky black appears to have been just fifty yards and must have been much less for most.’
In any case, there is the more fundamental question of how many lifeboats had working lights in the first place. Assuming that Hemming, as he says, brought 14 lamps up to the boat deck, there is still the greatest uncertainty about what exactly happened after this, to the point that the best that Molony can suggest is what is likely (‘he gave them to the crew still at the falls, asking that they be passed down. Such very likely happened’; ‘The likelihood is that not one of these lamps was wasted, and that they went therefore into fourteen Titanic lifeboats’ — my own italics). Yet likelihood mysteriously seems to turn to certainty when — with Boxhall saying that there were always lamps in the two emergency boats — Molony claims: ‘Therefore all standard Titanic lifeboats were provisioned with brightly-lit lamps from very early on in the sinking’ (bold in the original); ‘And one went early into every available Titanic lifeboat.’
The major problem with this claim is that there are numerous explicit denials by various crew members questioned at the British Inquiry that their lifeboat had a light (Molony does not ignore much of this evidence but, bizarrely, takes it to confirm that they did, but extinguished it!). At a quick reckoning, these denials cover 13 separate lifeboats (boats 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, C, D). And, most significantly, this is entirely consistent with virtually everything that we learn from different witnesses at the American Inquiry, where there are explicit assertions that there was a light in boats 2 and 6; and a denial that there was a lamp in boat 10. Equally consistent is the fact that two witnesses state that there was a light in boat 8 (although, as Molony records, they both register difficulties with the lamp).
Leaving aside the overturned collapsible B, this information covers 17 of the 19 boats and, apart from one or two loose ends, there is a quite remarkable coherence to it all. Against Molony’s ‘likelihood’ that lamps went into 14 boats, we have direct evidence to back up the suggestion that 14 of the 19 lifeboats had no lights that might later have been deliberately extinguished, and only up to 5 did. (And ‘up to 5’ is consistent with virtually all statements made by crew members: ‘some’, ‘four’, ‘five or six’, ‘several’, etc.)
Personally, I find wholly implausible the suggestion that the pattern of the testimony across two inquiries is to be explained by conspiracy to lie on a massive scale, or by such widespread self-deception that it amounts to much the same.
I have not systematically measured the above results against statements made by passengers in places other than the inquiries, but I notice that, again consistently, Elizabeth Shutes denies there was a light of any kind in boat 3.
One further thought. As far as lights seen on the water are concerned, in the British Inquiry there is mention of ‘Holmes Lights’, which light up when they fall into water. Dave Gittins has claimed that Holmes Lights were attached to 6 of Titanic’s lifebuoys. At some stage these must have been immersed, and they may have lit up. If so, for how long did the lights last? Perhaps these were the only lights, if any, that later went out?
Some extremely interesting side issues about lamps arise out of Molony’s research, but he entirely fails to support his central theory. This is no trivial matter, since that theory potentially blackens the name of many survivors: ‘Of course the lifeboats put their lights back on after the drowning people very satisfactorily were dead and silent’.
1) Any theory that rests almost exclusively on testimony from the two Inquiries needs to be checked carefully against extensive evidence from memoirs, letters, interviews, newspaper items, and other sources.
2) Any theory based on the assertion that something must have happened — ‘It happened, because it must have happened’ (italics original) — is inherently weaker than one resting on direct testimony that it did — of which there is, at the moment, none.
3) The fact that someone, at a given moment, did not see lights does not constitute proof that they were not there at that time (‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’). Strangely, Molony admits that ‘For those with the keenest night vision, the maximum visibility in the inky black appears to have been just fifty yards and must have been much less for most.’
In any case, there is the more fundamental question of how many lifeboats had working lights in the first place. Assuming that Hemming, as he says, brought 14 lamps up to the boat deck, there is still the greatest uncertainty about what exactly happened after this, to the point that the best that Molony can suggest is what is likely (‘he gave them to the crew still at the falls, asking that they be passed down. Such very likely happened’; ‘The likelihood is that not one of these lamps was wasted, and that they went therefore into fourteen Titanic lifeboats’ — my own italics). Yet likelihood mysteriously seems to turn to certainty when — with Boxhall saying that there were always lamps in the two emergency boats — Molony claims: ‘Therefore all standard Titanic lifeboats were provisioned with brightly-lit lamps from very early on in the sinking’ (bold in the original); ‘And one went early into every available Titanic lifeboat.’
The major problem with this claim is that there are numerous explicit denials by various crew members questioned at the British Inquiry that their lifeboat had a light (Molony does not ignore much of this evidence but, bizarrely, takes it to confirm that they did, but extinguished it!). At a quick reckoning, these denials cover 13 separate lifeboats (boats 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, C, D). And, most significantly, this is entirely consistent with virtually everything that we learn from different witnesses at the American Inquiry, where there are explicit assertions that there was a light in boats 2 and 6; and a denial that there was a lamp in boat 10. Equally consistent is the fact that two witnesses state that there was a light in boat 8 (although, as Molony records, they both register difficulties with the lamp).
Leaving aside the overturned collapsible B, this information covers 17 of the 19 boats and, apart from one or two loose ends, there is a quite remarkable coherence to it all. Against Molony’s ‘likelihood’ that lamps went into 14 boats, we have direct evidence to back up the suggestion that 14 of the 19 lifeboats had no lights that might later have been deliberately extinguished, and only up to 5 did. (And ‘up to 5’ is consistent with virtually all statements made by crew members: ‘some’, ‘four’, ‘five or six’, ‘several’, etc.)
Personally, I find wholly implausible the suggestion that the pattern of the testimony across two inquiries is to be explained by conspiracy to lie on a massive scale, or by such widespread self-deception that it amounts to much the same.
I have not systematically measured the above results against statements made by passengers in places other than the inquiries, but I notice that, again consistently, Elizabeth Shutes denies there was a light of any kind in boat 3.
One further thought. As far as lights seen on the water are concerned, in the British Inquiry there is mention of ‘Holmes Lights’, which light up when they fall into water. Dave Gittins has claimed that Holmes Lights were attached to 6 of Titanic’s lifebuoys. At some stage these must have been immersed, and they may have lit up. If so, for how long did the lights last? Perhaps these were the only lights, if any, that later went out?
Some extremely interesting side issues about lamps arise out of Molony’s research, but he entirely fails to support his central theory. This is no trivial matter, since that theory potentially blackens the name of many survivors: ‘Of course the lifeboats put their lights back on after the drowning people very satisfactorily were dead and silent’.