Lightoller and collapsible A

[Dan Parkes]

Lightoller was there to the end, saw Murdoch got washed off. I'll doubt Murdoch killed himself in the water. Also, the claim of suicide happened before the ship sunk.

Sorry, Aly but that is not correct. Lightoller did not see Murdoch "washed off."

He thought he saw Murdoch working at collapsible A, just prior to Lightoller entering the water himself. Even that is in dispute - author George Behe noted when considering the evidence that "Lightoller was in no position to see Murdoch down on the starboard boat deck " (George Behe, First Officer Murdoch and the ‘Dalbeattie Defense ). Don Lynch also doubts his story - “Certainly Lightoller’s testimony [regarding Murdoch] can be discounted –he may well have been attempting to protect the reputation of a fellow White Star officer, as well as that of his employers.” (Illustrated History, p.195) . Paul Quinn even goes a step further -" something drew Lightoller over to the starboard side… did Murdoch lift the gun to his head and fire ” (Paul Quinn, Titanic at 2 A.M., p.77).

But based on what Lightoller did tell us - he did not see how Murdoch died. Anything else is simply assumption and speculation.

The reality, whether we like it or not, is that an officer most likely shot passengers/himself. We do not know for sure the identity of the officer, and it is impossible with the available evidence to rule Murdoch out of the equation.

 

[Julie McAllister]

Let me explain. I have been interested in this Officer shooting/suicide incident for almost 35 years and have tried to research into it as much as my spare time allowed. I did not start out with any preconceived notions or hero worship but tried to look at it in an objective way. I thought that I was sharing a bit of sarcasm with you about others' statements that Murdoch could not have committed suicide because he was a hero etc. Clearly, I did not phrase it properly but I am sure you know what I meant now.

I agree that On A Sea of Glass is an excellent book and also that based on the detailed analysis therein, we have to accept that an officer shooting/suicide probably did take place. I am not disputing that part but the general assumption that Murdoch must have been the officer involved based on what appear to be survivor statements quoted in your link; those in turn led to further blanket statements in some books and culminated in James Cameron's film. Thus, Murdoch was placed in that seemingly unshakable position and still seems the most "popular candidate" for the misadventure. THAT is what I strongly disagree with because as I have shown in post #23 of this thread, none of those witnesses who named Murdoch as the officer involved were actually in a position to identify him and none of the witnesses who were actually in a position to identify the officer involved, named Murdoch.

My interest in the shooting incident began in 1985 with a chance meeting of a woman named Alice Braithwaite, who was the niece of a man named Clarence Woods, a wartime friend and fellow POW of John Collins, the scullion who survived the Titanic disaster as a 17 year old. Collins did not know Murdoch personally of course but was aware of the First Officer as the only Scottish officer on board. If you are British, you should know what is true even to this day - in an English majority crowd, non-English Brits like Scots, Welshmen and Irishmen tend to be more 'aware' of each other even without meeting and irrespective of rank or social position. I suppose Murdoch's strong Scottish accent would have been familiar to almost everyone who encountered him on board. John Collins certainly appears to have been able to recognize Murdoch easily and did so during the final moments of the Titanic's sinking that night in the vicinity of Collapsible A. Collins first discussed this with Woods when they were fellow POWS in Germany during WW1; after the war Collins visited Woods and that was where a very young Alice appears to have met the scullion. Apart from Mrs Braithwaite, I have written and spoken to Mary McKee, Collins' daughter. Mrs McKee herself did not have a great interest in the Titanic and was quite young when her father died. But she certainly recalled her father discussing this at length with her older brother, who was very interested. She recalled enough to tell me about her father John Collins witnessing the shooting incident but that appeared to be at least a few minutes before he tired to help, unsuccessfully as it turned out, a woman (probably Anna Palsson) and her baby to reach Collapsible A. It was during that chaotic period that he also saw the Scots officer knocked overboard, something that Lightoller reportedly also saw from a different vantage point.

When I communicated with Mrs McKee in 1990-91, she did not communicated with her older brother for many years but knew he was still alive and living somewhere in America. I did try to trace him based on the information she gave me but with my limited resources and work pressures, I did not make much progress and by 1995 was forced to give-up.

Meanwhile, there were other sources and speculations. As you know, in his 1986 book The Night Lives On, Walter Lord alluded to the shooting incident in the chapter "Shots in the Dark" and later considered the possibility that it might have been Murdoch. But by the time he was part of a live TV interview in 1989, Lord seemed to have changed his mind and opined that it was actually Wilde. As far as I know, Lord did not elaborate why he was thinking on those lines.

In the ensuing years I have used resources like ET, On A Sea of Glass etc and collated the information available including witness statements. That was what we discussed above and when one looks at the possibilities on both sides, you have to admit that the Murdoch candidacy becomes highly unlikely. I want to also point out that I have no personal reason to shift that 'candidacy' from Murdoch to Wilde; just that Walter Lord for reasons not revealed AFAIK, seemed to think that way; also, survivors Carl Jonsson and John Collins, who were close enough to have seen what happened, suggested it was Chief Officer (Wilde). That is just a statement of fact and I am not going to speculate further on it, at least not in this thread.

I am reading On A Sea of Glass right now, I'm only on page 50 and I noticed two major mistakes about Lightoller. I think all information needs to be cross checked to get a consensus.

 

[Dan Parkes]

I noticed two major mistakes about Lightoller.

What are they?

 

[Julie McAllister]

Sorry, Aly but that is not correct. Lightoller did not see Murdoch "washed off."

He thought he saw Murdoch working at collapsible A, just prior to Lightoller entering the water himself. Even that is in dispute - author George Behe noted when considering the evidence that "Lightoller was in no position to see Murdoch down on the starboard boat deck " (George Behe, First Officer Murdoch and the ‘Dalbeattie Defense ). Don Lynch also doubts his story - “Certainly Lightoller’s testimony [regarding Murdoch] can be discounted –he may well have been attempting to protect the reputation of a fellow White Star officer, as well as that of his employers.” (Illustrated History, p.195) . Paul Quinn even goes a step further -" something drew Lightoller over to the starboard side… did Murdoch lift the gun to his head and fire ” (Paul Quinn, Titanic at 2 A.M., p.77).

But based on what Lightoller did tell us - he did not see how Murdoch died. Anything else is simply assumption and speculation.

The reality, whether we like it or not, is that an officer most likely shot passengers/himself. We do not know for sure the identity of the officer, and it is impossible with the available evidence to rule Murdoch out of the equation.

George Behe is just simply guessing like everyone one else. Lightoller could've easily stood on top of the officers quarters "midships, a little to the starboard side" and looked down to see Collapsible A's attempted "launching."

What are they?

Page 45 & 46

They said LIghtoller met his wife on the Majestic, he did not, it was on the Suevic. They used the 1984 version of Stenson's book, but even Stenson's book said Medic (Which he later corrected in Titanic Voyager) not Majestic. Not to mention, they met and married on the Australian run where the Majestic didn't go.

They said the captain Lightoller ran into while sliding on the deck of the Oceanic was Haddock and used Lightoller's own book, but his book Mentions JG Cameron by name.

Lightoller served with Cameron one year, from June 1906 until Haddock took over mid 1907.

"One morning, after several ineffectual attempts, I at last came across in one beautiful sweep, shooting both wheel house and wheel, when, to my horror, on the opposite side, out stepped John G. Cameron.

“And what the hell do you think you’re doing, sir?”

I replied, “I’m awfully sorry, sir. I slipped.”

“Slipped, did you? I wish you had broken your damned neck, sir, as you nearly broke mine.”

And with that the incident was closed."

 

[Arun Vajpey]

The reality, whether we like it or not, is that an officer most likely shot passengers/himself. We do not know for sure the identity of the officer, and it is impossible with the available evidence to rule Murdoch out of the equation.

Yes, that's right. But as the so-called 'witness statements' pointing specifically to Murdoch have been shown to have no validity, it is equally impossible to rule out Wilde or even McElroy.

 

[Thomas Krom]

In my humble opinion purser Hugh Walter McElroy can be ruled out from the list due two pieces of evidence against a possible suicide. Firstly, only the senior officers were supplied with firearms (excluding fifth officer Harold Godfrey Lowe who had his own Browning Automatic pistol (either a 1903 hammerless or 1910 FN model) on-board). Secondly, as you all might know, his body was recovered by the Mackey-Bennett which had no indication of any gunshot wounds. It had the following description:

NO. 157. — MALE. — ESTIMATED AGE, 32. — HAIR, DARK.



CLOTHING - Ship's uniform; white jacket; ship's keys; 10 pence; 50 cents; fountain pen.



CHIEF PURSER. — NAME — HERBERT W. McELROY.





The mystery regarding the shooting and (possible) suicide of an officer can impossibly be solved with 100% certainty. In my opinion, thanks to the excellent research of Dan Parkes, the only possible officers could have been chief officer Henry Tinge Wilde or first officer William McMaster Murdoch. I have honestly no opinion on it since there is both evidence in favour and against both men. It is one of the mysteries that cannot be solved with certainty in my opinion.

 

[Aly Jones]

Hi all,

Here is a little from a book.

I never knew passengers were allowed to meet and greet officers before the voyage. Anywho, a lady passenger got to meet and greet Murdoch. This is how she perceived mr. Murdoch. "A very cool type of guy. Not the one that would shoot and kill a passenger, nor kill himself".

Officer lowe was the one shooting his gun off, We all know that is fact. I feel it was him that may had killed those men that tried to push there way into the boats. Passengers may had mistaken that as an officer committing suicide.

I did say may had, and I feel. So I'm not pushing anything down anyones piehole.

 

[Dan Parkes]

Here is a little from a book.

Aly - I would be very careful with that "Officers and a Gentleman" book. I also have a copy and I gave up on it as it was full of so many errors (and a lot of copy and paste, including from my website without ever once making contact with me - I would have been happy to help).

"A very cool type of guy. Not the one that would shoot and kill a passenger, nor kill himself".

The problem is that this is not evidence and also shows a gross misunderstanding and misrepresentation of suicide victims. I had a close friend who was a talented chef and musician with a young family. He was certainly not the type to "kill himself." And yet he did.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

I agree with Dan Parkes that it is very hard to tell who's not "the type to kill himself", especially with men. From my long medical experience of 41 years which included a few patient suicides, one cannot say for certain. When applied to the uniquely stressful situation on board the sinking Titanic, that will be all the more true.

I suppose of an officer did shoot a couple of passengers and then himself, it has to be either Wilde or Murdoch like Thomas Krom says. With that in mind, I have to point out again that none of those who claimed that it was Murdoch were anywhere near enough to see the incident. On the other hand, two of the 6 survivors who were close enough to have seen what happened seem to think it was the Chief Officer (John Collins and Carl Jansson), three just mentioned "an officer" (Eugene Daly, Peter Daly and George Rheims) and one even thought it was Captain Smith who committed suicide (Richard Norris Williams).

 

[Aly Jones]

Hi Dan,

No worries.

I realised now that there is copied material from your pages and ingers research but didn't know this at that time until I received it tonight. I have great quality books on their way now to me.

 

[Dan Parkes]

two of the 6 survivors who were close enough to have seen what happened seem to think it was the Chief Officer (John Collins and Carl Jansson)

Arun - Actually John Collins used the term “senior mate” and as you know, many erroneously referred to "Chief Officer Murdoch" in the wake of the disaster so use of "chief officer" or "senior mate" can equally apply to Murdoch. (As a side note: Due to the last minute reshuffle there have been implications made that Murdoch and Lightoller did not have time to change their uniform ranks).

As for Jansson, in a private email from Titanic researcher Peter Engberg-Klarström he mentioned that Jansson's long letter, written in Swedish, dated 8 May, addressed from Swedeburg, Nebraska, to his brother says "the First Officer put a gun in his mouth and shot himself." This aligns with newspaper coverage, for example the Chicago American of Thursday 25 April 1912, under the headline of "Titanic victim in Chicago tells of Self-death" which states Jansson saw "Chief Officer Murdock shoot himself just before the last boat was launched"

So I am afraid it is not that simple to remove Murdoch from the candidate list.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Arun - Actually John Collins used the term “senior mate” and as you know, many erroneously referred to "Chief Officer Murdoch" in the wake of the disaster so use of "chief officer" or "senior mate" can equally apply to Murdoch. (As a side note: Due to the last minute reshuffle there have been implications made that Murdoch and Lightoller did not have time to change their uniform ranks).

As for Jansson, in a private email from Titanic researcher Peter Engberg-Klarström he mentioned that Jansson's long letter, written in Swedish, dated 8 May, addressed from Swedeburg, Nebraska, to his brother says "the First Officer put a gun in his mouth and shot himself." This aligns with newspaper coverage, for example the Chicago American of Thursday 25 April 1912, under the headline of "Titanic victim in Chicago tells of Self-death" which states Jansson saw "Chief Officer Murdock shoot himself just before the last boat was launched"

So I am afraid it is not that simple to remove Murdoch from the candidate list.

I am not attempting to remove Murdoch's name from the candidate's list. I have already said that IF the incident happened, the officer could have been Wilde or Murdoch.

I accept that Cal Jansson's statement could swing both ways.

But as far as John Collins is concerned, I have done a lot of personal research on this and one thing seems certain. Collins knew Murdoch by sight as the only Scottish officer on board the Titanic (but not personally). Although she was short on details, Collins' daughter Mary McKee was certain about that part when I spoke to her, as was Alice Braithwaite several years earlier. Collins reportedly always referred to Murdoch as the "Scots Officer". Also, Collins was never on the Olympic and so would not have been familiar with the fact that Murdoch was the chief officer there.

During my discussion with Mrs Braithwaite and Mr Sheppherd (he was the bookshop owner who introduced us), I learned that John Collins helped with loading of Lifeboat #16 on the port side and even wanted to get on it but reportedly was not allowed - presumably because there were already enough crewmen manning the boat. During that time, he referred not only to the "Senior Mate" but more specifically as "the one next to the Captain" as being in charge. It was the same man (and not his 'Scots Officer') who Collins believed was involved in the shooting/suicide incident later near Collapsible A. Also specifically, Collins mentioned seeing Murdoch knocked overboard when Collapsible A floated free.

I have made extensive rough notes of my discussions with Alice Braithwaite and especially Mary McKee but like rest of my Titanic related stuff including books, they are sitting in packing crates in a London warehouse waiting to be shipped to our second home in India when this bloody COVID thing allows. But Titanic researchers Bill Wormsteadt and Inger Shiel appear to know more about Collins' statements regarding Murdoch; you may want to check those sources.

 

[Ioannis Georgiou]

Well if those who whiteness the officer suicide are right then there should be at last 3 officers who did that.

We have Jansson with "his" officer putting a gun into the mouth and then saw the body toppling overboard.
Then we have Rheims with "his" who first killed a man and then the officer gave a military salute and shot himself.
Eugen Daly's officer shot two people. Then Daly hear another shot and saw the officer himself lying on deck and was told by others that he shot himself.

I for my part have problems with those different versions and also what these survivors stated to have done before and after the suicide which did not fit. Jansson claims he was in the water when he saw it, Daly went after it to the other side and then the water rose over the deck and Rheims went back down below to his cabin. Also all three gave different versions about the event in their interviews, testimony, reports and/or letters.
Also we have other crew members who mentioned how an officer committed suicide several mentioned Murdoch by name, all giving different version how he did (he shot into his mouth or temple) and what happened (body on deck, body toppled overboard etc.)

 

[Arun Vajpey]

I agree with IG. The problem is that there are too many wide variations about this "officer shooting" incident, with some "witnesses" being in impossible positions eg QM Hichens on Lifeboat #6, which must have been quite a way away from the sinking Titanic after 2 pm. Even statements of those who were closer tends to vary widely and often unlikely - eg George Rheims, who reported that he heard the shot 40 minutes before the ship sank, then went to his cabin and eventually left the ship 15 minutes before it sank. In fact, a lot of the witness statements do not add up at all.

While it is easy to say "with so many survivor reports of an officer shooting one or two passengers and then himself, it must have some truth in it", we also have to look at it from the right perspective.

- It is quite likely that a few shots were fired on board the Titanic that night but they were almost certainly into the air or, like Lowe claimed, along the side of the ship. Gunshots would have been heard by several survivors, but not necessarily seen.
- During the long voyage on board the Carpathia, stories of the shots would have been shared, talked about, mixed-up etc. They would have undergone further embellishment and distortion when the press got involved after arrival in New York.
- The sinking of the Titanic was the first of its kind in (those) modern times in terms of the scale of tragedy and in the subsequent survivor interviews and follow-up, a lot of embellishment and conjecture would have taken place. That in turn would have led to formation of hypothetical scenarios based on collation of several such accounts.
- No one at the time would have guessed that the Titanic tragedy would go on to have a legacy of the kind that now exists, over 100 years later. So, while embellished stories were almost always prevalent after any major tragedy, those related to the Titanic have taken on a special significance over time.

Therefore, all things considered, it is very difficult to find out the actual truth about several Titanic related issues, especially the shooting incident. The actual truth might well be very different from what any of us like to think.

 

[Ioannis Georgiou]

While it is easy to say "with so many survivor reports of an officer shooting one or two passengers and then himself, it must have some truth in it", we also have to look at it from the right perspective.

Also there are different versions about what people were shot dead. Mainly male 3rd class passengers but there are also reports that it were crew members. Then there are also variations that crew members like stewards shot at passengers.
If everything true there should have been shootings during the loading and lowering of half of the lifeboats.
Also I doubt that everyone would know the officers or their ranks. Murdoch is the most famous one as he was on watch during the collision so everyone would "know" his name soon.