Officer Bestic

[Mike Poirier]

I hope everyone will take some time and read through our article on junior third officer Bestic. Just another sample from Lest We Forget.

Mike

 

[J Kent Layton]

Wonderful work, Mike and Jim, as usual!

 

[Ioannis Georgiou]

Agree with Kent. A wonderful and very interesting research article!

Kind regards
Ioannis

 

[Mike Poirier]

Thank you gentleman. We appreciate it!

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Just so everybody knows what's being discussed, the article can be accessed at https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/lusitania-bestic.html

It's very worthwhile read with the Michael Poirier and Jim Kalafus team doing their usual fine job of sorting out real history from some popular distortions.

 

[Mike Poirier]

Thank you Michael! Glad you enjoyed it. Phil has been kind enough to put up individual articles building towards the bigger article.

Mike

 

[Michael H. Standart]

That bigger article is definately something to look forward to. You and Jim have both done some very important and first class work.

 

[Martin Owen Cahill]

Bravo!
Thanks for an excellent foretaste of what is coming. You know, those collapsable boats don't really leave much room on the boat deck do they?

thanks from

Martin

 

[Mike Poirier]

Hi Martin

This is very true... That picture was taken on the April 17-24 1915 crossing so it was the exact same set-up on the final crossing. I assume people just promenaded around B deck instead. I have an account by a second class passenger named Martin Payne who crossed over to first class just to get real exercise by walking around! The barriers were fully down and another passenger, Ethel Lines used to cross into first class to have tea with the Loneys in first.

 

[Jim Kalafus]

The bigger article has some major revisions needed. I'll be back in NY next Sunday, will spend a week submitting them, and then things will be good to go.

For me, the best photo in the article is one taken in Liverpool on April 17. The photographer, a man named Chalk, shot up the side of the ship in order to catch the airplane that flew ahead of the ship searching for submarines in the channel. (Spoken of in at least one onboard letter from that crossing) What I like about it is that the boats are all swung out, and the cameraman is directly below #15, the boat in which Barbara, Emily, Assistant Purser Harkness and perhaps as many as a hundred other people would escape less than a month later.

Also, you get to see one of the Chalk women posing with Dowie, the Lusitania's orange and white cat.... a very contented looking cat, laying in the sun inside one of the ventilators atop the second class deck house. One imagines passengers laying down in deck chairs, doing the *sniff sniff sniff* thing and then saying "Do you smell male cat?" Then, in the cabin, somewhat later, saying "I STILL smell male cat."

 

[Martin Owen Cahill]

"I STILL smell male cat."
Lmao!!
How could dowie lie inside the vent? I thought they were hollow tubing down to the stokehold with a ladder up the side.
Thanks for the heads up and the "catty" humour

Martin

 

[Jim Kalafus]

There had to be some sort of screening across the opening of the ventilator, to keep things from falling in. Bottles of tanning lotion. Napkins. Half-consumed Bahama Mamas. All the things tourists leave scattered around the sports deck could easily have gone down that ventilator.

In the photo, The Chalk lady stands to the left of a slightly opened ventilator. She is half-smiling. The cat is laying, lengthwise, inside the slightly opened ventilator, with its head towards Miss Chalk, and looks very happy indeed.

 

[Martin Owen Cahill]

thanks Jim, makes perfect sense but one thing....what is a Bahama Mama? sounds like some sort of food item.

cheers

Martin

 

[Jim Kalafus]

Touristy mixed drink, almost obligatory at sailaway parties.