Japanese passenger, Masabumi Hosono:
“All this while, flares were signalling emergency and were being shot up into the air ceaselessly, and the hideous blue flashes and noises were simply terrifying.”
Lightoller in his 1935 book (
Titanic and Other Ships, p.161) said the rockets burst a couple of hundred feet in the air with a “loud report.”
Lady Duff Gordon was just getting into boat 1 at Officer Lowe’s location. She wrote on page 171 of her 1932 book
Discretions and Indiscretions- “Just beside us was a man setting off rockets and the
ear-splitting noise added to the horror…”
Third Officer Herbert Pitman also described the noise:
Senator Smith: Did the firing of the rockets make any noise, like the report of a pistol?
Pitman: Like the report of a
GUN. (He means like artillery, rather than a handgun.)
[US p.294]
The night distress regulations emphasised (in order of their listing) -
1. Sound
2. Light
3. Sound and light (carried in lieu of 1)
Californian heard no sound. The Mystery Ship certainly did.
NIGHT distress
“The following signals numbered 1, 2 and 3 when used or displayed
together or separately shall be deemed to be signals of distress at night:
(1) a Gun fired at intervals of about a minute.
(2) Flames on the ship as from a burning tar barrel, oil barrel, etc.
(3) Rockets or shells of any colour or description fired one at a time at short intervals.”
Some people demand that the
Californian diagnose distress, despite having a ship 'something like ourselves' in view that was perfectly fine. The low-lying illuminations (soundless) were in her direction.
Gun signals made bangs. You could hear them at night. (Same with fog apparatus.)
Then there was flames, etc. for light at night. Good way to signal distress.
Rockets offered both sound and light - but officialdom was rooted in the old way of thinking. Starting with noise.
So
Titanic's socket signals were specifically carried "
in lieu of guns." And it says so in her papers.
The third option (rockets) was therefore primarily wanted to indicate distress through a bang, although any light was helpful, a bonus as it were. Therefore pyrotechnic light, of itself, does not give distress unless it is fired at short intervals. Soundless short-interval rockets might be okay, as long as they went high - because company signals did not rise high and could be distinguished by that quality. They were frequently used.
Carpathia used company signals (as well as distress rockets) when responding, because it was hoped the
Titanic crew survivors would see that it was a Cunarder (the one they had been in contact with) coming to assist.
Incidentally, Beesley and others in boat 13 heard a
Carpathia rocket while that ship was still hull-down, in other words, not in view. Vessels in view of each other would therefore naturally have heard. The Mystery Ship heard.
The bang of a rocket (option 3 at night) returns to the gun bang (1), which was intended to be at intervals of about a minute.
The old thinking is only modified by the draughtsman's pause for thought that you may not be able to produce one rocket after another at minute or "about a minute" intervals, so they just put "short intervals."
But the governing intention, it seems to me, is that it would be parented by option 1, and certain ideas flow therefrom. (Because one can argue long about "short." One man's short is another man's long).
The drafting civil srervant wanted the person to aim to be as close as possible to intervals of 'about a minute,' while recognising that it might not always be possible given the manhandling involved with rockets.
Captain Lord -
6957 – At the distance we were away from that steamer, if it had been a distress signal we would have heard the report.
6959 – We did not hear the report, we were close enough to hear the report of any distress signal.
6960 How many miles off were you? – About four or five–four to five miles.
Sound, therefore, is an essential ingredient.
