SS Bremen's passengers view Titanic disaster

[Dave Gittins]

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when we dream up a conspiracy!

The absence of bodies in the immediate area of Carpathia on the morning of April 15th is indeed a puzzle but it provides no grounds for suspicion.

The evidence of John Collins is decidedly shaky. Collins was a 17-year-old landlubber. He was in a distressed condition after spending some hours on collapsible B. At a distance of a mile or so, according to his amateur estimate, he saw boats hanging in davits from Carpathia. Nobody else said anything about boats being lowered from Carpathia. Surely the obvious conclusion is that he was mistaken and that what he saw were Titanic’s boats being hoisted on board. Then he speculated that they were picking up bodies.

A large number of photos were taken from Carpathia by Ogden, Skidmore and others. None show any sign of bodies, or even of wreckage. Are we to suppose that Rostron censored their photography?

Does anybody seriously think that Captains Rostron and Lord were capable of securing the silence of all their crewmen, plus over 1,000 Carpathia passengers and Titanic survivors? Furthermore, it would be utterly out of character for the religious Rostron to engage in such a scheme, or to recover bodies and fail to give them a proper sea burial. It is not impossible that Rostron made no great effort to find bodies, as he had no wish to upset his passengers or facilities to store bodies if he found any, but that is not the same as conspiring to conceal the sighting of bodies. As for his religious service, it was attended by maybe one or two hundred or so.

Secret communication with Baltic my foot! Nothing was less secret than radio in 1912. Even code messages would be picked up and the sender identified, if only by his "fist".

It’s hardly surprising that the Germans publicised the finding of bodies. Schadenfreude is not a German word for nothing! What is not surprising is that they made no effort to retrieve any, having neither the equipment, the time, nor the desire to upset their passengers. However, the German’s actions have nothing to do with a supposed conspiracy.

Actually, I have fair idea where the bodies were, but in the absence of practical tests I’ll not mention it. I’ll only say that physical events have physical causes. Perhaps Michael Standart might apply some seamanlike commonsense to it.

A further note. White Star attempted to recover bodies at the earliest practicable time. What were they supposed to do? Haul them onto Olympic or Baltic?

As for Lardner, as it was known that 1,500 or so were missing, there was a fair chance of finding some bodies. Lardner did not expect to find many (see his statements) and that's why he was only equipped to handle about 100. There was done in the La Bourgogne case, years before radio.

The particular conspiracy theory just won't run.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Dave, my take on the bodies is as streightforward as can be; some went down with the ship, a lot of them went into the water and were kept up by the lifevests, but were then scattered by ocean currents, wind and wave to say nothing of the odd hungry ocean denizen looking for a meal. Note that the Mackay-Bennett was forced to reduce speed due to fog and bad weather 90 minutes after leaving Halifax on Wednesday, 17 April, and had to plod along slowly for five hours because of it. Weather conditions are nothing if not rapidly changing and unpredictable at sea. They didn't make it out to the search area until Saturday and it wasn't until Sunday morning that they were able to begin their search. Frankly, I'm surprised they found as meny bodies as they did.

Joe, what secret line of communication? Nothing was more unsecure then radio in those days. Anybody with an antennea could pick up what was being transmitted and pass it on to all and sundry...and they DID too! How do you think the New York Times found out about the sinking so fast? And it wasn't as if there were a large variety of frequencies to use either. 300 to 600 meters was the standard for marine radio back then, and there was no such thing as encryption. If somebody wanted to keep a secret, sending messages by wireless was the worst possible way to try. They might as well have made a press release because anything of interest to all the evesdroppers inevitably ended up as one.

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[Yuri Singleton]

The bodies were covered up by the drifting ice pack, according to the American Inquiry's final report that is. In the final speech, Senator Smith states that his commitee belives that Capt. Rostron saw only one body, as he testified under oath, because the mass of bodies had been likely covered over by the drifting ice pack. Or, that the ice pack had bulldozed the bodies as it drifted into them during the night; thus the bodies were hidden from view because they were piled up along the edge of the ice pack.
Truthfully, I have a tough time accepting that explanation completely. But it IS important to consider the movements of the ice during the night. Remember that the bodies on the surface were light and had little mass and would drift in any direction the wind blew. The ice was heavy, and would drift according to the water currents, not the wind. The bodies might not have drifted right along with the ice flow, but instead, could have been blown up against it sometime before 8:00am. It is evident that the wind picked up as the dawn was breaking, from the testimony of Capt. Rostron who said the waves began to threaten the little collapsible boat and nearly caused it to founder.

Also, remember that as that was happening, the captain and crew of Carpathia were focused on the survivors. Only later did they turn their attention to the matter of bodies. Plenty of time for the moving ice to conceal its victims from view.

So even without hard evidence, the possibility of bodies being moved out of the vicinity of the sinking or otherwise corraled out of view of the Carpathia and Californian is not out of the question, and actually quite likely.
Perhaps there was a cover up after all. Not by captains, companies or governments. But by nature itself.
IMHO.

Yuri Singleton

 

[Jan C. Nielsen]

Once more, thanks for the feedback, everyone. This is becoming an interesting conversation. I'll try to address all of the points made.

As I said, the Collins' statement may be explained away. However, Collins was eventually aboard the Carpathia and, by the time he testified at the hearings, he would have known that Carpathia had been taking up the Titanic's lifeboats. Yet, he said that Carpathia was picking washed up bodies. So, I'll take him at his word.

With respect to photographers, I believe they wouldn't have taken pictures of bodies, and even Rostron admits that there was at least one body floating around that he saw. Unlike today, the photographers avoided the gruesome. Further, the majority of bodies would have been off in the distance - but visible to Rostron and his crew. As the Bremen's passengers noted, the white life vests were visible from a distance. Not a lot, if any, people were asked about this. At the Senate hearings, as I recall, only Rostron was asked. At the Board of Trade hearing, Lord was asked - he said he passed the Titanic's wreckage, and saw no bodies!

Yes, I do think that Rostron and Lord could have silenced the Carpathia's and Californian's crews. It goes like this: "Listen sailor, if you say anything about leaving behind those bodies, you're fired and you won't get another job on any ship."

Carpathia's passengers, and indeed, Titanic's were not extensively interviewed about the bodies. According to some news reports, there were lots of them floating around. However, like I said, the passengers went inside to a memorial service while Rostron purportedly steamed around. Moreover, with all of the passengers, and things going on, there was plenty else to focus on.

Rostron's religious background doesn't clarify anything for me about his morality. As Thomas Hardy said about one of his characters: "He was the most irreligious man I ever knew, and the most moral." To me, Rostron was a practical, nuts and bolts kind of guy, with good foresight, and an ability to plan, and prepare for the future. His instincts were excellent, it appears.

With respect to the wireless, Harold Bride confirmed that the Carpathia's wireless was of the older variety, with a limited range. Apparently, only Baltic could pick it up, not New York, not Halifax.

Further, so far as I know none of the maze of communications between Carpathia and Baltic were ever revealed. Cottham said he didn't remember what was said. To date, few, if any, of these communications have surfaced.

Isn't it possible that Carpathia could have informed Baltic of the bodies, then Baltic could have communicated a vague and innocuous request that a ship be immediately sent to the site, without disclosing anything. Indeed, there was a communication at one point about Titanic being towed to Halifax. There is much confusion about the communications on April 15, 1912. Somebody must have communicated something, because a ship McKay-Bennett, was sent out almost immediately.

Another point worth mentioning, in the course of creating this spider web, is that McKay-Bennett went out there and, arguably, started "destroying the evidence." They buried, at sea, body after body, until finally (after Bremen's passenger had already let the cat out of the bag) someone communicated to them that they were to bring the bodies back.

Regarding the "nature" cover up, i.e., the covering of bodies with the ice so they weren't visible - - this was the official conclusion of the Senate committee. But it was based on false, or least, flawed, testimony, in my view. So I don't accept that conclusion.

It is indeed correct, as Rachel points out, that bodies were sighted crossing shipping lanes for many months after the disaster. Obviously, McKay-Bennett and Minia weren't able to get all the bodies. Again, arguably, if Californian, Carpathia or Bremen had acted promptly, maybe all of them would have been recovered. That's just the way it went.

Eventually, R.M.S. Oceanic picked up Collapsible "A" with three bodies still aboard. Oceanic stopped in the middle of the ocean, sent a boat over, and sank the collapsible and buried the two crewman, and first class passenger, Beattie, at sea. Other ships, however, allowed dead bodies to float by.

People always make fun of "conspiracies," but they do happen. I've seen them happen, and juries have confirmed they happened. There's not enough to take to a jury here, but certainly there's enough to raise serious questions about versions of events that we've been told.

Finally, as a general comment, I find that Titanic buffs, present company excepted, adopt too innocent, or black and white, a view of events surrounding this disaster, i.e., Ismay is a bad guy; Stanley Lord is a bad guy; Captain Rostron was a saint; Captain Smith was nice, but he did screw up; the whole disaster wasn't about criminal negligence, it was "fate."

In my view, many of the people involved then were cold, and calculating, much as people are today. So I don't put anything past them.

Thanks again for your comments, you've made this a very interesting conversation.

 

[Bill DeSena]

Hi Joe, and all good shipmates here!

I'll jump into the merky waters in this discussion with a little personal experience in the grisly work of recovering floating corpses from the water.

I was a police officer for many years and studied criminology, forensics, homicide investigation and of course gross anatomy (A+ in it). In my career I pulled several 'floaters' out of the cold waters of San Francisco Bay and observed when bodies had been recovered from Lagos Bay in Nigeria. I also had to attend the post-mortems of the victims and review the findings for possible criminal prosecution by the District Attorney, et al.

None of the corpses recovered in my presence ever had lifejackets on them. They had been in the water for anywhere from a few hours to several months. The usual process of decomposition can be slowed by freezing waters also and when frozen bodies become heavier and tend to sink until the water warms up enough to allow the process of decomposition to begin its course. The waters in the NA were obviously cold enough to form and maintain ice flows so its reasonable to think that bodies with or without lifebelts might very well have sunk before daylight on the 15th April. The reason I include lifebelt wearers too is the conclusion must be drawn that in the panic of the ordeal few people probably fastened their lifebelts correctly, and the crew probably never took time to insure they did. Also, even those who did correctly fasten their lifebelts might have had them riped loss or torn from their bodies in the trama of the sinking. Bodies suffering traumatic amputation of limbs in the sinking probably lost any floatation device worn in the process as well. In my opinion, the idea that the dead in the water consisted of the undamaged peacefully composed forms some films portray isn't a realistic view of the true tragedy. We had a major earthquake here in 1989 and those killed in that event suffered pretty horrible blunt trama injuries and amputations, its not too far fetched to assume that Titanic's unfortunate victims who went down with the thousands of tons of steel collapsing and tearing apart under and around them didn't suffer injuries that would have dismembered their remains and remove lifebelts.

How deep would the bodies sink? I doubt they would go the complete distance to the bottom but probably 10-20 feet below the surface due to the depth of water and lightness of the object. I base this on the fact that many bodies recovered in the cold waters of the bay here had first become entangled in the running gear of vessels and this usually when their deaths occurred within hours. Hence the average depth of 10-20 feet for a recently deceased corpse lossing bouancy and sinking.

Decomposition gases form in the abdomen and then force the body back to the surface by which time the effects of submersion are usually visible in the form of hair seperation and a general unreal waxiness/graying discoloration of the skin. Once the abdomen bursts from the gas build up the remains sink again and are then only likely to be found by having become entangled in something or washing up with the tide.

In my opinion it is possible that Carpathia didn't see very many floating bodies because of sinking from the added weight of freezing and or other loss of bouancy from loss of lifebelts to traumatic dismemberment, finally, the current and the drifting iceflows could have moved/concealed them temporarily from Rostroms view. (By the way I recently thumbed through a photohistory of the 20th century and you'd be surprised at how graphic some of the pictures are from this period. There is one that stands out from 1906 showing rolling heads of Chinese prisoners killed by the Japanese and taken by a westerner).

Well I hope I haven't grossed anyone out here too much, just thought I'd share my experience in this area with you for your erudition on the subject.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Bill, never hesitate to share experience and knowladge where it clearly has value. ;-)

Joe, the Mackey-Bennett hardly destroyed evidence. Even with tons of ice and embalming fluid available, their facilities and resources were limited. Some of the bodies HAD to be buried at sea because of such factors as damage from trauma, degree of decomposition, and the fact that some just couldn't be identified...to say nothing of the already mentioned limitations on their resources. Let's not forget that the undertakers photographed the bodies along with searching them for personal effects and logged everything they found so they could either make an identification on the spot or have some hope of doing so later. In short, they documented the daylights out of everything and put it out in public for all interested parties to see. Rather a strange cover-up

As for silencing crews, threats are seldom as effective as you may think. As I mentioned once befor, sailors are not the most secretive bunch in the world, and Captain Lord's crew certainly didn't hesitate to talk about him to the papers or to the panals of both of the investigations. And what reason would Rostron have to cover up anything? Recovering bodies simply was not practical as they had no way of dealing with them properly.(None of the ships on the scene that day did!) His concern was for the living and quite rightly so.

Nor do I beleive a total recovery would have been possible in any event. Wind and wave were already doing their work as well as currents, and pack ice certainly would have been a factor in some cases.

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[Arthur Merchant]

I also agree with Bill that even with Victorian sensibilities, authorities realized there would be need to photograph scenes of crimes and tragedies for legal purposes.

While they may have been spirited away and covered up due to the sensational nature of the Titanic sinking, I'm certain photos were taken of victims, at least those brought to Halifax.

A few years ago, I saw a TV special on Channel 13 about the Lusitania sinking, and to drive home the impact of the horror, one sequence in the show showed photo after photo of Lusitania victims, half of them children. Of course, the diligence in identifying and recording images of victims in this case may very well be a result of the Titanic.

Arthur

 

[Jan C. Nielsen]

Bill, Michael:

I'll respond with a couple of points. First of all, my thanks to Bill for a very interesting, albeit macabre, explanation of the recovery of bodies.

Actually, this probably answers something I've wondered about. The body of two year old Gosta Paulsson was found floating without a life jacket. Bill's explanation probably accounts for that. However, to the best of my recollection, the Bremen passengers and the McKay-Bennett crew confirmed that the bodies they recovered were all wearing life jackets. So I'm not sure that Bill's explanation can account for the rest.

Also, if I may disgress a bit, I recently learned that bodies in the cold depths of the Great Lakes remain fully preserved. One diver told me that bodies, for example, from a shipwreck in 1927 are still there in the wreck's engine room, and mostly preserved. Below 100 feet the lakes are a constant year around temperature of 34 degrees farenheit. Wouldn't this also be true of the North Atlantic? So, it seems possible that preserved bodies would still be inside the Titanic, and that the ship is indeed a gravesite.

Getting back to my "cover up" theory, I concede that accusing the McKay-Bennett crewman of "destroying evidence" is a long shot. May be they didn't know what they were doing, or supposed to do. It could be that the plan was to bring back any first class passengers and clear the ocean of the rest. They certainly didn't have the supplies and equipment to handle the task. At least initially, they mostly buried bodies at sea. In any event, the whole operation wasn't very public. Whatever it was, and regardless of whether McKay-Bennet's crew consciously participated, the whole sequence of events suggest the typical defense strategy of "damage control" in the public's eye, to me.

The fact bodies were documented for effects and identification doesn't necessarily defeat my theory because most of that, in particular, the photographs, were maintained as confidential. The offloading of bodies at Halifax, and identification, was handled privately, not publically.

There aren't many photographs of the body recovery operation. I don't know when they became public. Further, the pictures I've seen (recovery of a body from a boat, a man being embalmed on the deck of McKay-Bennett, a deck on the McKay-Bennett with bodies on it), are barely a few. And White Star made sure no one would see the bodies themselves - - so except for the Bremen incident, and the few additional incidents at sea where victims floated by ships, I think the "damage control" was pretty successful.

On the matter of the crew's silence, I have my own theories on why the crew turned on Captain Lord. It could be that the crew was disturbed that Lord did something so egregiously in violation of the seaman's code of ethics (i.e., fail to hinder a distress call) that all bets were off. It could be, as I suspect, that management had a hand in it because they were looking for some one to blame. Either way, I doubt the seamen would have disagreed with Lord or Rostron - would any of them want to spend a week floating around in boats, pulling horribly mangled bodies from the ocean? Probably not.

As I said, I agree that undertaking a body recovery operation at that time was not practical. But the public wouldn't have necessarily looked at things in a practical sense. As I mentioned above, many Bremen passengers thought that Captain Wilhelm should have stopped and picked the bodies up.

Rostron was a very calculating man. Walter Lord referred to him as the "electric spark." For the electric spark to steam away with bodies of women and children floating around the North Atlantic may not look too good, regardless of his good practical reasons.

I think he, or his lookout, spotted the bodies in the distance. Knowing he could not recover them, he got out of there, and then reported that he saw no bodies.

Maybe "damage control" is a better word to use here, than "cover up." Cover up implies a conspiracy, which in turn refers to a common purpose, an agreement, and an act in furtherance of it.

Here we have a multitude of acts which are consistent with a purpose to keep matters from the public's eye. I think White Star definitely had a purpose and agreement to limit publicity and avoid embarassment about the bodies. Whether Lord and Rostron were part of that isn't clear. It seems they could have had their own reasons to pretend they didn't see any bodies and leave them behind.

Sorry for the long, drawn out posting. Thanks for your comments, Bill and Michael.

 

[Jan C. Nielsen]

Arthur,

Thanks for your comment. Keep in mind, however, that with the Lusitania disaster we are dealing with an exactly opposite public position.

After the Lusitania disaster, the focus was indeed on getting out publicity to the American and British people about the barbarism of the Germans - - with photographs, and anything the press could lay its hand on. Photographers tried to roil the public with horrifying pictures after Lusitania's victims, particularly those of dead women and children.

In Titanic, it was the Germans exposing the British, who were trying to hush the whole thing up as best they could. But even then, passengers and crew on the Bremen apparently did not take pictures of the bodies. Bremen's passengers were, in fact, so horrified that they ran inside so they didn't see it. So why would Carpathia's photographer have felt compelled to take pictures?

I know photographs of Titanic's victims still aren't generally available for review - - whereas Lusitania's are available for review in an Irish library.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Hi Joe, on the question of the Mackey-Bennett crewmen, these people were under the supervision of trained morticians, and it was the latter who did all the work of documenting personal effects as well as embalming the bodies who were to be taken to Halifax. The short answer is that crewmen would be in a very poor position to co-operate in a cover up

As to photos of Titanics dead being available, I've seen a couple in Eaton and Haas's book, and they hardly seem to have had trouble finding them. In any event, what would be the point of general publication in any event? Photos were taken for documentary perposes and also to make it possible for next of kin to later identify those whom could not be identified at all.A good thing too since up to eighty years later, these photos and other documentation made it possible to identify six victems whose names were never known. Their names have since been engraved on the headstones in the Halifax cemetary where they were buried.

Re Rostron as a calculating man; not to put to fine a point on it, but what of it? And why would a Cunard captain participate in a cover up that would benefit a competitor's line? As I pointed out, his concern was for the living. He could help them. The dead were beyond that.

As to damage control, that makes a tad more sense, but even that failed miserably. This matter was covered to death by the media, and the investigations conducted in both the US and Great Britain. The officials of White Star couldn't break wind without some reporter finding out about it. Let's remember that the adverse publicity over this was something that White Star and the International Merchentile Marine never really recovered from.

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[Martin Pirrie]

There are more records about the sinking of Titanic in store and they are due to be released by the British Government in 2012. These documents may throw more light onto many of the points brought up in this and other discussions.

But do not hold your breathe! There is no guarantee that the records will be released or that they will be released complete. The committee responsible,may think that they should be censored or some parts not released. If the latter, they will be stored for for whatever length of time the committee think fit.

 

[Jan C. Nielsen]

Greetings, guys . . . I take it that they don't have a "Freedom Of Information Act" in Great Britain, Martin. That must be why Dodi's dad is filing his lawsuit in Washington, D.C.

As to Cunard's and Rostron's motivation to cooperate in a cover up with White Star Line, I think that there existed then, as today, close ties among the leadership in major industries, such as the British shipping industry. It may have been even worse, then, because the United States government found it necessary to enact the Sherman Act (1898) and Clayton Act (1914) antitrust laws.

Further, Rostron had a powerful shipping magnate Bruce Ismay, aboard. We know that Rostron maintained direct contact with him. Though Rostron may not have been another Smith, I think he calculated his position, and acted accordingly.

Rostron certainly would have coordinated his actions with Ismay to some degree - possibly, too, in connection with leaving the bodies behind. So there are the circumstances present for Rostron, Ismay, and the White Star Line to have agreed upon a manner of dealing with the bodies, left behind.

Again, my issue is not whether Rostron has good intentions, or whether in general he can justify leaving the bodies behind. It is whether he and Stanley Lord told the truth when they said that they saw no bodies on April 15, save one. Everyone seems to accept this on its face, I don't.

Further, I don't believe at all that the facts have entirely gotten out, by way of press coverage. As Martin points out, certain records are still being withheld about Titanic.

According to a previous post on this site, the victims' photographs were not generally available in 1912, and still are not, today. THS, or some entity, has reviewed them for purposes of identifying bodies some years ago. So far as I know they are not generally available. Even if they were available, the photographs were not widely published in 1912 by any media. So, the victims' photographs, documentation of victims, etc., proves nothing to me. The whole process seems to have been very private.

So, like it or not, there's enough here to raise some serious questions about the accuracy of facts that everyone have accepted for many years, and to suggest that Rostron and Stanley Lord may have lied in their testimony before the Senate and the Board of Trade.

 

[Martin Pirrie]

Freedom of information Act in the UK? Well we do and we don't! There is an Act but there are so many things which are not covered by the Act and which may be kept from the public gaze that some people believe that the whole thing is a waste of time.The British have always had a great liking for secrecy.

The records being kept may (again, may) be concerned with any cargo on board Titanic. The American and British Governments transferred gold to each other when the Gold Standard held sway. No one has ever confirmed, as far as I can ascertain, if there was or if there was not, gold on board. Many of you out there will have heard of the rumour that there was 12 million pounds sterling (1912 value) in the strongroom. But don't forget, when the safe was opened there was nothing. Sometimes, reports are kept secret even when there is nothing to report! It keeps conspiracy theories going! "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."

Regards,

Martin Pirrie

 

[Mike Poirier]

Joe:
If you happen to read over the private accounts given over the years by survivors, not a single one of them mentions seeing bodies when the passed through some of the wreckage. What did people like Bill Sloper, Elmer Taylor, Edith Russell, etc... have to hide years later????
And you can't tell me that the picture happy couple George and Mabel Fenwick from the Carpathia
were part of a conspiracy. They took snapshots of everything. And were extremely vocal of everything that went on aboard the Carpathia.
I am sorry, but it seems you are just building on a thread from a confused young survivor who wasn't sure of what he saw.

 

[Bill DeSena]

Hi all,

To suggest that a British Officer would act heroically endangering his own vessel and passengers to rush through ice strewn seas and rescue survivors and then bold faced lie at the official enquiries is outrageous poppycock!

Please remember the times they lived in and the code of honor that the gentlemen of the day lived,...yes, lived. No honorable man would voluntarily lie to save face for a company, today they do and often, but that was then when honor meant something. Captain Rostrum was decorated with this countries Congressional Medal of Honor and the decorations for valor from his own country. Just what would he gain by such a base course of conduct? Nothing, but the ruin of his own character and reputation. There's no evidence that he profited handsomely from some unknown benefactor as compensation for his mendacious behavior either. What would have been wrong with his telling the public, 'yes, I saw a carpet of dead bodies that morning, but had living people to tend to and they were my concern.'? Who could have second guessed him for steaming away with the living and leaving behind the dead for collection by other ships prepared for the task? No one.

Regards
Bill