the portrayal of smith as incompetent?

[Bob Read]

@Arun Vajpey Several of the major players haven’t weighed in yet but Julian has weighed in with a vote for Smith being both civilly criminally negligent. You may end up being a minority voice. This is what I meant when I said the opinion of Smith as negligent is not an outlier opinion.

 

[Richard C Elliott]

I think that if the Titanic disaster had happened today there might be a criminal case of corporate man slaughter. If Captain Smith had survived, he would have been charged with criminal man slaughter.

If the systemic failures were the responsibility of a defined corporate body perhaps a charge of corporate manslaughter could be made, but no single body was responsible. I can’t see a manslaughter charge against any individual for a systemic failure sticking either.

A few years after the Titanic disaster there was a huge train crash at Quintinshill (22nd May 1915). The signalmen were charged with manslaughter.

Tinsley and Meakin were engaged in a fiddle of their working arrangements which distracted them from their work at a critical time, as a result of which they omitted to carry out several tasks which were an integral part of normal signalling practice. As it happens I feel sorry for them too, because they had been put under a lot of pressure by abnormal wartime working arrangements, but the case for charging them was clear. There is no resemblance at all to the Titanic incident.

That still doesn’t really answer my question.

 

[Julian Atkins]

@Richard C Elliott

Yes, Tinsley and Meakin.

Don’t you see any comparison with Captain Smith not posting in the chart room the Baltic MSG? But giving it to Ismay, then later asking for it back and still not posting it in the chart room?

And whilst Meakin and Tinsley did their “fiddle” that really wasn’t of any consequence, how do you think that corresponds to Captain Smith not even being interested in the stack of messages warning of ice ahead in his own Marconi Room the Officers of which were at least nominally part of his pay roll and subject to the Captain’s Orders?

I would myself cite Captain Smith going to a dinner that Sunday evening as a complete neglect of duty. For 2 hours, as they approached a known area of ice, and not seeking up to date intelligence, having a nice dinner with wealthy passengers was more important than ensuring the bridge officers had up to date information and the engine room was on ‘standby’.

At the same time Captain Hains on the Parisian was carefully avoiding the ice field ahead. He didn’t spend 2 hours dining.

At the same time Captain Lord was with 3rd Officer Groves on the exposed flying bridge on The Californian. Neither of them went to dine for 2 hours.

I don’t recall any of the “11 Captains” saying they would depart from their bridge duties and go to dinner for 2 hours as they approached ice and bergs.

There is no corroborating evidence for Bride and Phillips being exhausted from the alleged repairs the previous night, or that the repairs ever took place.

It is a total mess that especially the British Inquiry should have properly examined.

I would like to get back to my ‘silo’ of The Californian, and not comment anymore on this, but again, I think it very important to be very precise about civil negligence in the UK as it was in 1912

 

[Richard C Elliott]

@Richard C Elliott

Yes, Tinsley and Meakin.

Don’t you see any comparison with Captain Smith …

Absolutely none. Tinsley and Meakin failed to carry out several safety-critical actions that were a well established part of their normal duties and performed others in the wrong order. Captain Smith followed the standard practices of most ships officers but failed to carry out some actions which you have deemed critical.

 

[marina_irc]

But there was no legal scrutiny and so neither of us nor anyone else can be certain of the outcome had there been one in 1912 or soon afterwards. Therefore, under the exiting cirumstances and 112 years later, the question has to remain as an unanswered - perhaps even unanswerable - debate. Opinions are not exactly polarized on this - as you can see, some of us (which might include me) might be sitting on the proverbial fence.

The other point is that even legal verdicts from that era (speaking in genetal terms) can and have been questioned by contemporary analysts who might feel that there was Miscarriage of Justice in certain cases. If Captain Lord of the Californian had faced a criminal charge for his failure to act that night, there would still have been sharply polarized views about it as there now are.

Oh, I agree. May is a loaded word in the English language. In any case I disagree with criminal negligence as @Julian Atkins put forth. Civil negligence is another matter and that can be found against both a person and a corporation with a lower standard of evidence. I do think a case to suspend or revoke Captain Smith's license if he had survived would be on very good grounds for a prima facie violation of Rule 5, however, but as I discussed with @Richard C Elliott that doesn't cut to the chase. I also agree with him that Quintinshill is different in nature. For "Titanic" to be that level of criminal negligence, Californian's last wireless message would have had to include coordinates, be posted on the bridge, Murdoch to bring it to Smith's attention and Smith to order him to Maintain Course and Speed.

Which is essentially what Van Zanten did...

 

[Thames LWT]

A grimly amusing note but Wikipedia always refuses to include the last line of the transcript where Van Zanten screams just before the end. To me, he deserves no such protection, given the deaths he caused.

 

[Julian Atkins]

I’m very sorry to go to “Noddy” basics, but isn’t it obvious that a Captain who decides to go down with his ship is both avoiding blame, and also sort of taking some deliberate counter intuitive responsibility for his actions? (I may have not formulated this very well - but I hope that forum members will forgive me in this respect).

Isn’t Captain Smith deliberately choosing not to survive something we ought to comment upon? An admission of guilt? Or is that a perverse and unfair thought by me? Or is it just “Kind Hearts and Coronets” with the Admiral?

 

[Richard C Elliott]

Isn’t Captain Smith deliberately choosing not to survive something we ought to comment upon?

Not unless we are really grasping at straws to prove our point.

 

[marina_irc]

I’m very sorry to go to “Noddy” basics, but isn’t it obvious that a Captain who decides to go down with his ship is both avoiding blame, and also sort of taking some deliberate counter intuitive responsibility for his actions? (I may have not formulated this very well - but I hope that forum members will forgive me in this respect).

Isn’t Captain Smith deliberately choosing not to survive something we ought to comment upon? An admission of guilt? Or is that a perverse and unfair thought by me? Or is it just “Kind Hearts and Coronets” with the Admiral?

It is problematic, certainly. One thing I have noted before is that if the boats had been scattered or the wireless messages had not gone out, those boats with officers trained in navigation aboard would have an immeasurably better chance of survival. There was no guarantee of Carpathia successfully recovering all the boats, that's hindsight to assume. Captain Smith should have made sure each boat had a man trained in navigation -- either an officer or Quartermaster (save perhaps Major Peuchen's boat)-- that could possibly have one, even if that meant the ignominity of his own survival.

 

[Thames LWT]

Smith may have indeed thought something like: "Better to be some dead hero than an alive incompetent fool".

 

[Jean-Claude]

@Jean-Claude Lightoller, in his autobiography, was clearly just telling the story he thought his readers would want to hear. A bit like some of Boxhall's testimony to the inquiries. I completely agree with you that in reality they would have neither stopped nor slowed down. That would not only have been contrary to SOP. It would have been completely contrary to the prevailing mindset of officers of the day. Their inaction could not have been considered blameworthy.

I doubt that it would have prompted a turn south either. If that had been in anyone's mind the time to make the decision would have been before turning the 'corner'. They had committed themselves to steaming through the icefield at speed, in accordance with SOP, long before the Messaba message. As

I remember to have read that the book sold well after it's first publication but was withdrawn from sale after the Marconi Company threatened a lawsuit due to the said comments.

 

[Bob Read]

Over the years I have heard a lot of baseless charges leveled at Captain Smith but never suicide to evade consequences. One could make a similar speculation that those who are proposing such a thing are doing so in desperation because they see their case against Smith no longer enjoying the support it may have once had.

 

[Thames LWT]

I never claimed he *did* - but "going down with the ship" and he would know that if he lived, he would have quite a lot of questions to answer, did make me have a solemn pause.

 

[marina_irc]

Over the years I have heard a lot of baseless charges leveled at Captain Smith but never suicide to evade consequences. One could make a similar speculation that those who are proposing such a thing are doing so in desperation because they see their case against Smith no longer enjoying the support it may have once had.

I have literally believed this since I was, like, nine or ten, before Cameron's movie even came out, and reading about the Titanic for the first time. Was it my father's permissive parenting style that led me read the adult books in the house's library so that I knew about hara-kiri and Japanese bushido concepts in WW2 (he had been an officer stationed in Japan in the occupation Army after the war) from an age when most other girls were still playing house? Or the Roman nobility falling on their swords after failed campaigns that Gibbon wrote about so poetically in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? I started in on that when I was eleven. Perhaps, perhaps not. But it's not desperation, and it's not new. Smith refusing to be saved as an act of atonement was the earliest, the first, the clearest interpretation of his death -- I never really believed otherwise. I still don't, and certainly you saying otherwise won't change my mind. One of the first things that happens when you read about Titanic as a child is you get hit with the phrase "The Captain goes down with the ship." And indeed that phrase -- "The Captain goes down with the ship" seems to define it as honour suicide. It can't be read any other way. And really, the only reason it could be called a bad thing is because of the critical importance of navigating officers to the survival of people in small boats. Such suicides are regarded as virtuous in many cultures around the globe. I don't know how you could interpret it otherwise.

 

[Bob Read]

I have literally believed this since I was, like, nine or ten, before Cameron's movie even came out, and reading about the Titanic for the first time. Was it my father's permissive parenting style that led me read the adult books in the house's library so that I knew about hara-kiri and Japanese bushido concepts in WW2 (he had been an officer stationed in Japan in the occupation Army after the war) from an age when most other girls were still playing house? Or the Roman nobility falling on their swords after failed campaigns that Gibbon wrote about so poetically in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? I started in on that when I was eleven. Perhaps, perhaps not. But it's not desperation, and it's not new. Smith refusing to be saved as an act of atonement was the earliest, the first, the clearest interpretation of his death -- I never really believed otherwise. I still don't, and certainly you saying otherwise won't change my mind. One of the first things that happens when you read about Titanic as a child is you get hit with the phrase "The Captain goes down with the ship." And indeed that phrase -- "The Captain goes down with the ship" seems to define it as honour suicide. It can't be read any other way. And really, the only reason it could be called a bad thing is because of the critical importance of navigating officers to the survival of people in small boats. Such suicides are regarded as virtuous in many cultures around the globe. I don't know how you could interpret it otherwise.

There’s speculation then there’s clairvoyance. You don’t have evidence and you can’t read minds. What if he died of cardiac arrest from cold water? What if he was killed by a falling funnel? And on and on. But no, it’s not enough to heap all the blame for the accident on him, we have to further tarnish his reputation because “historians” were denied their pound of flesh at his inquisition. We have enough trouble analyzing what we know without writing movie plots. When one is reduced to inventing evidence it’s a sure tell that they are insecure about the weight of their factual arguments.