Titanic’s Aft Lifeboats

Introduction

The departure of Titanic’s 20 lifeboats (groupings of ten on either side of the Boat Deck) was a dramatic hour and 35 minutes, taking place between 12:40 a.m. and approximately 2:15 a.m., April 15, 1912. Possibly because of the greater amount of activity associated with the 12 boats located forward on the Boat Deck, the emphasis of researchers has often been on events surrounding their loading and launching. Certainly, clearing the forward boats took place over a longer period of time; the first and last lifeboats debarked from the fore half of the Boat Deck; the two haphazardly-released, canvas-sided collapsible lifeboats ended up floating off this area (one swamped and the other overturned); and some of the best-known survivors were occupants of the forward boats that set out from Titanic that morning.

But the lifeboats located aft on the Boat Deck (four on the starboard side, four on port) also offer a story of considerable interest, including a series of potentially hazardous incidents; the exodus of most of the Second and Third Class passengers who were saved; the escape of most surviving crewmembers; and a number of other extraordinary events, all of which occurred over a span of only 30 minutes — from about 1:20 a.m. to 1:50 a.m. During this time, Boats 9-16 played a significant role in saving lives. In fact, most of the men, women and children who were rescued from the Titanic were those who made it into these eight lifeboats, the most heavily loaded to leave the ship.

Evacuation begins

Preparations for loading and lowering lifeboats began as soon as Captain Edward Smith and designer Thomas Andrews inspected the lower decks and conferred on the extent of damage to the ship. The initial order to prepare boats was issued by Smith at around midnight, some 20 minutes after the collision with the iceberg.

Lifeboats were swung out from the davits so that their inboard sides were flush with the deck (or, in some cases, a bulwark), making them accessible for boarding. They were fortified with supplies—food, water, blankets, lanterns—although some passengers later claimed not all boats contained provisions. This work was carried out by crew from various departments until every fore and aft boat was ready for people to board. 

Smith gave the order for passengers to don lifebelts and proceed topside at approximately 12:15 a.m. First and Second Class passengers had no trouble following these instructions as they had direct access; the Boat Deck being divided into segments allocated to them. Wooden Boats 1-8, along with four canvas-sided collapsible rafts, were located on forward First Class deck space, and wooden Boats 9-16 were situated on aft Second Class deck space. The full-sized wooden lifeboats (Nos. 3-16) had a 65-person occupancy, the canvas rafts (lettered A-D) could hold about 47 people each and two emergency cutters (Nos. 1 and 2) were made to carry 33-40.

Titanic’s Third Class passengers faced a decided disadvantage — they had no clearly designated route to the Boat Deck. As single and even some married Third Class male passengers were berthed in the bow, many congregated on the forward Well Deck until they made their way aft, via interior passageways, to join the single women, married couples and children who were assigned cabins in the stern. All Third Class passengers then assembled in groups amid much confusion on the aft Well and Poop decks. They were within sight of the Boat Deck but could not easily access it as the two outside stairways leading to B Deck were closed off by gates. Above that, only crew ladders (and iron stairwells located further aft) led to the Boat Deck.

The command to abandon ship came down from Captain Smith at 12:25 a.m. First Officer William Murdoch, placed in charge of the evacuation on the starboard side, and Second Officer Charles Lightoller, heading up the departure of boats on the port side, started their work on the forward portion of the Boat Deck. Lightoller was assisted by Captain Smith, Chief Officer Harry Wilde and Sixth Officer James Moody, while Murdoch received backup from Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, Sixth Officer Moody and Chief Purser Hugh McElroy.

The actual process of launching was handled by deckhands and other crewmembers under officers’ supervision. The work accomplished by these men on April 15th is seldom mentioned, yet they succeeded in saving the lives of everyone lowered away in boats that morning. Second Class survivor Lawrence Beesley paid tribute to them:

Whether the lowering crew were trained or not, whether they had or had not drilled before coming on board, they did their duty in a way that argues the greatest efficiency. I cannot help feeling the deepest gratitude to the two sailors who stood at the ropes above and lowered us to the sea: I do not suppose they were saved.¹

Efforts went ploddingly for Lightoller, who reinterpreted Smith’s order of “Women and children first” to “Women and children only,” thereby meeting with some resistance from passengers. He also experienced a setback in proceedings when he lowered Boat 4 level with A Deck only to realize that section was enclosed by glass-screened windows; passengers who had been ordered below to board the boat now had to be recalled. As the windows began to be opened, passengers were sent down again to A Deck, creating confusion and jangled nerves.

It was comparatively easier for Murdoch, who carried out the captain’s order literally – women and children were loaded first, but men were allowed in afterwards. The process was fairly orderly. By 12:40 a.m., about the time Boat 4 was being lowered to A Deck on the port side, Murdoch was lowering starboard Boat 7 to the sea with around 28 men and women aboard. 

There were almost 40 empty seats in No. 7, but at least the work had begun. Over the next hour and 30 minutes, the loading and lowering of the forward boats continued, almost all containing only First Class passengers. 

Once afloat on a sea amazingly calm and in starlit, biting cold darkness, the lifeboats’ occupants remarked on the surreal atmosphere of being alongside Titanic. Stranded in small boats in the middle of the Atlantic, the wonder of the moment struck them. The mammoth Titanic, its illumined portholes brilliant against a black sky, towered over them, its bow drooping into the sea, distress rockets searing the night. 

As silent screen actress Dorothy Gibson, seated with her mother in Boat 7, recalled:

As soon as we were at a safe distance from the Titanic, we turned to watch the great liner gradually settling down in the water. It was like a nightmare.²

Between 12:40 a.m. and 2:05 a.m. starboard Boats 7, 5, 3, 1 and Collapsible C and port Boats 8, 6, 2, 4 and Collapsible D were lowered. Only the last three forward boats, 2, 4 and D are known to have carried multiple Second and/or Third Class passengers.³  Collapsibles A and B, unable to be properly launched, drifted off the forward Boat Deck as it submerged. Men of all classes later swam to these boats, many dying of exposure. About 40 men survived on A and B, as did one woman, Third Class passenger Rosa Abbott, the only female to actually go down with Titanic and live.

Panic expedites launching of aft boats

In the ordinary course of events, all forward lifeboats might have been loaded and lowered before those located on the after part of the Boat Deck were released, but sometime shortly after 1 a.m. an incidence of panic, primarily among Second and Third Class male passengers, interrupted the orderly evacuation process.  By this time, as the ship was noticeably canting toward the bow, a rumor spread among men who had assembled on Titanic’s aft port side that they would be permitted to board lifeboats from that quarter of the Boat Deck. 

As Lawrence Beesley wrote:

A report went round among men on the top deck – the starboard side – that men were to be taken off on the port side; how it originated, I am quite unable to say but can only suppose that as the port boats, numbers 10 to 16, were not lowered from the top deck quite so soon as the starboard boats (they could still be seen on deck) it might be assumed that women were being taken off on one side and men on the other.⁴

By about 1:10 a.m., the waiting crowd of Second Class men around the aftermost boats, supplemented by those Third Class men who had managed to mount interior stairwells or crew’s ladders (from the aft Well Deck), were growing increasingly unruly, necessitating some action on the part of officers to calm the situation.

Crewmembers from both sides of the ship arrived to quell the brewing panic, an effort led by Sixth Officer Moody and Fifth Officer Lowe (arriving later).⁵ Third Class men soon faced their fate: of 452 aboard, only 60 would be saved.

Due to a lack of available assistance from crewmen who were relieving the situation on the port side, First Officer Murdoch, proceeding to aft starboard Boat 9, was unable to make much progress. Aided only by Purser McElroy and White Star Line Chairman J. Bruce Ismay, Murdoch could only begin loading the craft with the few passengers present at that point; eventually, he ordered crewmen to round up women on the port side to go in Boat 9.

Lowering of aft boats

Meantime at aft port Boat 16, where calm was being restored, women and children, all from Second and Third Class, were finally being loaded aboard. No First Class women are known to have escaped in this boat. Stewardess Violet Jessop was among the group of women who went off in No. 16; she found herself holding a baby as Officer Moody began lowering the boat at around 1:20 a.m.

With an estimated 53 people aboard, No. 16 was the first lifeboat to be launched from the aft Boat Deck, the seventh in all. The first almost fully-loaded boat to leave the ship, Boat 16 was also the first to hold only Second and Third Class women and children. Some Third Class men managed to slip by unobserved until later.⁶

Among those reaching the Boat Deck by 1:30 a.m. were 17-year-old Irish Third Class passenger Kate (Katie) Gilnagh and her three cabin mates, Kate Mullin and sisters Kate and Margaret Murphy. Gilnagh was separated in the crowd from her companions while mounting a stairwell from the aft Well Deck. At first, the group was held back by crewmen, but thanks to one of their friends, Jim Farrell, who pleaded with the crew, they were all allowed to ascend to A and B Decks via ladders. Fellow Third Class passenger Bertha Mulvihill, age 24, may have also been in this crowd of people who had been rebuffed but then allowed to come up the aft stairs.

By the time Gilnagh climbed the steps to B Deck, she still could not find her roommates. Luckily, a man noticed her looking around worriedly and offered to raise her on his shoulders to the rail of the deck above. Gilnagh agreed and was quickly lifted to A Deck.

There she ran into her friends again and noticed Farrell off to one side. The last the young women saw of Farrell, he was kneeling beside his suitcase on A Deck reciting the rosary.

Meantime, the evacuation proceeded like clockwork, aft port boats Nos. 12 and 14 leaving the ship minutes after Boat 16. Aft starboard Boats 9, 11, 13 and 15 also soon departed. 

Finally, the last lifeboat of all on the aft Boat Deck—No. 10—was preparing to launch. Gilnagh and her companions were just in time. They had already noticed some boats being lowered on starboard, probably Nos. 13 or 15, but the people they saw on deck there seemed calm; Gilnagh said everyone was “just standing around talking quietly.”⁷

Perhaps looking for interior stairs to the Boat Deck, the women entered the First Class public rooms at the end of A Deck. Gilnagh remembered tables in the Palm Court were set for tea the next day, and in the Smoking Room beyond, despite “chandelier[s]” hanging at a “funny angle,” gentlemen “were playing cards.” Even in such a moment of concern, she could still marvel at the beauty of the liner: “It was like a dream.” The women continued “pretty far forward,”⁸ passing through the Smoking Room to at least amidships, where they exited the aft grand staircase foyer onto the portside promenade. Almost immediately, they came upon a stairwell leading to the Boat Deck above. When they emerged, they saw Boat 10 was readying for lowering, and they jumped in.

By this stage, it was clear from Titanic’s forward tilt and list to port that matters were serious. Even so, Boats 12 and 14 weren’t as fully loaded as No. 16; they only held about 40 and 42 people respectively. But Boat 10, like No. 16, was almost full, with 57 spaces taken out of 65.

On the other side, No. 9, the eighth boat launched on April 15th and the first from the aft starboard Boat Deck, carried about 40 people, including the first group of Second and Third Class men permitted to abandon ship; those in No. 16 had entered unbeknownst to Moody, the officer lowering the craft. Among the men in No. 9 was a young minister from Second Class, Sidney Collett, and Third Class passenger Berk Picard.

The next starboard boat, No. 11, had about 50 aboard, including a large number of crew (mostly stewards and stewardesses), while Nos. 13 and 15 were the most heavily loaded of all lifeboats lowered that morning with 55 and 68 people. These boats were so crowded because they had been loading from A Deck for about 15 minutes. Interestingly, men likely outnumbered women in No. 15, which held many crewmembers and Third Class passengers, including Bertha Mulvihill. In fact, most crewmembers that made it were accommodated in aft boats.⁹

Seven aft lifeboats, port Nos. 16, 14 and 12 and starboard Nos. 9, 11, 13 and 15 went away in an incredibly swift 20 minutes—from about 1:20 a.m. to 1:40 a.m.—while No. 10 on port debarked some 5-10 minutes later. Over 400 people had boarded the eight aft boats in half an hour.

Dangerous incidents

Although Titanic’s evacuation began with the forward lifeboats, these did not all clear the Boat Deck until the latter stages of the sinking. Half the forward boats departed between about 12:40 and 1:05 a.m. (Nos. 1, 3. 5, 7, 6 and 8); half didn’t leave until between around 1:45 and 2:05 a.m. (Nos. 2, 4, A, B. C and D).¹⁰ By stark contrast, all aft boats except for one, No. 10, were lowered in 20 minutes (Nos. 9, 11, 13, 15, 12, 14 and 16). Such fast-paced departures tend to support the theory that an additional number of lifeboats could have been launched before the ship sank, thus saving more lives. 

The comparatively frantic rate of evacuation on the aft Boat Deck, although effective, also caused accidents while posing the potential for other hazards. Possibly life-threatening problems at the forward lifeboats had been averted, too. For instance, starboard Boats 1 and 5 encountered brief but alarming mishaps while lowering and a scramble of panicked people at Collapsible C prompted gunfire from Officer Murdoch.¹¹ But most documented difficulties with lifeboat launchings, almost all due to the haste necessary to get the boats away, were those occurring on the aft Boat Deck.

At starboard Boat 9, a French woman, First Class passenger Ninette Aubart, stumbled as she attempted to board from the open Boat Deck. Her subsequent claim for damages against the White Star Line indicated she sued for injuries sustained in abandoning ship. This incident may have prompted Murdoch’s decision to load passengers for subsequent starboard boats from the A Deck promenade, which was better lit and where a rail or bulwark could offer support; with few exceptions, Boats 11, 13 and 15 took their occupants from A Deck. No. 9 was the only aft starboard lifeboat to be loaded only from the Boat Deck. When precisely Murdoch gave instructions to load people into boats from A Deck is unclear, although it seems to have been during or just after loading Boat 9. This procedure occurred at no other aft boats and the only forward boat whose passengers were instructed to board from A Deck was No. 4 on port.¹²

Tripping and falling also happened to those trying to board No. 10 on the port side. There was about a two-to-three-foot gap that occupants of this boat had to traverse due to Titanic’s port list. As she jumped, an unidentified woman fell between the lifeboat and the side of the ship. She grabbed the side of the boat as she went down and people just below on A Deck were able to pull her back aboard Titanic.  Kate Gilnagh, who had just watched her three friends leap into No. 10, was standing in line behind the other woman when she fell. According to her, as the lifeboat was “swinging wildly,” an officer standing by yelled, “Jump for it!” and Gilnagh bounded in.¹³ The woman who had fallen out and been hauled aboard the ship again was later able to climb back into No. 10 as it passed alongside A Deck.

No. 10 was the only aft boat launched following the development of a pronounced port list (about 1:40 a.m.). Forward port Boat 4, being launched at the same time as No. 10, and port Collapsible D, lowered 15 minutes later, were lashed to the ship’s side to prevent this occurrence during loading. Boat 10 and starboard boats No. 15 (lowering while the list was slowly increasing) and Collapsible C were, therefore, the ones most noticeably affected by the port list; 15 and C scraped the side of the ship as they were lowered. 

With some difficulty, others at No. 10 continued jumping the gap between the Boat Deck and the swaying lifeboat. One woman from Third Class, Elin Hakkarainen, recalled that she “almost lost my balance and fell out.” ¹⁴ Some have hypothesized that she was the female hauled onto A Deck after she slipped, but that woman was described as wearing a black dress, whereas Hakkarainen admitted she was “clad only in a nightgown.”¹⁵ 

It’s surprising there were no serious injuries associated with Titanic’s list as this lifeboat was loading. As precarious as it was for women to board Boat 10, children and even babies had to be tossed by crewmen across the distance. One of these infants might have been a 10-month-old boy from Third Class. He had been separated from his teenage mother, Leah Aks, as she mounted the decks as Kate Gilnagh, Bertha Mulvihill and others had done to escape. Aks and her baby Frank were saved in different boats (she may have left in forward port Boat 4) and reunited on the rescue ship.  

There was only a slightly discernible port list during the time Boat 11 was preparing to leave the ship. But at least one woman, First Class passenger Edith Rosenbaum, lost her footing as she jumped into the boat from the bulwark of A Deck — any gap between the deck and the boat would have seemed wide to Rosenbaum as she was wearing a narrow, tapered skirt. Rosenbaum was unhurt, but the pig-shaped music box she had been carrying was damaged; its papier-mâché legs were chipped when it was thrown by a steward into the lifeboat ahead of her.

No. 11 had other troubles. One of the more heavily loaded boats, its falls became entangled as it reached the sea about 10 minutes after No. 9 was lowered. Beyond that, the ship’s condenser, through which a geyser of water poured only a few feet from No. 11, threatened to swamp the boat as it cut loose from Titanic. Rosenbaum recalled from her earliest extensive account that Boat 11 began paddling away from the ship’s side at 1:45 a.m.; she claimed to be keeping accurate time according to the “bracelet watch” she was wearing.¹⁶

Most lifeboats, fore and aft, made it away from the ship without any passengers suffering significant harm. But there were injuries. Aubart’s misfortune at No. 9 has been noted, but there were other examples. As Boat 15 started lowering from A Deck, a man jumped from the Boat Deck above. He landed on Third Class passenger Bertha Mulvihill, breaking her ribs. And at No. 12, Second Class passenger Lutie Parrish, seated beside her daughter Imanita Shelley, was also struck by a man jumping from the Boat Deck. According to her daughter’s affidavit to the U.S. Senate Inquiry into the disaster, Parrish suffered a crushed foot and severe bruising along her right side. Shelley’s xenophobia was clear when she claimed the man who landed on her mother was a “crazed Italian.”¹⁷ There was no Italian male aboard Boat 12, but he might have been an unknown Third Class passenger, elsewhere described as a Frenchman.

In other cases, the risk of injuries was very real. Lawrence Beesley jumped from the Boat Deck into Boat 13 just before it started to lower away from A Deck but he didn’t hit anyone, a close call as No. 13 carried almost a full load of occupants. And at Boat 10, Third Class passenger Neshan Krekorian made a dash for the lifeboat as it dropped past A Deck. The boat was packed with women and children but none were hurt when he landed inside.

One of the most dramatic incidences of narrowly-avoided danger was the situation that confronted starboard aft Boats 13 and 15 around 1:45 a.m. Both had started their descent to the ocean at around the same time, No. 13 reaching the sea first. Unfortunately, the rush of water from the condenser that had briefly imperiled Boat 11 caused No. 13 to drift directly underneath No. 15 as it came down its falls. By pressing oars against No. 15’s hull and pushing off from it, No. 13 pulled out from under the rapidly lowering craft at the last moment, no doubt saving many from being crushed or drowned.

Another chancy incident involved aft port Boat 14, under the command of Fifth Officer Lowe. The earlier panic around the port boats, especially at No. 12, had been calmed, but Lowe, fearing surging throngs of men might upset his boat if they tried to rush it, fired three warning shots from his revolver as No. 14 lowered past A Deck. As he testified at the U.S Inquiry:

They were glaring more or less like wild beasts, ready to spring. That is why I yelled out to 'look out' and let go, bang, right along the ship's side… as I went down, I fired these shots without any intention of hurting anybody and with the positive knowledge that I did not hurt anybody. I fired, I think, three times.¹⁸

Boat 14 continued lowering safely for the moment, but it wasn’t in the clear yet. Its ropes jammed like Boat 11’s had, but in No. 14’s case, only one end of the craft had touched the water while the other end was still hanging above the surface. Lowe tried to slowly undo the ropes at the high end but finally had to cut them loose from the height of about five feet, the boat splashing down heavily into the sea, frightening many aboard.

Men allowed/not allowed

One of the misunderstandings about the Titanic’s sinking is that only women and children were allowed into lifeboats. Any men who survived, it has been wrongly assumed, either swam to a boat or entered one from the ship without permission. This was maintained at the time by some survivors, including First Class passenger Renée Harris, in their newspaper and magazine interviews. But it was untrue, gaining currency to the point that many people believe the myth today. 

For the most part, female survivors who claimed male passengers weren’t permitted in lifeboats were those who escaped in port side boats. There, Capt. Smith’s order of “Women and children first” had indeed been garbled by Second Officer Lightoller into “Women and children only.” 

Lightoller kept to that misapplied command throughout the emergency, thereby dooming men who might otherwise have been saved. It was a sore point for many women. First Class passenger Ella White gave vent to her frustration when she testified with great feeling before the hearings of the Senate Inquiry. She contended that men among the passengers ought to have been allowed aboard the port boats as they “would have been such a protection to us.” White added that if male passengers had been permitted to enter these lifeboats with their families, the boats would have been appropriately manned and many more lives saved.¹⁹

While during the port Boat Deck evacuation, Lightoller enforced “Women and children only,” Murdoch was keen to allow men in every boat that left the starboard side — after women were loaded first. 

While most First Class men who survived departed in forward starboard boats Nos. 1, 3, 5 and 7, almost all Second and Third Class men who lived found seats in aft starboard boats Nos. 9, 11, 13 and 15.  Of these, Second Class passenger Albert Caldwell, with his wife and infant son, was one of only a few men to escape with their families; the Caldwells boarded Boat 13. In addition to male Titanic passengers who made it, most surviving male crew members owed their lives to Murdoch’s management of the starboard Boat Deck during the emergency. The crew escaped in especially large numbers in Boats 9, 11 and 15.

Not many First Class women escaped in lifeboats on the aft Boat Deck — either port or starboard — and only a handful of First Class men left in starboard aft boats. Of these, Philipp Mock boarded Boat 11 with his sister, Emma Schabert, and Dr. Washington Dodge got away in No. 13. No First Class male passenger is known to have boarded an aft port boat. Of 176 men in First Class, only 56 would survive.

But what about the few Second and Third Class males who were saved from the aft portside? Who were they, and how did they get into boats? Masabumi Hosono of Second Class found a place in No. 10 by leaping in, as did Third Class passenger Neshan Krekorian who jumped in from A Deck as it was descending. Also, an unidentified man from Third Class is believed to have jumped into No. 12 from the Boat Deck. The only known instance of a male passenger entering an aft port boat under orders was Charles Eugene Williams of Second Class, who was enlisted by Officer Lowe to help him row Boat 14. While Lowe allowed Williams in, he admitted to later discovering another man in No. 14 who had apparently sneaked in wearing a woman’s shawl.  

This may have been Daniel Buckley, a Third Class passenger.  Buckley said a woman put the shawl over him after he got aboard the lifeboat. A similar situation occurred at Boat 10, where Third Class passenger Edward Ryan admitted to being unnoticed by the crew when he clambered in wearing a long waterproof coat and a towel over his head. Boat mate and fellow Third Class passenger Kate Gilnagh remembered him distinctly in a raincoat and a towel as he helped row the boat. Mary Fortune, in No. 10, also recalled the man. At No. 16, Third Class passengers Thomas McCormack and Bernard McCoy apparently got in undetected from the Boat Deck, although they claimed to have swum to the boat.  

Notable occupants

Unlike forward lifeboats, those on the aft Boat Deck weren’t generally occupied by the wealthy and influential. But there were a few rich and/or well-known passengers who, having not found seats in the first boats, made their way onto Second Class deck space, boarding starboard Boats 9, 11 and 13 and port Boats 10 and 14. 

One First Class gentleman, Dr. Washington Dodge, left in No. 13, and another entered No. 15 – Harry Haven Homer, a professional gambler traveling under the alias “E. Haven.” As for Dodge, he had earlier escorted his wife and son to No. 5. His steward, Frederick Dent Ray, who had encouraged the Dodge family to sail on Titanic (having served them on Olympic), ran into the doctor again on A Deck as Boat 13 was loading and pushed him into the line of people waiting to get in; Ray followed. As far as is known, no ladies from First Class escaped in either Boats 16 or 12, but a cluster of them did go off in the other two aft port boats.

Writer May Futrelle, wife of detective novelist Jacques Futrelle, was one of the most famous First Class women to enter an aft boat — No. 9 on starboard. French courtesan Ninette Aubart, paramour to multimillionaire Benjamin Guggenheim, entered No. 9, too. 

On starboard as well, Edith Rosenbaum, well-connected in New York and Paris fashion centers as a correspondent for Women’s Wear Daily, was one of at least four First Class women in No. 11. Rosenbaum carried an unusual keepsake, a toy pig that played music when its tail was twisted. Like Aubart, she tripped as she got in the boat, but she wasn’t injured. Other First-Class women in Boat 11 were Alice Silvey, Alice Cleaver, nurse to infant Trevor Allison, and Emma Schabert. The latter’s brother, Philipp Mock, also boarded the boat from A Deck after he assisted Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum was the last First Class female passenger to safely enter a starboard lifeboat.

A science teacher at an English boys’ school, Second Class passenger Lawrence Beesley was not famous when he set sail from Southampton, but as he would write the first book about the sinking, The Loss of the SS Titanic,  he became one of the best-remembered survivors. Beesley was carrying his dressing gown when he looked over the side of the aft starboard Boat Deck and saw Boat 13 hanging in its davits. He recalled someone in the boat yelling up to him to look for any other women and children. He obliged, replying that he saw none. The voice then called back for him to jump. He did, just before the boat started lowering. He was extremely lucky. Of 167 men in Second Class, a mere 13 were rescued.

Over on port, Second Class passenger Charles Williams, a champion racquet player from London en route to defend his title in New York, was the best-known male survivor to escape the ship from the aft Boat Deck. The popular athlete evidently impressed Officer Lowe, who ordered Williams into No. 14 with him to assist in rowing once the craft was afloat. Apart from Maj. Arthur Peuchen, a Canadian yachtsman who was put into forward Boat 6 by Officer Lightoller to fill in for the crew, Williams was the only male passenger to board a port lifeboat under official orders. 

Undoubtedly the richest passengers to board an aft boat during the sinking were Mary McDougald Fortune and her three adult daughters: Ethel, Alice and Mabel. Mary Fortune was the wife of Canadian real estate tycoon Mark Fortune who escorted the ladies to port Boat 10 with his son, Charles. Other prominent First Class women left in forward boats, most of which had left the ship by this time. What delayed the Fortunes isn’t known, but some family members believe that Mark and Charles had been searching for Ethel, who had returned below to her cabin. Finding her at last, the men reunited her with her mother and sisters on the Boat Deck before rushing them all into No. 10, the last aft boat to leave Titanic.

Most who escaped from the aft Boat Deck were, like Lawrence Beesley, only ordinary passengers at the time, but some would become the most celebrated Titanic survivors of all. 

Joseph Laroche, a Haitian-French engineer and the only Black man aboard Titanic, didn’t survive, but his wife and two daughters did, possibly in Boat 10.²⁰. His daughter, Louise, almost two years old in 1912, became one of the last living survivors of Titanic. The same lifeboat carried Ettie Dean and her two small children. One of them, Millvina, only two months old (the youngest passenger on the ship), would become not only one of the most active Titanic survivors in her later years but the very last living survivor.

Two other children who made it into aft boats, Second Class passengers Eva Hart, 7, and Ruth Becker (later Blanchard), 12, would ultimately share the honor with Dean of being among the more outspoken survivors in their final years. Eva was in Boat 14 with her mother while Ruth climbed into No. 13 by herself, having barely missed joining her mother and siblings in Boat 11.

Conclusion

Titanic’s eight aft lifeboats saved more people on April 15, 1912, than the ship’s 12 forward boats. On the starboard side, about 213 passengers and crew escaped in aft Boats 9, 11, 13 and 15, whereas but 164 people made it off in forward Boats 1, 3, 5, 7, A and C. On the port side, around 192 occupants filled aft Boats 10, 12, 14 and 16, while only 147 persons survived in forward Boats 2, 4, 6, 8, B and D. Approximately 405 men, women and children were saved from the aft Boat Deck, over a hundred more people than left in forward lifeboats.

“We watched her go, the lovely ship and all those people,” a tearful Kate Gilnagh remembered of the sinking of Titanic 50 years later. “She slanted for an hour; then she stood up straight. I looked away. When I looked again, she wasn’t there anymore.”²¹

Amid the ensuing cries of the drowning, Boat 14, commanded by Officer Lowe, tied up to Nos. 10, 12, 4 and D, not only rescuing swimmers from the water soon after Titanic sank—along with No. 4—but saving the men (and one woman) who had swum to either swamped Boat A or capsized Boat B. Many of these people were ordered transferred by Lowe to No. 12 which was the last lifeboat to approach the rescue ship Carpathia at 8:15 a.m., carrying an estimated 69 survivors.

Most of Titanic’s forward and aft boats, in which 712 were saved out of 2,208 people, were hauled onto Carpathia once their occupants were safely aboard. But Collapsible C and D and Boats 4, 14 and 15 were set adrift. They were never recovered, while the fate of Titanic’s other lifeboats, brought back to New York by Carpathia, is similarly unknown.

A few weeks after the disaster, Officer Lowe’s emotion for the people he’d saved was deep when he penned a letter to First Class widow Renée Harris, one of the women in Collapsible D that he’d towed to Carpathia. “A farewell shake of the hands, a silent prayer and a struggle to keep back an honest tear,” he wrote. “Goodbye and may God comfort you in your sorrow.”²² 

Approximate revised launch times of Titanic's forward and aft lifeboats

Acknowledgements

This article first appeared in print in the Spring 2023 edition of Voyage, the journal for the Titanic International Society (TIS).Thanks to AnneMarie Manning, Julie Hedgepeth Williams, Shelley Binder, Mark Petteruti and Lisa McDougald, descendants of Titanic survivors, for their insight and assistance. My gratitude also goes to researchers Mike Poirier, Michael Beatty, Bruno Piola, Inger Sheil, Scott R. Friedman, Ioannis Georgiou, Samuel Halpern, Jordan Tancesvski, Gregg Jasper and Philip Hind.

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Lynch, Don and Marschall, Ken, Titanic: An Illustrated History, Toronto (CA): Madison Press, 1992.
Rosenbaum, Edith L., “The Wreck of the Titanic,” Cassell’s, June 1913, pp. 33-46.
Sheil, Inger, Titanic Valour: The Life Of Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, Gloucestershire (UK): The History Press, 2012.

Notes