The Triumvirate: Captain Edward J. Smith, Bruce Ismay, Thomas Andrews and the Sinking of Titanic

By the same author

Titanic: Psychic Forewarnings of a Tragedy (Patrick Stephens, 1988)

Lost at Sea: Ghost Ships and Other Mysteries, with Michael Goss (Prometheus Books, 1994)

Titanic: Safety, Speed and Sacrifice (Transportation Trails, 1997)

‘Archie’: The Life of Major Archibald Butt from Georgia to the Titanic (Lulu.com Press, 2010)

A Death on the Titanic: The Loss of Major Archibald Butt (Lulu.com Press, 2011)

On Board RMS Titanic: Memories of the Maiden Voyage (The History Press, 2012)

Voices from the Carpathia (The History Press, 2015)

Titanic Memoirs (three volumes; Lulu.com Press, 2015)

The Titanic Files: A Paranormal Sourcebook (Lulu.com Press, 2015)

Titanic: The Return Voyage (Lulu.com Press, 2020)

‘Those Brave Fellows’: The Last Hours of the Titanic’s Band (Lulu.com Press, 2020)

The Titanic Disaster: A Medical Dossier (Lulu.com Press, 2021)

‘There’s Talk of an Iceberg’: A Titanic Investigation (Lulu.com Press, 2021)

Letters from the Titanic (The History Press, 2023)

Fate Deals a Hand: The Titanic’s Professional Gamblers (The History Press, 2023)

Titanic Collections, Volume 1: Fragments of History – The Ship (The History Press, 2023)

Titanic: Her Books and Bibliophiles (Lulu.com Press, 2024)

Titanic Collections, Volume 2: Fragments of History – The People (The History Press, coming 2024)

Cover illustrations: J. Bruce Ismay, Captain Edward J. Smith, Thomas Andrews (Author collection); Titanic sinking (Titanic, Filson Young, London: 1912)

First published 2024

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© George Behe, 2024

The right of George Behe to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 336 2

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1Prelude to the Maiden Voyage

210–14 April

311.40 p.m.–12 a.m., 15 April

412–12.20 a.m.

512.20–12.40 a.m.

612.40–1 a.m.

The Eyewitnesses

71–1.30 a.m.

81.30–2 a.m.

92–2.20 a.m.

10 Public Perception of Captain Smith

11 Public Perception of Thomas Andrews

12 Public Perception of J. Bruce Ismay

Appendix 1: Hearsay Accounts of Captain Smith and the Child

Appendix 2: Rumour of Disagreement Between Smith and Ismay

Appendix 3: What if Smith and Andrews Had Survived?

Bibliography

Notes

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’m very grateful to my friends Don Lynch, Dr Paul Lee, Michael Poirier, Kalman Tanito, Randy Bigham, Tad Fitch, John Lamoreau, Daniel Parkes, Gerhard Schmidt-Grillmeier, John Maxtone-Graham, Olivier Mendez, Malte Fiebing-Petersen, Jack Kinzer, Peter Engberg, Lars-Inge Glad, Gavin Bell and the late Phil Gowan for contributing a number of the survivor accounts and photographs that appear in this book.

INTRODUCTION

This book started out with a simple premise – i.e., to thoroughly document the activities of the Titanic’s Captain Edward J. Smith during his vessel’s maiden voyage. However, I soon realised that Smith’s activities were intimately intertwined with those of two other ‘top players’ in the Titanic story – shipbuilder Thomas Andrews and White Star Line chairman Joseph Bruce Ismay. With that being the case, I expanded my coverage to include all three men – men whose post-disaster reputations differ from each other as greatly as night differs from day.

The fact that Captain Smith was the Titanic’s commander caused his decisions during the maiden voyage to be alternately praised or criticised by generations of Titanic researchers. By contrast, the activities of Thomas Andrews (one of the Titanic’s designers) resulted in his being universally regarded as a genuine hero, while the actions of Bruce Ismay were widely condemned by the general public and served to tarnish his reputation for the remainder of his life.

This book will document the words and actions of Smith, Andrews and Ismay throughout the entirety of the Titanic’s maiden voyage, beginning with the vessel’s departure from Southampton and continuing right through to her last few moments afloat. After describing each man’s activities during the first four days of the maiden voyage, we’ll examine the Titanic’s collision with the iceberg and will explore in detail how Captain Smith and Thomas Andrews went about determining the full extent of the damage their ship had just sustained. We’ll look at Smith’s eventual decision to evacuate his passengers from the sinking ship, and will then follow him and Andrews from place to place as they assist in alerting the Titanic’s passengers as well as loading and launching the lifeboats. Finally, we’ll show how Captain Smith and Thomas Andrews spent their final few minutes of life on board the Titanic, and will attempt to document the exact manner in which the two men met their individual fates. (It may come as a surprise for readers to learn that the so-called ‘legend’ of Captain Smith attempting to save a child is corroborated by a primary source, the existence of which few people are currently aware.)

In addition to monitoring the activities of Captain Smith and Thomas Andrews, we’ll be following the activities of Bruce Ismay throughout the Titanic’s maiden voyage and sinking in order to determine whether or not he truly deserves the unfortunate reputation that has been pinned to his coat-tails ever since the disaster.

This book won’t be telling the story of Smith, Andrews and Ismay by describing their bare-bones activities in general terms. Instead, we’ll be utilising the words of the three men themselves as well as offering accounts of their activities as observed by eyewitnesses who had personal interactions with the three men during the Titanic’s maiden voyage. In other words, we’ll be telling the stories of Captain Smith, Thomas Andrews and Bruce Ismay by utilising the voices of people who were there.

Through the years I’ve always been interested in figuring out exactly how Captain Smith and Thomas Andrews first determined that the Titanic had received her death blow while colliding with the iceberg. Hollywood always depicts an intense private conference between the two men during which Andrews explains to Smith why the ship cannot possibly remain afloat, but is this what really happened? Was Captain Smith truly ‘catatonic’ during the entire evacuation process, as one present-day author has claimed? How did Captain Smith and Thomas Andrews meet their individual fates when the Titanic went down? How did Bruce Ismay come to survive the disaster when the ship’s captain and builder both lost their lives? Were rumours of Ismay’s supposed cowardice based in fact? We’ll examine each of these questions (and others) as our story gradually unfolds.

While examining our various eyewitness accounts, one thing will quickly become apparent to the reader: different eyewitnesses to the same event or conversation often remembered things slightly differently. (Although the gist of their stories is usually the same, the exact wording or exact locations or exact times of occurrence of the events in question often are not.) For instance, did Captain Smith issue certain orders to the occupants of a specific lifeboat before that boat was lowered to the ocean’s surface, or did he use his megaphone to call out his orders after the lifeboat had already begun rowing away from the ship’s side? Although some of these questions are unanswerable due to conflicting accounts, I have done my best to illustrate each of these inconsistencies and have assigned a ‘probable’ time and location to each of our described events. Even so, and as author Walter Lord once pointed out, ‘It is a rash man indeed who would set himself up as final arbiter on all that happened the incredible night the Titanic went down’.

At any rate, I have done my best to tell the story accurately, but I invite readers to examine the eyewitness accounts and evaluate the actions of Edward J. Smith, Thomas Andrews and Bruce Ismay for themselves.

George Behe

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Joseph Bruce Ismay; Captain Edward J. Smith; Thomas Andrews. (Author’s collection)

1

PRELUDE TO THE MAIDEN VOYAGE

We’ll begin our presentation by reading the reminiscences of a number of people who were personal friends of Captain Edward J. Smith and who did their best to describe the kind of man he was …

*

‘Captain Smith loved the sea,’ remembered Mrs Ann O’Donnell, a friend of Smith’s since childhood:

From his boyhood days until he was placed in command of the greatest liners in the world, he felt a strong attachment for the sailor’s life. He was a kindly, thoughtful and genial man. He never rose above his position, and I never knew him to forget that once he was listed on the ship’s books as merely an able seaman. He never forgot his friends and loved to cherish memories of the days spent in the little town in England.

‘Capt. Smith was one of the bravest then that ever lived,’ Mrs O’Donnell went on:

He was never known to have flinched in the face of the most serious danger. The utmost confidence was always placed in him by the owners of the ships he commanded. He was thoroughly reliable and conscientious, and was loved by everyone who knew him. They could not help it, for he seemed to be a man who was a friend to all who understood him.1

Charles Lightoller was destined to serve with Captain Edward J. Smith as the Titanic’s second officer. Captain Smith, or ‘E.J.’ as he was familiarly and affectionately known, was quite a character in the shipping world, Lightoller wrote later:

Tall, full whiskered and broad. At first sight you would think to yourself, ‘Here’s a typical Western Ocean Captain. Bluff, hearty, and I’ll bet he’s got a voice like a foghorn.’ As a matter of fact, he had a pleasant quiet voice and invariable smile. A voice he rarely raised above a conversational tone – not to say he couldn’t; in fact, I have often heard him bark an order that made a man come to himself with a bump. He was a great favorite, and a man any officer would give his ears to sail under. I had been with him many years, off and on, in the mail boats, Majestic, mainly, and it was an education to see him con his own ship up through the intricate channels entering New York at full speed. One particularly bad corner, known as the South-West Spit, used to make us fairly flush with pride as he swung her round, judging his distances to a nicety; she heeling over to the helm with only a matter of feet to spare between each end of the ship and the banks.2

‘Capt. Smith was a man who had a very, very clear record,’ agreed Joseph Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line. ‘I should think very few commanders crossing the Atlantic have as good a record as Capt Smith had, until he had the unfortunate collision with the Hawke.’3

Sixth Officer James Moody had an equally high opinion and equally respectful attitude towards Captain Smith: ‘Though I believe he’s an awful stickler for discipline, he’s popular with everybody,’ Moody wrote in a letter to his sister.4

‘During most of my service I have been on ships with Captain Smith, of course, starting when he was a junior officer,’ Bathroom Steward Samuel Rule remembered. ‘A better man never walked a deck. His crew knew him to be a good, kind-hearted man, and we looked upon him as a sort of father.’5

‘Captain Smith ranked all men in the service, and he ranked them because of carefulness, prudence, skill and long and valued service,’ said the White Star Line’s Captain John N. Smith, who spoke with Smith on the same day he’d been given command of the brand-new Olympic:

He came down to the pier and clapped his hand on my shoulder. ‘Captain,’ he said, ‘they are making brave ships these days, and I am in charge of the bravest of them, but there will never be boats like the sailing ships we used to take out of Liverpool. Those were the clippers that made old England the queen of the seas.’ He said that the senior captain of the White Star fleet was a kindly, humorous, grave man, watchful from long sailing of the sudden and treacherous seas; gentle to those under him, but strict in the hour of duty.6

Captain David Evans, who had served as Captain Smith’s chief officer on the Majestic, spoke very highly of Smith and said he was the finest type of British sailor – a splendid fellow to get along with, although the strongest disciplinarian. If there was any man he would choose to sail a ship across the Atlantic, Captain Evans said Smith would be that man.7

*

Professional sailors weren’t the only people who had a favourable opinion of Captain Smith.

‘All the passengers were eager to meet Captain Smith,’ remembered Mrs L. B. Judd, who once sailed with him on the Baltic:

He was so different from the captain of the Finland, which vessel I took from New York to Antwerp on the outward trip across. The captain of the Finland was jolly and had plenty of time to converse with the passengers, but Captain Smith had little to say. He avoided talking with us although he was very courteous.

‘Every morning he would have an inspection of the crew,’ Mrs Judd went on:

He made it a practice of speaking a kindly word to each man. It seemed to me that they would do anything for him. Captain Smith was always occupied. He spent but little time in his office, being at his post continually. The passengers did not meet him at meal time as he dined alone in a private apartment. He was my ideal of a captain. He was too occupied to say more than a few words when spoken to. From his accent I gathered that he was of Scotch descent.8

*

Howard Weber, president of the Springfield, Illinois, First National Bank, chatted with his friend Captain Smith on the Olympic while returning from his last trip abroad.

‘The Titanic will soon be ready for the water,’ Smith told Mr Weber. ‘I expect to be given her charge, but somehow I rather regret to leave my present boat, the Olympic.’

‘I knew Captain Smith, not as an acquaintance, but as a good friend,’ Weber related later:

We always made it a point to be together on trips across the ocean, and he took pride in informing me of new appliances which the ships upon which he was placed had … Captain Smith was a congenial old man, and one people could not help liking. I was with him last time last year when we crossed the ocean on the Olympic. The captain at that time said he expected to be put on the new Titanic, but expressed himself as preferring just a little to stay with the Olympic … Officers of the White Star Line and Captain Smith himself believed just as sincerely as anything that the boat [Titanic] could not sink.9

George W. Chauncey, president of the Mechanics Bank, said, ‘I was a passenger on board the Olympic on her first eastward voyage, when Captain Smith was in command of her. I met the captain and found him a fine gentleman and a first-class mariner. He inspired everybody on board with confidence.’10

Mr J. E. Hodder Williams was another good friend of Captain Smith. ‘He was amazingly informed on every phase of present-day affairs,’ Mr Williams wrote:

and that was hardly to be wondered at, for scarcely a well-known man or woman who crossed the Atlantic during the last twenty years but had at some time sat at his table. He read widely, but men more than books. He was a good listener, on the whole, although he liked to get in a yarn himself now and again, but he had scant patience with bores or people who ‘gushed’. I have seen him quell both …

He had lived his whole life on the sea and … used to laugh at us for talking as if we knew anything of its terrors in these days of floating hotels. He had served his apprenticeship in a rough school, and knew the sea and ships in their uncounted moods. He had an infinite respect – I think that is the right word – for the sea.

Absolutely fearless, he had no illusions as to man’s power in the face of the infinite. He would never prophesy an hour ahead. If you asked him about times of arrival, it was always ‘if all goes well’. I am sure now that he must have had many terrible secrets of narrowly averted tragedies locked away behind those sailor eyes of his.11

Mr Hodder Williams continued with a few more reminiscences about his old friend:

Late in the evening the captain’s boy would come with an invitation to his [Smith’s] room on the bridge, and I learned something of the things hidden away behind an exterior that some thought stern and grim. Those keen eyes of his had pierced far into the ugly side of life as it flaunts itself on the monster liner, but they had never lost their power of pity.

I saw him angry once, and that was when a passenger made a slighting remark about one of the captain’s old officers having gone wrong. ‘How do you know that’s true?’ he asked, sharply. ‘If you want to, you can always hear enough stories about every officer to ruin his reputation.’ And later on I found that Captain Smith knew that the story was all too true, and that he had given up one of his few, so highly prized days between trips to journey to this man’s home and try to arrange for him to have a fresh start.

I could tell, too, of the time when he promised to sit by the operating table when a serious operation was to be performed on an old comrade, who felt that he could go through with it only if the captain were there all the time, and how he kept that promise to the letter.12

W. W. Sanford of New York City agreed:

He was the kind of man who is at his best in a crisis … I recall the last time I saw him we talked, principally of politics, in his cabin on the Olympic. He was a keen follower of the politics of this country and England, and his ideas were always worth listening to. He was a strong advocate of clean politics.

I cannot imagine Captain Smith taking chances … His company might do so, but Captain Smith never. He was a shrewd, careful commander.13

‘There never was a braver or better officer than Captain Smith,’ said Irish businessman J. E. Graham, who made five crossings with Smith. ‘Although bravest of the brave, he was at all times cautious.’14

‘I have never known Captain Smith to take an unnecessary risk,’ wrote Joseph Francis Taylor:

He was always cool and thoughtful, attending to every detail of navigation and never flinching when he had to undergo hardships in his line of duty. Whenever we were off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland … he had the ship creep along slowly and he used every device known to ward off danger. The toot of a horn on another ship would cause him to stop his own craft dead and take locations before going on.

I believe that Captain Smith would allow no suggestion [from another person] to cause him to run into danger. In his long and honorable career at sea he met with but one mishap … the result of circumstances over which he had no control. The former accident I refer to is when the Olympic had trouble because of the suction created when she left port. For the benefit of those who have been misled by pictures supposed to be of Captain Smith, I will say this: He was 5 feet 11 inches in height, weighed about 200 pounds, wore a short gray Van Dyke beard and a mustache, and was the picture of vigor and alertness.

He resembled none of the Santa Claus style of pictures I have observed in a certain paper … He was a man who seemed to live on the bridge of his ship through life.15

Captain Anning, former captain of the White Star liner Persic, said that Captain Smith was ‘a man absolutely devoid of nervousness. He was one of the smartest navigators on the Atlantic. He had had a splendid career, serving at different periods in the Pacific trade between San Francisco, Japan and China before being transferred to the Atlantic.’16

‘Capt. E. J. Smith, commodore of the White Star fleet, believed he had been hoodooed,’ said retired English businessman J. P. Grant, ‘and several months ago told me that if he would have another accident with a liner of which he had the command he would resign his ship and retire into private life.’

‘Captain Smith was recognized as one of the ablest sea captains of the Atlantic, and White Star officials had the utmost confidence in him,’ Mr Grant went on:

Within the last three years, however, he seemed to be unfortunate in his commands. He was in the Olympic when this ship met with three accidents in one year. It was first struck by the British man-of-war Hawke, and the White Star line had to spend $500,000 to repair it. It then lost a blade of a screw by running into a submarine wreck and had to put into Belfast for repairs. When the ship left the Belfast harbor it ran aground.

It shows what great confidence his superiors had in him, because he retained his command of the Olympic until he was transferred to command the Titanic on its maiden voyage. In all these mishaps it was always found that Captain Smith was not to blame, but he came to fear his luck and often spoke about it to me.17

*

Captain Smith was a versatile man who had other talents besides seamanship. His friends Mr and Mrs Henry Buckhall were members of Long Island’s Nassau Country Club, and it was there they discovered that the good captain played a very respectable game of golf.18 Mr Buckhall said:

Captain Smith had nothing of the old salt in appearance … He was over six feet in height, well proportioned, fair complexion, and had the appearance of a military or naval officer. His manner was quiet and his address pleasing. It was not necessary for him to be severe in his tone on shipboard to command respect. His whole appearance did that, and as a prominent lady remarked, when introduced to him, ‘His countenance inspired confidence.’ He was very little in evidence on shipboard, being only where his duty called him. The large circle of friends among ocean travelers that he had was not created by his catering to their society.

He concluded:

Last fall, on Captain Smith’s return to New York after the collision with the Hawke, about one hundred of his friends gave him a dinner at the Metropolitan Club as an expression of their sympathy and confidence in him … Captain Smith made a very modest speech thanking his friends for their esteem. Besides good wishes, a purse of several thousand dollars was presented to him.19

*

But good seamanship, political savvy and good ‘golfmanship’ were insufficient to protect Captain Smith from every eventuality, as a 1909 American newspaper article made clear:

Captain Smith of the Adriatic … and the ship’s surgeon, Dr [William] O’Loughlin were invited to Marblehead to spend a few days. As they started ashore yesterday, they went to the customs office on the pier and offered the valises they carried for inspection.

Each officer was carrying a box of cigars, upon which the seals had been broken. In spite of their protests, these cigars were confiscated. In the doctor’s valise was a bottle of whisky. This suffered the same fate.20

‘Having fitted out this magnificent vessel, the Titanic, we proceeded to man her with all that was best in the White Star organization,’ White Star Line chairman Bruce Ismay said later:

and that, I believe, without boasting, means everything in the way of skill, manhood and esprit de corps. Whenever a man had distinguished himself in the service by means of ability and devotion to duty, he was earmarked at once to go to the Olympic or Titanic, if it were possible to spare him from his existing position, with the result that, from Captain Smith, Chief Engineer Bell, Dr O’Loughlin, Chief Purser McElroy, Chief Steward Latimer, downwards, I can say without fear of contradiction, that a finer set of men never manned a ship, nor could be found in the whole of the Mercantile Marine of the country, and no higher testimony than this can be paid to the worth of any crew.21

*

Captain Smith and Dr William O’Loughlin were good friends and had an excellent working relationship, and one day Dr O’Loughlin told his colleague, Dr J. C. H. Beaumont, how he came to be transferred from the Olympic to the Titanic. Beaumont later wrote:

Dr O’Loughlin, ‘Old Billy’ as we called him, had been for many years in the service, and I followed him up to the Olympic. Whether he had any premonition about the Titanic … I cannot say. But I do know that during a talk with him in the South Western Hotel he did tell me that he was tired at this time of life to be changing from one ship to another. When he mentioned this to Captain Smith the latter chided him for being lazy and told him to pack up and come with him. So fate decreed that ‘Billy’ should go on the Titanic and I to the Olympic.22

Just before the Titanic was delivered from Belfast to Southampton to prepare for her maiden voyage, Harland & Wolff’s managing director John Kempster asked Captain Smith if the traditional old-time seaman’s courageous fearlessness in the face of death still existed. Smith replied with emphasis, ‘If a disaster like that to the Birkenhead happened, they would go down as those men went down.’23

*

On 2 April the Titanic, under the command of Captain Edward J. Smith, completed her sea trials in Belfast.

*

On 3 April the Titanic, under the command of Captain Smith, was midway on her delivery voyage from Belfast to Southampton.

*

On 4 April, at 1.15 a.m., the Titanic docked after completing her delivery trip from Belfast to