2023-07-03 02:56:34
Edward J. Smith, the captain of the Titanic, was not just anyone. Despite the fact that his characteristic graying beard and his broad face gave him a certain air of endearing grandfather, the White Star Line he considered it one of his banners in the seas. It was said that he had barely had to regret a couple of incidents in his thirty-two years of service with the shipping company, and that they had been minor. And in 1912, seventeen commanders and more than two million miles sailed signed his resume. He was, in short, an English sailor without blemish that the goddess Fortune crossed his path in the form of an iceberg on the night of April 14-15.
It was not until the encounter with the ice of the Atlantic Ocean that gossip about him began. It was said of him that he had ordered an increase in the speed of the Titanic spurred on by the propaganda desires of the owner of the White Star Line, Bruce Ismay. Also, that he had been stuck like a pillar of salt after the ocean liner hit the iceberg. Hell, if it was even published in the media that he had committed suicide when he saw the ‘Ship of Dreams’ sink forever with around 1,500 people inside. Reality, as always, was neither so white nor so black.
Truths and lies
The guy that Charles Lightoller, second mate on the Titanic, defined as “tall, with a pleasant, calm voice and an enviable smile” was born in Hanley, England, in 1850. Religious to the extreme, at the age of 13 he moved to Liverpool to start his career as a sailor. He would never leave her again. Hardened on the backs of sailing ships and small vessels, Smith joined the White Star Line at the age of thirty and, just seven years later, had already received his first command.
From then on he established his headquarters on the Republic, Coptic, Majestic, Baltic, Adriatic and Olympic bridges. In each and every one he demonstrated his temperance and ability to command, which is enough.
Smith became ‘de facto’ an icon of the time; a man who radiated serenity and offered peace to the richest passengers, of whom there were many. They called him, and with good reason, ‘The captain of the millionaires’, since there was a very long list of wealthy passengers who refused to cross the great puddle if it was not under the protection of his beard. In return, he pocketed a stratospheric salary of £1,250 a year and another £1,000 as a bonus if he avoided the accidents. The key is that he knew of his infallible reputation, and he knew how to exploit it in interviews like the one he offered to ‘The New York Times’ in 1907:
“When someone asks me to describe my experience of almost forty years at sea, I always answer ‘without incident.’ Of course there have been winter gales, storms, fog and the like. But in all my life on the water I have not had a single accident worth talking about.
The reality, as always, was much grayer. For starters, the ships under his command had run aground in 1889, 1890, and 1909. And when the calendar marked the years 1901 and 1906, the vessels he commanded, the Majestic and the Baltic, they suffered a series of fires on board that were about to give them severe problems. And that without forgetting that, on September 20, 1911, the twin brother of the Titanic, the same Olympic that Smith led, crashed into the warship HMS Hawke on the isle of wight. The damage that occurred to both ships raised blisters between the White Star Line and the Navy. That did not prevent, however, that this icon was chosen to put himself at the controls of the ‘Ship of dreams’.
mysterious death
After the impact against the iceberg, the captain directed the passengers to get into the lifeboats in an exemplary manner. He was scrupulous: only women and children. He knew that although the Titanic met the regulations regarding the number of boats she had to carry, there were not enough for the entire passage. “If any of these ships, the Olympic and the Titanic, collided with an iceberg, they would have no boats to save more than a third of the passengers,” he confirmed in an interview a few weeks before the tragedy. Little else is known for sure about the last hours of his life. And the same thing happens with his departure from this world, that he still navigates in the enigma.
Smith maintained his composure after impact with the iceberg, but his memory was tarnished along with that of many other ABC officers
There were dozens of theories about Smith’s death. It caused controversy to such an extent that ABC dedicated a story to clarify the facts on April 23, 1912: “It seems confirmed that the captain did not commit suicide.” This diary referred to the story of one of the survivors of the catastrophe, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon. «When the last boats were moving away, a more violent movement of the Titanic precipitated her captain into the sea. A child fell at the same time as him. Upon returning to the surface, the captain saw him, and taking him by his clothes, he swam to the nearest boat, “added the newspaper.
When the boy was safe, and always according to Duff-Gordon’s account, the passengers asked Smith to come on as well. But he followed the maxim that he had used until then: only women and children. “No, my place is not there,” he stated. As the survivors did not stop insisting, he replied that he would hold on to a board. “He swam away to his ship. Beside him floated several logs. But contrary to what he had said, he didn’t grab hold of any of them. He wanted to go back on board and die with his ship. Before it reached it, the Titanic sank, dragging the heroic Captain Smith and all the brave officers there in a terrible whirlpool,” this newspaper added.
At present, this is still the most widespread version of Smith’s death. Although there are many others. One of them was revealed by ABC that same April 23, 1912: «The Mrs. Widemer, who has lost her husband and son in the catastrophe, affirms that the captain threw himself from the bridge into the sea at the same time that the second mate blew his brains out with a pistol shot’.
#captain #Titanic #die