The second mate of the Titanic, Charles Lightoller, is one of those characters in history who must be thoroughly analyzed to understand his way of acting. Books, and especially James Cameron’s feature film, have pointed an accusing finger at him, calling him an uncompromising officer. His decision to enforce the “women and children first” order and not allow any men to board the lifeboats earned him the hatred of many of the passengers on the ‘ship of dreams’. Stubborn to the end, he only allowed one exception: a soldier who offered to guide one of the first surviving boats. And only because of the shortage, during those times, of sailors on deck.
His stubbornness is a reality that is impossible to deny; but he was also, as Lightoller himself defended in his memoirs, that he should be strict. “The order I obeyed was ‘only women and children'” Was he an angel or a devil? A hero or a villain? The truth is that it is impossible to determine. Rather, he became a man who acted squeezed by an extreme situation.
In any case, what can be assured is that he was consistent with his ideas, as he preferred freezing in the icy waters of the Atlantic to occupying a place in the lifeboats. As he seemed doomed, however, as fate would have it, he was rescued and survived a naval tragedy that claimed 1,500 lives. From then on, and because of that black legend that accompanied him after the disaster, the figure of Lightoller has been forgotten. Even today it is an arduous task to find out what happened to him until he died in 1952. A pity, because in his maturity he lived adventures as striking as the Titanic tragedy itself. Luckily, a good part of them was collected in his biography.
The officer remained at sea for most of his life. Although not in the merchant navy, too scared by the bad publicity that having one of the top managers of the Titanic in their ranks could give them, but in the Royal Navy. Thus, Lightoller became a hero in the First World War by shooting down a zeppelin from the ship he commanded or, among many other feats, ramming and destroying the German submarine U-110. After the confrontation, and passing again through the ‘White Star Line’, the shipping company that owns ‘Ship of Dreams’, he was called by the Admiralty during World War II to collaborate in the withdrawal of British troops from Dunkirk.
Tough type
Charles Herbert Lightoller dedicated his life to the sea. He was born in Lancashire on March 30, 1874 and, at the age of 13, began to learn the noble art of sailing. Four summers later he made his first voyage aboard the Primrose Hill. Across the waters he transited from India to Australia in a series of voyages that gave him enough experience to slowly but surely rise through the naval ranks. Fortunately or unfortunately, in those days he also overcame a shipwreck, a cyclone and a ship fire. Thus, before he was 21 years old, he was already a veteran.
It was in 1900 when he joined the ‘White Star Line‘ as Fourth Officer of the Cargo Ship Medic. In the years since, he has grown under the umbrella of Captain Edward J. Smith, a veteran of the seas. From his hand he obtained several promotions that culminated when he was appointed First Officer of the Titanic, the jewel in the crown of the shipping company in 1914. Lightoller participated, as he himself explains in his memoirs, in the tests of the ‘Ship of dreams’ as a hand Smith’s right. We can only imagine how he felt when, two weeks before the maiden voyage, his former mentor decided to include Henry Wilde as Chief Officer, demoting William Murdoch to First Officer and him to Second Officer.
Lightoller, despite this, departed on the maiden voyage that the Titanic made from Southampton to New York in April 1912. What would be the last of the liner. His particular nightmare began on the night of April 14, shortly after leaving his post in favor of Murdoch and changing into his pajamas to enjoy his well-deserved rest. After noticing the impact against the iceberg, she went out into full moonlight to make sure what had happened. When he saw the ice he began to imagine the tragedy that was coming. Back on the bridge, she received orders to supervise the loading of eight of the port lifeboats.
disaster arrives
“The survivors of that night can thank God that our men [fueran rápidos] and they will not wait for the orders of bugles or whistles. The result was as good a show as any marine tragedy in history. Every boat on the ship was cleared, balanced, and positioned without a problem. […] The passengers milling on the deck had anxious faces. scary noises [del barco] they only added to his anxiety in a situation that was already scary enough. In fact, I find it a marvel how they didn’t lose their minds at all. […] When everything was ready it was obvious that the ship would sink.
Severe, the Second Officer refused to allow men to board the boats. His maxim, as he himself admitted in his memoirs, was “only women and children”, and not “women and children first”. But that does not imply that he was a devil. As an example, he, when he saw the famous Molly Brown get away from her from one of her boats, he grabbed her by the wings and put her back in it. “You too!” he snapped at her. Although he was uncompromising in his norm, he went out of his way to convince any girl he saw on deck that he should get on the barges. But always without her husband. One of the most tense situations he experienced was when the millionaire John Jacob Astor requested to accompany his wife because she was pregnant by him. The answer was a resounding negative.
One of the most beautiful memories that was recorded in his memory was that of the Titanic gang. “I don’t like jazz music, but I was glad to hear it that night, I think it helped us all.” Unfortunately, he also did not forget the seawater that rose up the decks. “Cold and green, she creeped ghostly up the stairs.” In the end he had to jump towards her when the ship was engulfed by the sea. The current sucked him in, but she was saved from it by a bubble of hot air bursting and pushing him up. This is stated by Jonathan Mayo in his work ‘Titanic. Minute by minute’. Shortly after he was rescued by a boat.
World wars
After the catastrophe and the investigation that was carried out in the United States, Lightoller was assigned to the Oceanic as First Officer. And it was on this ship that he began his journey in the Royal Navy when Great Britain militarized the ship and gave him the rank of lieutenant. He once again had no luck and, although it was not due to his bad decisions, the vessel disappeared in a storm. Already in 1915 he received his first command from him, that of the torpedo boat HMTB-117, the one that would lead him to glory. And it is that, at his command, he managed to destroy, in July 1916, a zeppelin. That earned him, as Mayo points out, the Distinguished Service Cross. This is how he remembered it in his memories:
‘Ten minutes later the gunner called me through the hatch in a hoarse whisper. “Zepelin together over sir.” I went up on deck like lightning, but when I came out into the light I couldn’t see anything. […] But there it was, close enough to hide the sky. […] Everyone was speaking in whispers from the excitement of the moment. […] They all held their breath. I gave the order ‘Action’, which the gunner followed up with ‘Fire at will’. when he was within range […] … “Bang”! The first tracer fired. “Impact”. […] then another shot […] “Impact again, sir.” How the hell it didn’t catch fire, and was just knocked down, heaven only knows.”
A little later he had another outstanding action in command of the destroyer Garry. At a time when German submarines had become a true nightmare for Allied vessels, Lightoller, who hated these devices for having sunk the ocean liner Lusitania, killed the U-110. And he didn’t do it with torpedoes, depth charges or wits, but… ramming it! Although, yes, after making it emerge with explosions. Once again, he recorded this fact in his biography:
“Our last depth charge had hit her and she had surfaced. […] I ordered to head towards him at 20 knots. ‘We’ll catch him, keep the rudder steady. Go straight to him, Coxswain’. At a hundred yards I changed the order: ‘Prepare to ram him.’ With a blow we were on him. There was no longer any doubt that he would not escape. […] When he got a little further, […] we chased him over the water and hit him again, completely destroying him, but also us. The U-110 was, according to Von Lucknow, the last to be sunk in the war. I left the rescue work to the rest, who assessed the damage we had suffered.”
Dunkirk
Two decades later, in 1940, the 66-year-old veteran Lightoller had long since retired. His maxim was tranquility and, to relax, she had a small private yacht. At the same time, Britain was up to its hocks in World War II and, back in May, in the popular withdrawal of its troops from Dunkirk across the English Channel before they were crushed by panzer power. Adolf Hitler’s Germans.
The situation was not good. By then, the allies had entrenched themselves along a 25 kilometer perimeter at Dunkirk. The area, as might be expected, was shelled to exhaustion by the air force. In their wake, Hitler’s planes left dozens of dead and considerably damaged the ports, which prevented the large English ships from approaching. This was a real setback for the British, who were forced to request the dispatch of small boats to act as a link between the mainland and the ships sent in the first instance.
Battle-hardened Lightoller offered his ship, the Sundowner, to help bring his compatriots home, but refused to allow the Royal Navy to captain it. Either he ran it, or there would be no deal. The military reluctantly agreed. “If anyone is going to do this, it’s going to be me and my oldest son,” he said.
Thus began his latest adventure. As Mayo revealed in an interview with the Anglo-Saxon press, Lightoller left Ramsgate in the direction of Dunkirk when, unexpectedly, he ran into a Messerschmitt BF-109 ready to sink him. To the surprise of his few crew, the one who was the most veteran officer to survive the Titanic disaster managed to dodge, based on skilful maneuvers, the bullets that the fighter launched at him. Shortly after he arrived at Dunkirk and, after mooring up, he took 130 soldiers on board despite the fact that his small pleasure yacht did not hold more than 21 people. It must be said that many of them did not like that his captain was one of the survivors of the ‘Ship of Dreams’, but they could do little else.