The Californian
-
Traianus — 16 years ago(November 01, 2009 01:30 PM)
"Now I'd think if he wanted to clear his name wouldn't he have tried to right himself and put his version of the story out?? To my knowledge, he didn't write anything after the disaster."<<<
Seriously? The guy was haunted the last 50 years of his life by what had happened. As the other poster mentioned, he spent the last 4 years of his life - after this film came out - trying desperately to set the record straight as he saw it.
If he didn't do more before then, I can think of a couple reasons. For one, there was no internet during the early 20th century; radio was not the force it is now, there was no TV. It's not like TMZ and other gossip websites were all after him. If anything, he was trying to forget what had happened, and it was common for most people of that time and culture to not talk about their troubles. He wasn't going to go complaining about what was bothering him.
Late in his life, he felt obligated to say something, it's clear. He tried to clear his name with the Mercantile Marine Service Association and petitioned the Board of Trade (which rejected his request).
Personally, I can't imagine the kind of hell that his life was and the kind of guilt that he felt for the last 50 years of his life. I doubt any of us on here can. -
wwkentucky — 16 years ago(March 21, 2010 02:43 PM)
Some who enjoy the benefit of hindsight will claim that Capt. Lord was negligent.
Let's use that same hindsight to answer another question: On whose vessel would you rather have been travelling that night Smith's or Lord's? -
wwkentucky — 16 years ago(March 22, 2010 01:49 PM)
My meaning is that while Capt. Lord is often labelled "incompetent" (on this board and elsewhere) by people with the benefit of hindsight, he proved on the night of April 14, 1912, to be anything but.
He stopped his ship when he encountered ice flows and sent wireless messages to approaching ships warning them of the danger. All of Capt. Lord's crew and passengers reached their destination safely. To me, this does not equal incompetence, but the exact opposite.
He misinterpreted the rockets. That is all. Using the exact same hindsight used by the anti-Lord folks, I would much rather have sailed with Lord than Smith. -
karl-lambley — 15 years ago(May 22, 2010 10:10 AM)
I don't think the rockets were "miss-interpreted", emergency rockets or flares should be sent up at one minute intervals.
The rockets from the Titanic were sent up in a wily-nily fashion over the space of an hour or so, more like a small informal fireworks party than a request for help.
Also the Titanic carried 36 rockets, why did they only send 8 up, and those wrongly?
Perhaps if the chaps with the matches had done THEIR jobs properly Lord may have done his?
To screw ECHELON please add "heroin, kiddy porn, terrorist, bomb, president, allah" to every email -
paul-393 — 15 years ago(June 02, 2010 09:11 AM)
This is wrong. The regulations, adopted by the UK, the US, Canada and dozens of other seafaring nation called for rockets of any colour or description fired one at a time, at intervals. There is no mention anywhere of the interval between rockets. If QM Rowe is right, the interval was about 5 minutes. The men on the Titanic did their jobs right. Lord, and his men on the Californian, didn't.