Titanic Voices 63 Survivors Tell Their Extraordinary Stories

There were over 700 survivors of the Titanic disaster and their horrific experience has captivated readers and moviegoers for almost 100 years. But what was it actually like for a woman to say goodbye to her husband? For a mother to leave her teenage sons? For the unlucky many who found themselves in the freezing Atlantic waters? 'Titanic Voices' is a comprehensive collection of Titanic survivors' accounts, and includes many unpublished and long-forgotten accounts, unabridged, together with an authoritative editorial commentary. It also includes substantial accounts from third class and female survivors.

Panic, despair, shocking inefficiency, and a dash of heroism. Two lengthy narratives by passengers who had a thorough knowledge of the sea and by members of the ship's crew. 26 illustrations.

Violet Jessop's life is an inspiring story of survival. Born in 1887 in Argentina, the eldest child of Irish immigrants, at the age of 21 she became the breadwinner for her widowed mother and five siblings when she commenced a career as a stewardess and nurse on some of the most famous ocean going vessels of the day. Throughout her 40 year time at sea she survived an unbelievable series of events including the sinking of the TITANIC. “One awful moment of empty, misty blackness enveloped us in its loneliness, then an unforgettable, agonizing cry went up from 1500 despairing throats, a long wail and then silence and our tiny craft tossing about at the mercy of the ice field.” For most people one sinking would be enough. But four years later Violet, now a nurse with the British Red Cross, was on board the World War I hospital ship BRITANNIC when it struck a mine and sank to the bottom of the Aegean. To her, this disaster was even more horrifying-- “Just as life seeming nothing but a whirling, choking ache, I rose to the light of day, my nose barely above the little lapping waves. I opened my eyes on an indescribable scene of slaughter, which made me shut them again to keep it out." By the end of her story we have a met a woman who could handle whatever life threw at her with determination and good humor. She knew that only by her own strength of character would she survive. But Titanic Survivor is much more. A unique autobiography for those who want to know how it really felt, a story that could be told only by a Titanic Survivor.

Presents firsthand accounts of witnesses to the Titanic disaster in a volume that includes interviews with and letters written by survivors.

Albert and Sylvia Caldwell were one of those rare Titanic families who lived through the tragedy at sea. Their lucky rescue aboard the Lifeboat 13 is told for the first time here. But the trip was only one part of a bigger nightmare. The Caldwells has been Presbyterian missionaries in Bangkok, Siam, but fled in what they described as a desperate journey around the world to save Sylvia’s health. Fellow missionaries, however, believed that the couple had plotted to renege on their contract at financial loss to the church. Not even sinking Titanic ended the hunt for the Caldwells. A Rare Titanic Family follows all the true-life plot twists of a family who successfully fled aboard the Titanic but never could get out from under the shadow the ship cast over them.

IN the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, the icy waters of the North Atlantic reverberated with the desperate screams of more than 1,500 men, women, and children—passengers of the once majestic liner Titanic. Then, as the ship sank to the ocean floor and the passengers slowly died from hypothermia, an even more awful silence settled over the sea. The sights and sounds of that night would haunt each of the vessel’s 705 survivors for the rest of their days. Although we think we know the story of Titanic—the famously luxurious and supposedly unsinkable ship that struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Britain to America—very little has been written about what happened to the survivors after the tragedy. How did they cope in the aftermath of this horrific event? How did they come to remember that night, a disaster that has been likened to the destruction of a small town? Drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished letters, memoirs, and diaries as well as interviews with survivors’ family members, award-winning journalist and author Andrew Wilson reveals how some used their experience to propel themselves on to fame, while others were so racked with guilt they spent the rest of their lives under the Titanic’s shadow. Some reputations were destroyed, and some survivors were so psychologically damaged that they took their own lives in the years that followed. Andrew Wilson brings to life the colorful voices of many of those who lived to tell the tale, from famous survivors like Madeleine Astor (who became a bride, a widow, an heiress, and a mother all within a year), Lady Duff Gordon, and White Star Line chairman J. Bruce Ismay, to lesser known second- and third-class passengers such as the Navratil brothers—who were traveling under assumed names because they were being abducted by their father. Today, one hundred years after that fateful voyage, Shadow of the Titanic adds an important new dimension to our understanding of this enduringly fascinating story.

It was on Wednesday, 10 April 1912, that the imposing bulk of the RMS Titanic slipped her berth, and, to great fanfare, headed out into the Solent at the start of her maiden voyage. By all accounts, the liner was at the time the largest man-made object ever to move on water. The space her decks created allowed her designers to introduce previously unseen levels of luxury. In first class, for example, there were many new features such as squash courts, a Turkish bath, a gymnasium, a barber shop and even the first swimming pool built on board a ship. There was also the bold claim by its builders that Titanic was ‘practically unsinkable’. Sadly, just four days later, this assertion was found wanting. At 23.40 hours on the evening of 14 April, Titanic struck an iceberg. In less than three hours she had slipped beneath the waves. While the liner’s loss has been the subject of numerous films, documentaries and publications in the years that followed, in this book the author James W. Bancroft asks if the RMS Titanic had been doomed to a watery grave even before it sailed? Certainly, many people experienced feelings of foreboding about the ship, and there were many strange omens and unexplained events surrounding its construction and maiden voyage. A novel written many years before Titanic was built mirrored almost exactly the details of the disaster, and the well-known spiritualist, W.T. Stead, wrote a story of a similar nature. As a passenger on the ship, he seemed to have accepted his fate and did not try to save himself. Even animals seem to have sensed danger, such as the dog which tried to stop its owner from traveling to board the vessel, and Titanic’s cat had kittens and was seen taking them all off the liner before it sailed. The voyage was fatefully delayed for three weeks, and at least fifty travelers had forebodings about the ‘Ghost Ship’, some of whom missed the sailing or refused to board. Following years of research, James has uncovered some 100 fascinating stories concerning omens and premonitions of people who sailed – or in fact decided not to – on the ill-fated liner. This is the first time that all of these incidents have been brought together. Together they provide an unusual insight into the Titanic disaster.

The disaster which befell RMS Titanic has become one of the most investigated and analyzed maritime tragedies of all time. Yet there is much still to be untangled from the web of mystery which still surrounds this confused, catastrophic event. The people on board were proud to be part of the ship’s highly-publicised first voyage, but as the first batch of officers reported for duty in Belfast to prepare her for her trial trip to Southampton and beyond, they could not have imagined the fate which awaited them. Titanic was, after all, ‘unsinkable’. It is exclusively through the eyes of seven unlucky men – the small group of officers onboard for that doomed voyage – that the author reveals the tragedy as it unfolded that night in April 1912. From their assignment to the White Star liner through to their eventual fates. Each one of these seven men behaved with great courage and discipline in a situation beyond anything they had previously experienced and some of the officers left accounts of the horrors they witnessed. Of this small group, four were members of the Royal Naval Reserve; this included Charles Lightoller, who was the Second Officer and in charge of loading passengers into lifeboats on the port side. He was noted for strictly enforcing the ‘women and children only’ principle, allowing only those men needed for manning the boats to join them. Four of the seven officers survived the ordeal. As the author reveals, one of them had only been formally appointed to the crew the day before Titanic sailed on its climatic maiden voyage. This was Henry Tingle Wilde, who was scheduled to sail with Titanic’s sister ship, Olympic, but who was switched to Titanic as the Chief Officer. He reported for duty on the very day the ship departed Southampton. This move meant a reshuffle of the officers and, as only seven officers were deemed necessary, Second Officer David Blair was removed from the crew list and sent ashore. He was certainly the luckiest of all. The unfortunate Wilde went down to the bottom with his ship. Of the many questions asked about that night is that of the fate of Captain Edward Smith. His body was never recovered and it had naturally been assumed that he too had been lost. In Titanic’s Unlucky Seven, James Bancroft questions if this might not actually be the case. There is evidence that Smith may have survived the sinking, and was seen and spoken to months after the event by a man who had sailed with him, and who had known him personally for most of his life. Certainly, Smith had good reason to disappear into obscurity. For the first time, a clear picture of the incidents, actions and events leading up to and during the sinking of Titanic can be seen through the stories of the seven men in charge that night.