Lightoller’s whistle was willed by Lord to the British National Maritime Museum, May 2002. Lord can reasonably be argued to have earned the privilege of being the only person besides Lightoller himself to have blown the whistle since the night the Titanic went down. They should remain the last two people to do so.
The crowding aboard the rescue ship Carpathia, and the immediate resegregation of the classes as they boarded from the lifeboats: Edith Russell, personal communication to Bill MacQuitty, 1995, L/P file, p. 155. Oliver Mendez reported the Laroche family’s oral history in “Mademoiselle Louise Laroche: A Titanic Survivor,” Titanic Commutator 19, no. 2 (Aug. 1995): 44, 45.
Additional information was obtained by R. Bracken and M. Findlay, “Titanic’s Very Youngest Survivors,” Voyage 27, Winter 1998, 155, and by Oliver Mendez, Titanic Commutator, Oct. 1995, 45.
Mendez referred to a recollection by Juliette Laroche that either a countess or someone with the title “Lady” was aboard her lifeboat, possibly suggesting that she was not—in accordance with Judith Geller, Titanic: Women and Children First (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 96—in boat 10 but was in boat 8, which contained someone named Countess Rothe. Geller’s listing is almost certainly the proper one. The Laroche boat was clearly one of the last ones lowered on the port side; it was so crowded that Juliette was unable to lift her feet from a shallow pool of freezing water in the bottom (about midkeel) or to move to another part of the boat (Mendez, p. 45).
Boat 10 was completely filled, with more than sixty people, and it departed under chaotic conditions that included a rough splash-down: Frank Evans, American Inquiry, Apr. 25, 1912, p. 677. Boat 8 cast off with only twenty-eight aboard, during a time of so little chaos that many passengers were still denying the danger. There were no children and no second-class passengers reported in boat 8: Colonel Archibald Gracie, in Jack Winocour, ed., The Story of the Titanic as Told by Its Survivors (New York: Dover, 1960), 184; William Burke, American Inquiry, Apr. 28, 1912, p. 822.
In boat 8, a passenger named M. S. White complained about every minor detail, including members of the crew smoking, but she never mentioned water in the bottom of the boat or overcrowding: affidavit, American Inquiry, p. 1008. Further observations on the almost immediate resegregation of second- and third-class survivors from first-class survivors: Marjorie Newell Robb, personal communication, 1991, L/P file, p. 131.
On Simonne Laroche’s recollections of the tall woman with the musical toy pig (Edith Russell) and a strategy that diverted attention from the Laroche children’s African ancestry: Judith Geller, Titanic: Women and Children First (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 95, 97, 98, 100; Russell, personal communication with Bill MacQuitty and Walter Lord, around 1956, L/P file, p. 128.
On the music heard that night, and the prolonged belief in Colonel Gracie’s insistence that “Nearer My God to Thee” was never played: H. C. Candee, unpublished memoir titled Sealed Orders, May 1912, L/P file, p. 173; Walter Lord, The Night Lives On (New York: William Morrow, 1986), 138; Roland Hind, personal communication with Lord and MacQuitty, Aug. 1, 1956, L/P, pp. 511–512.
Lawrence Beesley told MacQuitty that for many, memories of “that night” were unhealthy: Bill MacQuitty, personal communication, pre-expedition conference, Titanic VIII, 1996, L/P file, pp. 690, 692. Beesley might have been right, in cases that included Jack Thayer: Jack Thayer III obituary, Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 23, 1945. Marjorie Collier’s friend, twelve-year-old Bertha Watts, had managed to keep the Titanic out of her thoughts even when the Ballard team discovered the wreck in 1985, as told by Judith Geller, Titanic: Women and Children First (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 101, 102.
24. A FURY SCORNED
The experiences of Masabumi Hosono (maligned by Edward John Buley as a man who survived the “women and children first” rule by dressing as a woman) and Kate Phillips (pregnant out of wedlock) were recorded as early as 1912. On Hosono: Ed Buley, American Inquiry, Apr. 25, 1912, p. 613; M. Findlay, “A Matter of Honor,” Voyage 27, Winter 1998, p. 122. On Kate’s daughter: R. Hodges, “Life after the Titanic,” letter and enclosure to author, Apr. 27, 2001.
George Rheims’s story was finally clarified for his family in correspondence between Patterson-Knight and Walter Lord, Apr. 1987, L/P file, pp. 421–424.
During the filming of A Night to Remember, Bill MacQuitty was under such constant attack by the Ismay family that he reported actually getting “that ‘bad dog’ feeling.” It meant a great deal to him, therefore, when actual survivors reviewed early edited versions of the film and told him that he was getting the story right: Bill MacQuitty, personal communication with Walter Lord and author, pre-expedition conference, Titanic VIII, 1996, L/P file, pp. 691–692.
25. SLEEPING IN LIGHT
The violence of the stern section’s arrival on the bottom turned out to be greater than we imagined: Charles Pellegrino, written log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Sept. 25, 2001, pp. 282–283. The last Mir was on its way up from stern exploration: Pellegrino, written log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Sept. 26, 2001, pp. 278, 280, 283, 285. The ominous beauty of the white rainbow and history repeating itself: Charles Pellegrino and James Cameron, supplemental post-expedition notes, Expedition Titanic VIII, 1996, quoted also in Pellegrino, Ghosts of the Titanic (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), 141.
26. COMING HOME TO SHOCK COCOONS
The drawings made by the children were included in the written log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Sept. 2001, last pages (Oct. 1, 2001).
At the World Trade Center, the same down-blast and surge effects seen at the Titanic were immediately apparent, including, at Vesey Street, an exact shape I had seen at the stern, as documented in the World Trade Center video log, mapping perimeter of surge-cloud zones, Nov. 3, 2001.
Comparative study sources included the following: sectioned and sampled steel beam presently on display at the Liberty Street Tribute Center, ground zero, New York; The 9/11 Commission Report on metallurgical results and surge-cloud velocities; J. P. Delgado et al., The Archaeology of the Atomic Bomb (Santa Fe, NM: Southwest Cultural Resources Center, 1991), 27, 89, 95–97; Charles Pellegrino, field notes; World Trade Center dust samples, microscopic examination (optical) scanning, electron microscope (and microprobe) analysis, New York’s Suffolk County crime lab, 2005; NASA/Jet Propulsion laboratory white papers, 2002–2005.
See also Haraldur Sigurddson et al., “The Eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79,” National Geographic Research 1 (1985): 332–387. That the Herculaneum phenomena are instructive for understanding the World Trade Center and Titanic surge-cloud (gravity current) physics was discussed extensively with G. Mastrolerenzo, personal communication, 2005, who had published surge-cloud findings in “Herculaneum Victims of Vesuvius in A.D. 79,” Nature, Apr. 12, 2001.