History is full of individuals who, though they might not have been the movers and shakers, stood present at some of its greatest events. For those born around the turn of the last century, they lived through such epochal events as the two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War. My own grandmother used to remark that she saw the world go from horse and buggy to men on the Moon.
Most often such stories remain unknown, but some occasionally come to light.
Once such story is that of Charles Herbert Lightoller, who was the last officer to leave the sinking Titanic, and who served in both World Wars, and piloted his yacht as part of the flotilla of Little Ships of Dunkirk.
Lightoller’s maritime career began at the age of 13, and by the age of 21, Lightoller would be the survivor of a shipwreck, a cyclone, and a fire at sea. His first shipwreck experience came when the Holt Hill ran aground in 1889 and the Chief Mate was killed. Lightoller and the other survivors spent eight days on the island of St Paul before being rescued.
Over the next years, Lightoller gained his mates ticket and sailed with various ships before joining the White Star Line. On an Australian run on board the SS Suevic in 1903, Lightoller met Australian Iowa Sylvania Zillah Hawley-Wilson, on her way home to Sydney after a stay in England. They married and had five children.
Lightoller was the First Officer on the Titanic for the sea trial, two weeks before its maiden voyage. However, when the ship set sail, he would be the Second Officer as Captain Edward Smith appointed Henry Wilde as the Chief Officer instead.
On the fatal “night to remember”, Lightoller was in his cabin after his shift when he felt a vibration run through the ship. Dressed in his pajamas, he went to the deck of the ship where he was met by Third Officer Herbert Pitman who had also felt the vibrations.
There was no sign of alarm on the bridge, and the men returned to their cabins to await further orders.
Only a few minutes later, Lightoller would be informed that the ship was taking on water and it was up to F deck in the Mail Room. Getting dressed, he headed to the deck and took charge of the even-numbered lifeboats on the port side.
He supervised the loading of women and children into the lifeboats and asked for permission to lower them. Finding one lifeboat already occupied by 25 male passengers and crewmen, he ordered them out of the boat and threatened them with his unloaded revolver, allegedly saying: “Get out of there, you damned cowards! I’d like to see every one of you overboard!”
By 2am, he was lowering Collapsible Boat D when he was told by Wilde to get in, an order he refused.
Lightoller stayed on board the doomed Titanic until the last possible moment. As the ship went under, he launched Collapsible Boat B before having to dive into the water as the ship surged forward. He was struck by a ventilation shaft but was saved from being pulled under by an exploding boiler. The explosion pushed him to the surface of the water close to the boat he had just launched.
Lightoller was the last Titanic survivor to be taken aboard the Carpathia from Collapsible Boat B, which was also beginning to sink. He insisted on helping the others first.
He was also the most senior officer to survive the sinking and would be called to the American Inquiry of the sinking.
It was far from the end of Lightoller’s maritime career, though. He was First Officer on the Oceanic when it commissioned as an armed merchant cruising in the opening days of WWI. The Oceanic’s wartime career was short-lived, however – and Lightoller notched up another shipwreck – as it ran aground on September 8, 1914 – the first Allied passenger ship lost in the War. It broke up in a storm three weeks later.
Charles Lightoller’s naval career was far from over, either, however. Just before Christmas in 1915, Lightoller was given command of the torpedo boat HMTB 117. He was later promoted to commander of the Falcon, a torpedo boat destroyer. Lightoller was wrecked again when the Falcon collided with a trawler and sank.
But Lightoller’s service was marked by merit – he was presented with the Distinguished Service Cross, with a bar added for sinking the U-boat UB-110 by ramming it with the destroyer Garry. UB-110 is believed to be last U-boat sunk in the War.
At the War’s end, Lightoller ended his Royal Navy career as a full commander.
He returned to the White Star line, but found his career prospects blighted by his association with the Titanic, something the company wanted to forget.
So Charles Lightoller retired, after 20 years with White Star. He opened a guest house and bought a yacht, the Sundowner.
In 1940, aged 66, Charles Lightoller answered the call to serve his country once more.
Operation Dynamo, the “miracle of Dunkirk”, started with a request sent by the British Admiralty for private vessels to help with the evacuation of 400,000 Allied soldiers near Dunkirk.
On June 1, 1940, Lightoller sailed the Sundowner out of Ramsgate with his son Roger and Sea Scout Gerald Ashcroft. If that story sounds familiar – and if the Sundowner looks familiar – it should. Charles Lightoller’s story inspired the key narrative and the character of “Mr Dawson”, in Christopher Nolan’s 2017 masterpiece, Dunkirk.
The Sundowner had a capacity of 21 people, but they were able to fit 130 soldiers on board.
On the return voyage, the yacht was attacked by runs from Luftwaffe aircraft. As Gerald Ashcroft recalls, “We attracted the attention of a Stuka dive bomber. Commander Lightoller stood up in the bow and I stood alongside the wheelhouse. Commander Lightoller kept his eye on the Stuka till the last second – then he sang out to me ‘Hard a port!’ and I sang out to Roger and we turned very sharply. The bomb landed on our starboard side”.
After Dunkirk, Lightoller joined the Home Guard and worked with the Royal Navy on the Small Vessel Pool until the end of the war.
He was eventually ‘demobbed’ at the age of 72.
Of Charles and Sylvia’s five children. Roger, the eldest, served in the Royal Navy and was killed in 1945 while commanding a torpedo boat. Another son, Trevor, became a lieutenant-colonel in the Army, serving under Monty’s command for the duration of the War. Daughter Mavis served as a nurse, while Doreen joined the Political Intelligence Unit. His grandson became an RN submarine commander in the 1970s.
Charles Lightoller died during London’s Great Smog of 1952.
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