OPINION
It may have won a swag of Academy Awards, though why is beyond me, but James Cameron’s Titanic is not exactly noted for its historical accuracy. From Picasso paintings that most definitely weren’t on the Titanic, to flashlights and filtered cigarettes, there were a whole bunch of anachronisms. Worse, though, were the often almost libelous treatment of real people, such as First Officer William McMaster Murdoch, portrayed as shooting a passenger and then taking his own life out of guilt. In reality, Murdoch died a hero by helping save over 10 lives on the ship.
Cameron also depicted Captain Edward John Smith as standing on the submerged bridge of the ship as its windows shattered and admitted a deluge of water. All very dramatic, perhaps, but also untrue.
How did Smith die? There are conflicting accounts – but none of them are anything like as shown in the movie.
First, a brief sketch of Smith’s maritime career.
Smith was born in Staffordshire in 1850. Like generations of British seafarers before him, Smith went to sea early in life: leaving school aged around 12 or 13 and, within a few years, he was on the crew of the Senator Weber.
His rise up the ranks was swift: second mate within a year, first mate, then master by his mid-20s. He joined the White Star Line in 1880 and went on to captain some of the company’s largest ships, including the Baltic, the Adriatic and the Titanic’s sister ship, the Olympic.
It was on the Olympic that Smith had his first brush with maritime disaster.
In September 1911, the Olympic collided with the HMS Hawke off the Isle of Wight. Though Smith was reportedly not directing the ship at the time, the Royal Navy protested that the Olympic had caused the collision by taking an abrupt turn. White Star Line vehemently disagreed, but ended up having to pay high legal fees.
Despite this, Smith maintained his sterling reputation. He was even known as the “Millionaire’s Captain” since, as the captain of some of White Star Line’s biggest ships, he often brushed shoulders with wealthy passengers.
So he seemed an obvious choice to become captain of the RMS Titanic, White Star Line’s flagship and the biggest ship ever built.
Smith’s actions before the fatal collision are the subject of much debate and controversy. While Smith saw and posted five warnings about ice in the chart room on the evening of April 14, other, more dire warnings, got lost in a chaos of telegraph communications.
With so many passengers on board, the radio operators were overwhelmed by the number of telegrams being transmitted.
At 10:55 pm, the Californian – the nearest ship to the Titanic – radioed to say that the ship had come to a full stop because of the treacherous icy water. But the Californian’s operator failed to mark his messages as urgent enough to show to Smith, and the Titanic’s operator was so overwhelmed with incoming missives that, according to the New York Times, he snapped back: “Shut up, shut up! I am busy!”
Less than an hour later, at 11:40 p.m., the Titanic hit an iceberg.
And the rest, as they say, is history. But what, with regard to Smith’s ultimate end, is history and what is pure fantasy?
Sometime after 2 am, with the Titanic sinking rapidly, Smith released his crew. “Well boys, you’ve done your duty and done it well,” he said according to crew member James McGann, as reported in the Liverpool Echo. “I ask no more of you. I release you. You know the rule of the sea. It’s every man for himself now, and God bless you.”
There are conflicting accounts of how Smith ultimately ended.
The most reliable-seeming is close to the movie scene, but with a key difference.
A number of witnesses remembered seeing Smith on the Titanic’s deck as the ship sank. As reported in the Daily Sketch in 1912, survivor Robert Daniels recalled seeing the captain standing “on the bridge, shouting through the megaphone, trying to make himself heard.”
His fellow passenger Laurence Beesley affirmed that: “The captain stood on the bridge and continued directing his men right up to the moment when the bridge on which he stood became level with the water.” Beesley added: “He then calmly climbed over the rail and dropped into the sea.”
Other accounts seem less reliable and more likely the product of panicked, confused memories.
One described him swimming through the water and handing off an infant to passengers in the lifeboats. Another recalled him clinging to a lifeboat, only to lose his grip. And a handful of survivors claimed that Smith had died by suicide.
The last seems least likely.
Captain Arthur Rostron of the Carpathia – which sailed through the icy seas help the Titanic but did not arrive until about two hours after the ship had sunk – denied reports of Smith’s suicide to the press. Rostron claimed that Smith had stayed on the Titanic until water washed over the deck and then, despite reaching the edge of a lifeboat, drowned in the icy waters.
Rostron’s account is at least in keeping with those of Daniels and Beesley – and completely contrary to James Cameron’s movie licence.
It seems most likely that Smith was on the bridge, but outside and in command, not inside passively awaiting the crushing waters. Once he climbed over the rail and into the sea, he may or may not have reached one of the lifeboats before drowning.
Rostron should probably also have the last word on Captain Edward John Smith:
“Smith was one of the coolest, bravest and more careful commanders I have ever known,” Rostron told the Chicago Examiner after the incident, according to Titanic’s Officers. “His seamanship was of the highest order. Too high a tribute cannot be paid to him by anybody who knew him.”
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