REVIEWS The Finest of British Ships' Officers The Odyssey of C. H. Lightoller , by Patrick Stenson , fwd . Walter Lord , (W.W. Norton , New York , 1984, 314pp, $16.95) . Four shipwrecks (including the Titanic disaster), a fire at sea, a destroyer ramming a U-boat , and Dunkirk- a script for a T.V. drama or a grade-B movie? Far from it , the above scenario touches only the highlights of the life of Charles Herbert Li ghtoller, seaman , ship ' s officer and a remarkable man whose biography reads like a Conrad novel--except that it is all true . C. H. Lightoller (always known as " Li ghts " ) was born in 1874 and when he died 78 years later his career had spanned the entire age from the great skysailyarders of the ' 80s battling Cape Horn to the era when 5- and 6-day passages across the North Atlantic in floating palaces were routine . Lights first shipped out at thirteen aboard the Primrose Hill , a great steel bark bound from the Mersey to the Golden Gate. His indoctrination was fast , hard and painful as he learned to shinny up the last twenty feet to the skysail yards, where, some 200ft above the deck he and his mates would spend as much as four hours furling a sing le sail while a frigid Antarctic gale raged around them. His next voyage was in the Holt Hill bound around the Cape of Good Hope for Calcutta under a Captain who drove his ship and hi s men unmercifully , saying , " I'll never let another ship pass me while any sai l is furled. " This was to be hi s downfall , for the result of this reckless boast was that the Holt Hill ran headlong into the isolated , tiny islet of St. Paul carrying full sail in a gale and at night. By some miracle only one man was lost; but a beautiful ship was wrecked, the Captain's career was forfeit and the survivors spent eight hungry days before being rescued. The boy was becoming a man and a first rate seaman . His escapades on shore are as hilarious as his experiences at sea are dramatic . Despite his adolescent high jinx he was absorbing everything possible to do with his chosen career , and had earned his second mate's ticket by the time he was twenty-one. He went out as third on the Knight of St . Michael with a cargo of coal for lquique in Chile , but the coal caught fire at sea after a storm in which all the boats were smashed. Despite decks so hot the men were dancing , they wOiked her to the coast of Brazil and by superhuman efforts quelled the blaze. Lights swore he would never leave sail for steam. With cargos harder and harder SEA HISTORY, WINTER 1985-86
to find , however, and after one passage of 165 days from Chile to Liverpool with nitrates he reluctantly went back on his word and became a deck officer in a steamship. Trading along the West African coast he dealt with natives, incredible surf, a drunken captain, and caught malaria . A few years of this was all he could stand, and he left for Edmonton, a victim of gold rush fever. After an incredible journey by canoe, horseback and foot which almost cost him his life he came back from the Klondyke and became a cowboy. But this was too much for the seaman in him, and he returned literally penniless to England where he was immediately hired by the White Star Line . Now his career was on course he hoped for good . He had his master' s papers and in 1912 was third officer on R .M .S . Titanic, to the envy of his compatriots . The story of that hideous April night has been told and retold, but Lights's part in it and the aftermath is fascinating and enlightening. He was in charge of loading and lowering the portside boats and the collapsible Englehards. When the unsinkable sank he was dragged down with her but fought his way back to the surface where he and thirty other survivors stood and sat for hours on the BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS! Maritim e Histo ry, nd erwa te r Archaeology, Marin e Life, Etc., Etc. Se nd $ 1.50 for illustrated catalogue. ADVENTURE BOOKS De pt. H2 , 2 Coachm e n's Squa re Ne w Ca naan, CT 06840
bottom of an upside-down boat until rescued by the Carpathia . As the senior surviving officer he was subjected to an unmerciful grilling at the Senate hearing in Washington and later by the Board of Trade at home . At both inquisitions, without telling an untruth, Lightoller did his best not only to maintain his own reputation , but to salvage what he could · of Captain Smith's, J. Bruce Ismay ' s, and that of the White Star Line itself. Instead of being thanked by White Star, he was ostracized and ended up as the whipping boy for the line. Even after distinguished service in the Navy in World War I, when he returned to the line he was passed over for all promotions even though he was by now senior and obviously highly qualified. He had been in hi s bunk off watch when the Titanic hit the iceberg, but the stigma stayed with him and he never held a White Star command . Without a word of thanks for his loyalty and service, his resignation was accepted with obvious relief. He was only in hi s forties, but the years ahead as a civilian were the hardest in his life. In the long run, however, it was the White Star Line that was the greatest loser . In the late 1930s, taking a page from Erksine Childers's book The Riddle of
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