Transcript

5.8.26 · History Hour

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. This is Radioized History Show and I'm
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your reader and host for this week, Joseph Bolt. Glad
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to be with you today. And as we always need
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to do, we need to remind you that Radio I
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is a listener driven, so that means you, and so
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we welcome your comments or suggestions about what we do
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in our programming and if you have any thoughts, please
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call us at eight five nine four two two six
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three nine zero let us know what you're thinking. As
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you know, Radio I is a reading service intended for
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people who are blind or have other disabilities and think
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it difficult to read printed material. Well, I'll cite the
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sources as we go along. Today, I thought maybe we
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would talk today about the Titanic. Now, there's been a
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lot of stories, and we all know the story behind
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the Titanic, but I came across some articles this week
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that talk about those that survived and their lives afterwards,
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which is a little bit of a different twist from
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all the other stories we hear about the Titanic. So
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this particular story is entitled twelve Titanic Survivors whose stories
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reveal the tragedy's true scope, and it's from the website
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All That's Interesting dot Com, written by John Kroski, edited
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by Jacqueline angelis first published in June of twenty two
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and updated in April of this year, twenty twenty five.
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So let me get to reading this story of the
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estimated two thousand, two hundred and twenty four passengers and
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crew aboard the Titanic when it struck an Iceberg and
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sank on April fifteenth, nineteen twelve. Some fifteen hundred of
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those twenty two to twenty four passengers died in the
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cold waters of the North Atlantic. A mere seven hundred
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people lived on These are some of the most powerful
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stories of the Titanic survivors. The first ones that will
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look at are the Navratil Orphans. A dramatic divorce and
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scandal brought the young Michael and Edmund Navratil to the
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bow of the Titanic in nineteen ten twelve. They were
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accompanied on the voyage by their father, Michelle Navertell senior,
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who was still smarting from his recent separation from their mother,
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Marcel Correto. Marcell had won custody of the children, but
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she had allowed them to visit Michele over the Easter holiday. Michele,
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believing that his wife's infidelity made her an unsuitable guardian,
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decided to use that weekend to relocate with his children
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to the United States. He bought second class tickets on
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the Titanic and boarded the doomed ship, introducing himself to
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fellow passengers as the widower Louis M. Hoffmann, a man
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traveling with his sons Lolo and Momen. On the night
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the Titanic struck the iceberg, Navratil was able to get
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the boys aboard a lifeboat, the very last lifeboat to
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leave the ship. Michelle Junior, though only three at the time,
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remembered that just before placing him on the boat, his
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father gave him a final message and said, quote, my child,
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when your mother comes for you, as she surely will,
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tell her that I loved her dearly and still do,
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tell her. I expected her to follow us so that
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we might all live happily together in the peace and
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freedom of the New World. End quote. Those were Michele
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Navratil's last words. Though he died in the disaster, his
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sons survived. They spoke no English, and I have been
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in serious trouble in New York, but a friendly French
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speaking woman who also survived the wreck, cared for them.
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The publicity surrounding the Titantic sinking was what saved them.
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Their photographs appeared in newspapers around the world. Their mother
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home in France, had no idea where her sons had
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disappeared to and spotted their photo in the morning papers.
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On May sixteenth, more than a month after the ship sank,
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she reunited with her boys in New York and all
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three returned to France. Michele Junior would later recall the
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splendor of the Titantic and the childish sense of adventure
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he felt while getting into the lifeboat. Only when he
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grew older did he realize what had been at stake
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that night and how many had been left behind. Our
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second survivor, as you probably have heard, was the Unsinkable
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Molly Brown. Margaret Brown, famously known as the Unsinkable Molly
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Brown after she survived the wreck of the Titanic, earned
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her nickname by effectively taking over one of the ship's
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lifeboats and threatening to throw the quartermaster overboard. Her mission
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was to turn back to look for more Titanic Titanic survivors,
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and though history is a little foggy on whether or
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not she succeeded in forcing the boat back into the flotsam,
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she is remembered for her courage, and not only on
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that day. Margaret Brown grew up poor and chose to
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marry for love, a decision she thought was likely to
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keep her poor for the rest of her life. But
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her husband beat the odds and made good, and with
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her new found wealth, she became a traveler, socialite, and
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philanthropist who was never afraid to roll up her sleeves
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and get to work. She was on the Titanic because
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it was the fastest available transport to the United States,
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where a sick grandchild had caused her to cut short
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her travels in Egypt. When the ship sank, she fought
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to get as many passengers as she could onto the lifeboats,
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and was said to have taken up an oar herself.
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She put her fame. She put the fame of her
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role in the Titanic disaster. She put the fame her
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role in the Titanic disaster brought her to help rebuild
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France instead. Brown's remarkable story gave rise to both a
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Broadway musical and a film adaptation of her life. Eliza
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Melvina Dean. Eliza Gladys Melvina Dean holds a special honor
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of having been both the youngest passenger on board the
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Titanic when it sank, as well as the last living
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person to have survived the disaster. When the ship went
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down in April of nineteen twelve, she was just two
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months old. Dean and her family never intended to board
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the Titanic. They had initially booked passage to the United
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States on another ship, but a strike forced them on
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to the luxury liner instead. They were third class passengers,
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and because they were emigrating to Kansas, everything they owned
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was in their luggage. It was Dean's father who saved them.
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He had been on deck at the time of the collision,
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and he knew something was wrong. He rushed to help
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his wife dress the children and get them on deck
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quick thinking. That put them at the front of the
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growing queue of people scrambling for lifeboats. As third class passengers,
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they were at a disadvantage, but Dean, her brother, and
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her mother got on board. Dean's father never made it
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off the ship. After that, there seemed little point going
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to Kansas, so the shattered family joined a number of
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other heartbroken Titanic survivors aboard the r M s Adriatic,
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bound once more for England. On that gloomy voyage, the
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young Dean became a minor celebrity. She was a symbol
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of hope. Other survivors were pleased to see that the
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baby had been saved, and the crew took turns holding her.
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Many took photographs with her that later appeared in newspapers.
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Dean lived the rest of her life quietly, but in
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old age her Titanic fame caught up with her again.
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As the number of other survivors shrank, she was once
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more in the limelight. She received countless invitations to interviews, conventions,
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and come commemorating events. Dean died in two thousand and nine,
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and her ashes were scattered at the docks in Southampton,
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the berth from which the Titanic set sail almost one
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hundred years earlier. Here's another survivor, Miss Unsinkable Violet Jessop.
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The sinking of the Titanic was a disaster of such
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massive proportions that it tends to eclipse the tail of
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two other luxury liners, its sister ships. When the Titanic
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was built. It was one of a set of three massive,
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celebrated passenger ships, all of which encountered disaster on the
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high seas. Once, the Britannic suffered an explosion and sank
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in nineteen sixteen. The other, Thelympic, was involved in two
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devastating collisions but managed to stay afloat, and one woman,
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Violet Jessop, was unlucky enough to have been aboard all
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three as they met with disaster. Violet Jessop was an
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ocean liner stewardess, and by the time the Titanic struck
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the Iceberg on April fourteenth, nineteen twelve, Jessop had already
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survived one near fatal accident at sea. Less than a
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year earlier. She had been aboard the RMS Olympic when
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it collided with the HMS Hawk, a British warship that
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tore a massive hole in the luxury liner's side. The
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watertight compartments the White Star ships were famous for held
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and the ship made it the port. But the Titanic
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wasn't so lucky. As the ship went down. Jessup, now
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a veteran of calamity, was ordered to the top deck
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to help non English speaking passengers. According to her memoir,
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she loaded the lifeboats in modeled, calm, orderly behavior until
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she was eventually commanded to board Lifeboat sixteen. As the
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boat was being lowered into the water, one of the
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officers gave Jessp a baby to look after. After a
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long night in the ocean. Both she and the baby
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made it to the rescue ship, where a woman, presumably
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the baby's mother, grabbed the child and ran off without
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saying a word. Jessp retired from her maritime career in
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nineteen fifty with the nickname Miss Unsinkable, and she died
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in nineteen seventy one at the age of eighty three.
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Frederick Fleet, the man who yelled Iceberg right Ahead. Frederick Fleet,
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a British sailor, was just twenty five years old when
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he signed on as a crewman on the Titanic. He
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was one of five lookouts on the ill fated voyage,
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and it was Fleet who made the famous call to
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the bridge Iceberg right Ahead. At ten p m. On
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the night of April fourteenth. He took to the frigid
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Crow's nests with his watch partner, a man named Reginald Lee.
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The departing team warned them to look out for small
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bits of ice in the water, a difficult task. On
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a moonless night, at eleven thirty nine p m, with
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just twenty minutes left in his shift, Fleet spotted the
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iceberg suddenly off the bow. Panicked, he ran the rang
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the bell and notified the bridge. By the time his
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shift ended at midnight, people were already swarming to the lifeboats.
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He was ordered to row lifeboats six, the same one
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occupied by the unsinkable Molly Brown, and got his group
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of survivors to safety on the nearby r M S.
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Carpath Carpathian. Fleet's reception on land was mixed. Though he
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had spotted the iceberg, his roll in the sinking became
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the subject of a number of inquiries. The world wanted
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to know whether the disaster could have been avoided. Fleet
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always insisted that he could have prevented it if he
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had just had binoculars, something the Titanic's watch crew had
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asked for and been denied. As he reached old age,
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he suffered from depression and ultimately committed suicide in nineteen
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sixty five. The next survivor we'll talk about difficult name
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to pronounce here Masabumi Hosano, the only Japanese person aboard
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the Titanic. Masabumi Hossano ultimately endured the scorn of his
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countrymen for taking a spot on a lifeboat, not going
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down with a ship. At the time of the collision,
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Hossano was asleep in his cabin. He woke to a
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frantic knock on the door and the sound of footsteps
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in the hallway. He would later write that the scene
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outside his cabin was terrifying and chaotic. Passengers scurried back
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and forth as white flashes exploded above him. The crew
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was setting off emergency flares. When he arrived at the lifeboats,
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he was turned away. He was a foreigner, the officer said,
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and would have to wait on the lower deck. But
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when the man turned his back, Hosano saw his chance.
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A lifeboat called out that it had room for another
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two passengers, and after watching another man hop in, he
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wrestled with himself. He felt he should go down with
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the ship, but he wanted more than anything to see
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his wife and children again. He joined the man in
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the lifeboat, the screams of the drowning echoing in his
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ears as the boat pulled away. After making it back
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to land, Hosano reportedly lost his government job, suffered ridicule
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in the press, and served as a source of shame
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for his family even after his death in nineteen ninety seven.
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Charles lighttoler as the lifeboat were launched. Second Officer Charles
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Lightholder observed the woman and children First rule so aggressively
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that he sometimes let lifeboats go into the water with
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empty seats rather than let any men occupy them. But
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whatever people said about Lightholder in the tragedy's aftermath, they
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couldn't call him a hypocrite. The second officer intended to
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go down with the ship, and very nearly did. He
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was on the Titanic as it slipped under water at
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the bitter end, when there was no lifeboats left fleet
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feet below the surface. He was trapped against a grate
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when the ship's boiler exploded, sending up a blast of
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air that carried him to the surface. Afterward, he swam
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to an overturned collapsible boat where thirty or so people
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clung to life. He joined them and showed them how
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to shift their weight to keep the big swells from
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the sinking ship and from swamping their small craft together.
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They survived the night. When Lightholder was the last survivor
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to set foot on the rescue ship it reached them
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at dawn. In the inquiries that followed the tragedy, it
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emerged that Lightholder's life boat policy wasn't as hard nosed
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as it seemed. Doubting the strength of the lifeboat's davits,
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he intended to fill the remaining slots on the ships
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once they had safely reached the water line, but the
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men assigned to the tasks drowned before they could open
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the lower doors, meaning some lifeboats sailed away with empty seats.
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In the aftermoen half of the sinking, Lightholer made a
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number of recommendations for better safety measures and tighter regulations
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that could prevent similar disasters in the future. Many of
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his suggestions are now maritime law. Harold Bride, a junior
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wireless officer aboard the Titanic Titanic rather Harold Bride was
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one of the two people responsible for sending SOS messages
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to nearby ships, thus allowing the RMS car Carpathia to
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rescue the Titanic survivors. He and another man on duty
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Jack Phillips raced to send distress signals to nearby ships,
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but as the communications specialists, they knew that the closest
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the other ship would likely not arrive until the Titanic sank.
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They worked frantically until Captain Edward Smith came and told
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them they were relieved of duty. The ship had nearly
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lost power and only two lifeboats remained. They made a
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run for collapsible b and were just getting it into
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the water when a wave swept across the deck, tumbling
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both Harrow Bride and the upturned boat into the ocean.
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Bride and fifteen others scrambled on to the water log
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sinking collapsible and survived until other lifeboats collected them and
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conveyed them to the Carpathenian. Once aboard the ship, Bride
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got back to work and began helping the ship's wireless
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officers send messages from the other Titanic survivors. When the
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ship made land, Bride had to be carried ashore. He
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had sprang one foot in the plunge of the ocean
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and the other was frostbitten. After a night in the
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Atlantic frigid waters, Lawrence Beasley taking a break from his
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position as a science teacher at Dulwich College in England.
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Lawrence Beasley boarded the Titanic at Southampton with a second
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class ticket. At the time of the collision on the
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evening of April fourteenth, Beasley was reading in his cabin.
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Though he didn't notice the iceberg's impact, he did realize
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several minutes later that the ship had gone strangely still.
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On investigating, he was told that everything was fine, but
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a suspicion that something serious had occurred drove him back
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up on the deck, where he saw crew members beginning
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to ready the lifeboats. As a man on board the
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sinking Titanic, his chances weren't good, but luck had it
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that a departing lifeboat had room for one more passenger,
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and since no women or children were present, they invited
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Beasley on board. From the lifeboat, Beasley watched the Titanic
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sink into the Atlantic as its lights flickered and then
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extinguished forever. Following his rescue, he wrote about his experience
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in the loss of the s s Titanic, published just
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nine weeks after the disaster. More than four decades later,
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during the making of the nineteen fifty eight Titanic film
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A Night to Remember. Beesley famously crashed the set during
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the sinking scene, hoping to go down with the ship,
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but he was removed by the director Lucille Carter. Lucille
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Carter bordered the Titanic with her husband, her children, a
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small cadre of servants, and her husband's car, the twenty
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five horsepower Renault automobile made famous by the nineteen ninety
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seven film starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Despite her
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aristocratic upbringing, Lucille wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty
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and helped lead one of the lifeboats to safety. When
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I went over the side with my children and got
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in the boat, there were no seamen in it, she
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later said. There was nothing else for me to do
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but to take an oar inte. When Lucille emerged from
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the tragedy a hero, her husband, William Carter, wasn't so lucky.
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Though Lucille originally claimed that her husband had led her
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and their children to the lifeboats before going off to
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wait stoically with the other men, the truth came out
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in the divorce papers two years ago or two years later. Rather,
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William had warned his wife and children that the ship
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was going down, and then disappeared, only to reappear miraculously
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safe the following day on another ship. When Lucille boarded
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the rescue ship, William was already there. He greeted his
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bedraggled wife with a cheery salutation. According to Lucille, all
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he said was that he had had a jolly good
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breakfast and that he never thought I would make it.
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Noel Leslie a countess and philanthropist. Noel Leslie, better known
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as Lady Rothus, made perhaps her greatest mark on history
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when she took charge of one of the Titanic lifeboats
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and helped steer at the safety. She manned the tiller
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on Lifeboat eight, rowed and took the helm for more
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than an hour before stepping down to console a newlywed
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whose husband had been lost in the wreck. She gave
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her fellow passengers comfort, led them in songs, and saw
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them through one of the darkest nights of their lives.
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She didn't stop caring for the passengers even when they
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boarded another ship. She looked after women and children, especially
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the poorest passengers, and sewed clothes for babies. After making
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it back to shore. Lady rothus shied away from the
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publicity that rightly touted her as one of the disaster's
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great heroes. She did, however, maintain a regular correspondence with
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Tom Jones, the crewman who had been put in charge
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of her lifeboat. She gave him a silver pocket watch,
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and in return he sent her the plaque from their lifeboat.
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She continued to exchange letters with him until her death
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in nineteen fifty six. Well, I guess it's about time
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to close now. I'm hopeful that you enjoyed today's program
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as much as I did researching it and reading it
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to you. Thank you so much for giving me your
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time to day, I'm your host, Joseph Bolt, and I'll
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be back for another chapter of Radio I history. Until then,
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happy trails to you.