CAPTAIN LORD’S DEFENCE

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 39, 9 October 1912, Page 7

CAPTAIN LORD’S DEFENCE

DENIAL OF TITANIC ALLEGAu TIONS. CALIFORNIAN NOT NEAR THE LOST LINER. Mr Stanley Lord, who was captain of the liner Californian at the time of the Titanic disaster, and whoso conduct was adversely criticised by Lord Mersey in the judgment of the Court of Inquiry, has issued a reply urging that the allegations that his ship was near enough to the titanic to effect a rescue is unfounded. On the night of April 11th, he writes, having run into loose ice, and sighting field ice ahead, he deemed it prudent to remain stopped until daylight. The wireless operator had warned all ships in the vicinity, including the Titanic, of the dangerous proximity of ico. Signals Unanswered. “Forty minutes after midnight I I left the deck in charge of the second officer, with instructions to call me if wanted, and retired to the chartroom, where I lay down, fully dressed, hoots on, and with the light burning. “At 1.15 a.in. the second officer informed me through the speaking-tube that a steamer, which had been stopped in eight of us since 11.30 p.m., bearing S.S.E., was altering her bearing (in other words, was steaming way) and had fired a white rocket. Meanwhile, for over an hour, my Morse signals to this vessel had been ignored. The officer reported her to be steaming away, and I asked him if ho thought it was a company’s signal, to ‘Morse’ her again and report. The evidence of my officers from tine point is conclusive that I had gone to sleep. “A later message to the effect that she was last seen bearing S.W.-j-W., proving that she had steamed at least eight miles between 1 and 2 a.m. (the Titanic did not move after midnight) I have no recollection of receiving, and subsequent events were not regarded by the officers so seriously as to induce them to take energetic means of assuring my cognisance of happenings which should, and would, most assuredly have had my most earnest attention. 1 did not hear of the disaster until daylight, and that only after it was deemed safe for my steamer to proceed. “Preposterous.’’ “The evidence is conclusive that none of the responsible officers of the Californian were aware of the serious calamity which had taken place. That any seaman would wilfully neglect signals of distress is preposterous and unthinkable—there was everything to gain and nothing to lose. The failure to adopt energetic means of making me aware of the gravity of the signals is conclusive of the fact that my officers did hot attach any significance to their, flppjearance. /-(“The absence of any reply to the succession of Morse signals marie from the bridge of the Californian is further evidence which is entitled to some consideration. “When I asked the second officer the next .day why he had not used more ene/gy in calling me, and insisted oh my coming on deck at once, lie replied, ‘lf the signals, had been distress signals, lie would have done so, but as the steamer was steaming away, he concluded there was not much wrong with her.’ He was the man on the spot, the -only officer who saw the signals, so I think I am justified in relying upon Iris judgment, which ought to carry some weight. A Steamer Which Approached. “The evidence of the Titanic officer who -was firing her distress signals states the-steamer ho had under observation ‘approached’—obviously not the Californian, as she was stopped from 10.30 p.m. until 5.15 a.m.” The captain points out, too, that tiro Californian was not seen by the Carpathia when she arrived on the •scene of the wreck, as she must have been had she been in the position alleged, and ho urges that the steamer seen ffiy his second officer was not the Titanic, but a “tramp.”