"Did you leave the ship?" "No sir." "Did it leave you?" "Yes sir."

April 18, 2022 8:30 AM

110 years and a couple of days ago, Charles Lightoller was the senior most officer to survive the sinking of the Titanic. He oversaw the launching of many lifeboats, cutting the ropes of the last with a pen knife, went down with the ship, was trapped under water and survived because of a fortuitous boiler explosion. This would be his second newsworthy shipwreck of four. When not escaping sinking ships, he mined for gold in the Yukon, wrangled cattle, rode the rails across North America, won a firefight with a Zeppelin, sunk a U-Boat and had to return to port by traveling backwards in command of a badly damaged ship, ran long-distance surveillance off the coast of Nazi Germany, and rescued more than 100 people during the evacuation of Dunkirk while under fire.

(Single link to a wiki post, but the long list of original sources at the bottom are fascinating. I haven't yet read the listed autobiography.)

posted by eotvos (24 comments total)

Wow, what a life! Thanks for sharing, I would never have known about this fascinating man otherwise.
posted by rpfields at 8:44 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

quickly checks to make sure it's not somehow April-1. Gets to reading.
posted by philip-random at 8:48 AM on April 18, 2022

needs more of a multi-season show than a movie to portray such a life!! let's get started on a screenplay.
posted by supermedusa at 8:57 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Quite a career indeed! Especially striking is how much he had done by age 21, starting his career at sea at age 13. Not that I am in favor of that, it was certainly a different time, but still impressive!
posted by dellsolace at 9:00 AM on April 18, 2022

I'm starting to think he was bad luck.
posted by Bee'sWing at 9:03 AM on April 18, 2022 [17 favorites]

This guy is like the evergreen captain, you wonder why they keep giving him these enormous ships to captain when he keeps sinking them.
posted by subdee at 9:16 AM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

Well, I read TFA and he worked his way up from fourth officer, and didn't ship and any ships he was the captain of (and the article is careful to point out he was always off duty when the ships sank) so I will retract my comment.
posted by subdee at 9:28 AM on April 18, 2022 [9 favorites]

The actual World's Most Interesting Man.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:33 AM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

None of the tragedies or accidents seemed to deter him. Not sure if that is perseverance or necessity. Either way (or both), great story. Exciting life.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:36 AM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

His story of the Dunkirk evacuation is so close to one of the plots of the movie Dunkirk that I can't help but suspect that one or the other has been lifted without attribution...but perhaps there were enough similar tales that it is merely representative.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:44 AM on April 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

quickly checks to make sure it's not somehow April-1. Gets to reading.

wonders why there's a ton of Titanic articles floating around all of a sudden, remembers that it's the week of April 15.
posted by Melismata at 9:55 AM on April 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

It’s worth reading a biography or autobiography, there are events passed over in a phrase in that summary that would make thriller movies in themselves.

I remember thinking that the sinking of the Titanic might have been only the third most exciting thing in his life. Second if you include the court case.
posted by clew at 9:55 AM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

One of my childhood memories is seeing Kenneth More portray Lightoller in the film "A Night to Remember" Probably the best Titanic movie I've seen.
posted by Zedcaster at 10:07 AM on April 18, 2022 [8 favorites]

His story of the Dunkirk evacuation is so close to one of the plots of the movie Dunkirk that I can't help but suspect that one or the other has been lifted without attribution...but perhaps there were enough similar tales that it is merely representative.

I am almost positive the Mark Rylance character in that movie was directly based on Lightoller and I seem to remember Rylance admitting as such in an interview, but my google skills fail to come up with anything. I think the connection is pretty clear, though.
posted by fortitude25 at 10:18 AM on April 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

needs more of a multi-season show than a movie to portray such a life!! let's get started on a screenplay.

A better Forrest Gump it sounds like
posted by BlunderingArtist at 10:26 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

For those interested in more Titanic-related stuff, Tasting History just did a week of shows on the Titanic, focusing, as the name indicates, on the food served. Here's a dish from the third-class passenger menu.
posted by PussKillian at 10:53 AM on April 18, 2022 [6 favorites]

If we measure life using Lightollers, my life is approximately 0.1L.
posted by tommasz at 11:07 AM on April 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

In July 1939, Lightoller was approached by the Royal Navy and asked to perform a survey of the German coastline. This they did under the guise of an elderly couple on vacation in their yacht.

Shades of The Riddle of the Sands!
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:09 AM on April 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

Won a fight with a Zeppelin.... From his boat...
posted by Jacen at 11:26 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Lightoller's granddaughter tells the story about how My grandfather took Titanic's deadly secret to the grave.

(Basically: a steering blunder and going full speed after being hit. If the story got out, the insurance claim may have been denied and all sailors and employees would be out work).
posted by eye of newt at 11:52 AM on April 18, 2022 [8 favorites]

If we measure life using Lightollers, my life is approximately 0.1L.

Also known as a milliHelen.
posted by clew at 2:39 PM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

I was going to say that the highly detailed, internally lit, 20' long shooting model of the Titanic from A Night To Remember is in the Maritime Museum in Fall River but actually it's the shooting model from the 1953 movie Titanic which is an entirely different film.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:31 PM on April 18, 2022

I'm starting to think he was bad luck.

Or good luck--depends on how close you were standing next to him at the time.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:32 PM on April 18, 2022 [4 favorites]

depends on how close you were standing next to him at the time.

The Encyclopedia Titanica article relates this anecdote about the Dunkirk evacuation:

It is said that when one of the soldiers heard that the captain had been on the Titanic, he was tempted to jump overboard. However his mate was quick to reply that if Lightoller could survive the Titanic, he could survive anything and that was all the more reason to stay.

posted by zamboni at 7:52 AM on April 19, 2022 [6 favorites]