Charles Lightoller: Titanic’s Highest-Ranking Survivor w/Dustin Hyland

Rich (00:05.879)
Hello and welcome to Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs, Tales of Mishaps, Misfortune, and Misadventure. I'm your host, Rich Napolitano. Today I have with me author Dustin D. Hyland who's going to talk to us about his new book, Charles Lightoller. to talk about his new book, The Unsinkable Lights, Charles H. Lightoller's Epic Tale of Hope and Survival. Dustin, thank you so much for joining me.

Dustin (00:30.85)
Thank you for having me, Rich.

Rich (00:33.173)
we're going to get into the story of Charles Lightoller's life here in just a moment. But first, how about a little bit of a background about you and and your life? What have you what connection do you have to maritime history?

Dustin (00:46.486)
So I'm a I'm a retired US Navy sailor. I I serve for twenty-three years in the Navy, aboard several different platforms, several different ships, mostly a a shipboard sailor, in a variety of different missions and communities and things like that. And also just have always been a big history fan, especially maritime history. And

a big fan of of shipwrecks in general. I've been listening to your podcast for a while and you you do a great job just looking at various various shipwrecks and stuff and and kind of what drew me to this particular story, you know, there's no bigger shipwreck than Titanic and started doing some research on Titanic and and there's, you know, hundreds, probably thousands of books on Titanic already.

And I I

found out the ch the story of Charles Lightoller he was the second officer on board and and the senior surviving crew member that we'll we'll talk about here. But kind of what drew me to his story was outside of the Titanic. as we we've discussed before, the Titanic was just a very short period of of his life. It was 28 days of his almost 79 year life. and it was one of only four shipwrecks that he was on. It was the second of four shipwrecks. he was on

ships that ran aground and caught fire and he was in a revolutions and you know, did some treasure hunting and some some courageous stuff at Dunkirk and just a l just a very adventurous life. And the more I looked into it I realized it was a a largely unknown story. and it was I thought a story that I I would like to to tell.

Rich (02:22.622)
Mm.

Rich (02:40.648)
Yeah, I think even for hist history buffs that Charles Lightoller's story is a pretty deep cut. You have to be I would say, pretty interested in maritime history specifically to know who he is. And of course, he was one of the officers on Titanic when it sank. And he he went on to live a pretty interesting life. He got up got up to a lot of shenanigans, let's say.

Dustin (03:06.175)
He he did.

Rich (03:08.948)
So what first drew you to Charles Charles Lightoller as the subject of a book?

Dustin (03:14.413)
so I I I I I got a couple during my service time I got a couple degrees in writing actually and and I wanted to write something. I didn't know if that was gonna be fiction, nonfiction. but again being a a history buff, I mean I was kinda drawn to the nonfiction side. and then as I mentioned, once I really kind of found out more and more about him and the more I research just

crazier and crazier things that I found out about him. at the time, I mean so he he came out with a me his memoirs in nineteen thirty five

Rich (03:42.782)
Mm-hmm.

Dustin (03:51.464)
but they really only cover his time at age thirteen when he went to sea until basically nineteen twenty when he left the White Star Line. he lived until nineteen fifty two, so he lived you know, decades after that and he had as you mentioned, a lot of adventurous activities afterward. but yeah, the more I kind of

researched, I found it very interesting. Besides his memoirs I wasn't aware of any other book about him. while I was writing the book I actually found out about one more book that came out in the nineteen eighties, actually before Titanic was even read or discovered. But yeah, I just thought it was a story that was kinda worth being told.

Rich (04:37.886)
Was there anything specific that maybe surprised you as you started doing this research into his life?

Dustin (04:44.941)
not so much about Lightoller himself, but b maybe just maritime the maritime industry in general. you know, today you really don't hear about too many modern day shipwrecks, at least ones that that result in, you know, a decent loss of life. I mean ships run aground, they'll have fires, you know, they'll they'll take out a bridge like in Baltimore or down in Tampa where you're at, but as you've done some of those podcasts, but

we don't lose you know, a a large number of ships today. I mean and ships are a lot larger, there's modern communication and radar and and they're just they're all of course steel built ships nowadays. they're a lot safer. But what what kind of surprised me as I the more I read

was how often ships actually wrecked back back in the day. you know, when I heard of when I heard that Lightolar or discovered that Lightolar had been on four shipwrecks, I said that that that has to be like a record. I mean nobody is surviving this many shipwrecks. But the more the more I dug into it, you realize that shipwrecks were were pretty common, especially in the day of sale. I mean I I I read one statistic that you know

back in like the seventeen, eighteen hundreds, one out of every six ships that sailed from Britain didn't reach its designation, which which is which is kind of crazy. I mean, if you had a a one in six chance of, you know, crashing in in a airliner today, you're probably not getting on that plane. So it was it was very dangerous. I mean and and you know you've done a you've made a whole podcast about how how dangerous the seas can be, especially back then.

Rich (06:32.084)
Yeah. And Charles Lightoller like you said, he he went to sea very young. what did you learn about his his earlier life, maybe even before he went to sea or or his formative years as a mariner after he joined up?

Dustin (06:51.319)
So Charles and he he actually never he never went by Charles. He most a lot of people in Britain and everybody in his family at least, they went by their their middle name, so Herbert was his middle name. but traditionally he went by the nickname Lights, you know, after his his last name, Lightoller which of course gives the book it its name as well.

So he he was born in in 1874, March 30th, 1874, in Chorley, England, which is near Manchester, Liverpool, kind of up in that area. and he actually grew up I mean, he he wasn't the the you know the son of a a sea captain or anything like that. He he grew up in a family that actually was was pretty wealthy. they had made their money in the cotton industry. that part of England is is a huge

cotton area for refining cotton. And his his grandparents on both sides of his family actually owned several cotton mills in in Chorley and the family was was pretty pretty well off. unfortunately by the time that Lightoller came along in 1874, a lot of the family's wealth had deteriorated. Yeah they during the civil during the American Civil War and between 1861 and 1865

they weren't shipping cotton to to England to

To process. And it became known as the the cotton famine there. And it really hurt the industry. So a lot of the wealth that the family had had had evaporated by the time Charles came along. But he was he was like I said, born in 1874 four to Frederick and Sarah Lightoller they had several children before him. And unfortunately, his his mom Sarah died just a few weeks after he was born due to due to scarlet fever. So right away in life.

Dustin (08:51.023)
You he raised without his mother. his his dad tried his best. He had some private tutors for the kids and some nannies and things. But at at at age 10, when Lightoller was 10 years old, his father decided to move to New Zealand to raise sheep. So his father moved away. Lightoller and his two older sisters moved in with their aunt and uncle under the care of their aunt and uncle.

And then at age thirteen, Lightoller

By all accounts, was a pretty restless individual and adventurous individual, as we as we'll find out here. And at age 13, kind of on a on a lark, he he asked his uncle if he could go and sign up as an apprentice and go to sea. And he didn't expect his uncle to to give him permission, but it his uncle did. And so at age 13, yeah, he he went to Liverpool, which was kind of the Mecca of British shipping.

Yeah.

And he he hit Liverpool right around this huge conversion between the days of sale and the days of steam. You know, it was it was it was in full full transition mode at that time. so I mean the it was a bustling city with lots of piers. I've been there a few times and walked walked those piers and even it's a great place to go. but yeah, lots of of ships coming in and out of port daily. And he was just drawn to that that lifestyle at age thirteen.

Rich (10:25.704)
I remember a a a section of your book where he where he first arrived in Liverpool and you know, as as a boy growing up with these fantasies, you know, romantic fantasies of life at sea and on these tall ships. And then he gets to Liverpool and there's just these ugly steel, you know, steamships that didn't exactly match what his romantic fantasy was about going to sea.

Dustin (10:54.111)
Right. Yeah. I mean it's it's very industrial. very, you know, bare especially sailing ships, which is where he started his career. very bare bones. but yeah, I I mean it's it was definitely the romanticized idea of what life at sea would be like compared to to reality.

Rich (10:55.071)
Yeah.

Rich (11:13.994)
Yeah. one of his earlier experiences after joining up with the as a merchant mariner, he was shipwrecked in the middle of the Indian Ocean. that it it's a pretty fantastic story that kind of stuck with him for his life. But you wanna talk about that a little bit?

Dustin (11:34.292)
Absolutely. So that's that's shipwreck number one. so that was his his second voyage. His his first voyage was abo aboard the Primrose Hill, which was a four masted bark, pretty, pretty common. and he had signed up as an apprentice. it was a f it committed him to spending four years at sea and and you know learning literally learning the ropes of of seamanship. And his first voyage

Rich (11:37.632)
Yeah.

Dustin (12:04.175)
he did he did one voyage as i mentioned under the primrose hill his cousin worked for the same company which is probably how he got steered toward that that company in the first place but he had a cousin named William Lightoller

and his cousin was aboard the Holt Hill, which was a sister ship of the Primrose Hill. And again it was a four four masted bark. and it was under the command of Captain George Jacques Sutherland, who was this kind of

the Scottish captain who was very renowned for the speeds that he could for the speed that he could coax out of these out of these sailing ships. and the the the tale was that that Jacques Sutherland would never let another ship pass him and you know he would he would unfurl all the f all the sails and he would just he it it bothered him to let another ship be faster than his. So they they set out and

on which would be Lightoller's second voyage on the Holt Hill and right away the voyage doesn't go well they run into a storm and one one sailor is swept overboard to his death some of the masts are snapped and and they basically have to make some some temporary repairs and they they sail to Rio de Janeiro and they pull into Rio and

they they hit Rio at a at a very bad time. There's a cholera and smallpox epidemic going on. There's a lot of political unrest going on there and later shortly there's a coup that that happens. and they they they pull into this port, they spend some time in this port and Lightoller again he at this time he's fifteen years old.

Rich (13:37.568)
Mm-hmm.

Dustin (14:01.717)
Him and his some of his fellow sailors get in a little bit of trouble stealing fruit from local vendors and just leading the police on chases and just you know, teenage stuff, I guess, at that time. but they they get ready to to leave and they're they're heading to to Calcutta, to, to India. And they they get ready to leave Rio and ships at that time would use these giant pieces of of granite as ballast, you know, to keep.

the the center of of balance low. and what happened was they were having problems getting this granite down into the the the the bowels of the ship. And Captain Sutherland was was

getting a little frustrated by it. So he decided he was going to weigh anchor and get underway without all the ballast loaded. And so what that did is it made the ship top heavy and kind of unmaneuverable or har harder to to steer. And then adding to it is you had the prior damage from the storm. The masts, they were temporarily repaired, but they weren't fixed completely. So you had the ship that was

in a in a lot of ways probably shouldn't have gone to sea. But but they did. They they get underway and they're they're sailing east and right away they run into more trouble. They're some of the the smallpox epidemic that had been going on in Rio. Some of the his fellow sailors, some of the other crewmen got smallpox and and passed away. And that forced the captain to stop in Cape Town to to recruit additional help.

So and that just kind of added to the problem because now you had these very new new sailors coming aboard that probably didn't know the ship very well. so they get underway from from Cape Town, they're heading east, and at that time to kind of catch the the winds, the trade winds, what you would do is you would head pretty much due east until you reached the island of St. Paul, which is in the middle of the kind of the Indian Ocean.

Dustin (16:14.221)
And then at St. Paul, if you were going up to India, which was a major trading port for the British, you would turn north and then head up to like Calcutta. And St. Paul, it's a tiny little island. There's another bigger island nearby called Amsterdam. They were French islands, but they rarely, they were uninhabited. Very rarely did anybody ever go there because the shores around that island were pretty treacherous.

And so what happened was on the night or on the day of November 13th, they're heading east, and one of the lookouts spots another another ship, another sailing ship, and Jacques Sutherland again wouldn't let wouldn't let a ship pass by, so he had all the sails unfurled and they they took off and eventually left that other ship in in its wake. but as they continue to head east that evening.

he left all the sails up and and they were still heading at a pretty good clip and they were going into a into a storm that evening, probably around 8 or 9 p.m.

Lightoller was down below decks. He was off watch. and one of the lookouts spotted land ahead, called the captain. By the time the captain gets up there, there's really nothing they can do with with all the all the canvas out, and they run right into a cliff on on St. Paul Island on the western shores of St. Paul Island. they they ram the the the cliff pretty well. It actually knocks Lightoller out. he comes to after

Rich (17:50.377)
Mm.

Dustin (17:57.47)
A little bit of time, and you can kind of hear the chickens and some of the other livestock on board making some noise and stuff. By the time he came to, they had already put a string or a line on the front of the ship, and the and the sailors were sliding down that rope onto the rocks. it ended up killing one of the of the crew members on board. The chief mate was never found, but everybody else, the other 30 some.

individuals s scurried aboard in driving rain and and kind of sheltered for the night. The next morning they saw the ship and actually in in the morning it it looked like everything was gonna be fine. The ship was still sitting upright but as the as the seas kind of changed the the ship began to sink.

So they're stuck on this the St. Paul Island, as I mentioned. it's a it's a very small island, uninhabited. And they they start they get out there and they start exploring this island. And they don't find much there. There's really no trees, just some scrub.

Some albatross and some some penguins. it is far pretty far south, but they really they don't find much. on the eastern side of the island there's this giant cove. And several years before there was a British warship that had intentionally grounded there when they discovered a leak. And

They found wreckage of that ship and but unf and they they had about four or five of their little cutters from this ship. One of them was determined to be somewhat seaworthy and they kind of used that to go and start fishing. they started a fire, but but they had a they had a lot of problems because they realized that all the water was was brackish. They didn't have any fresh water there. so they were setting out daily to kind of explore the island, look for fresh water, look for for food. and this went

Dustin (19:59.36)
This occurred for eight days. They were there for eight days. it was a it was a major landmark that a lot of mariners use, as I mentioned, to navigate by. So they were hopeful that another ship would would pass by at some point. on the eighth day, the morning of the eighth day, one of the the crew members

looked seaward, saw a ship heading by. everybody kind of ran to the beach and they were waving their hands and they actually put the boat in the water and tried to row out to this boat but unfortunately the the ship nobody on the the boat saw them and kept kept sailing by.

So they decided we have to do something different. So up on top of the the tallest point of this island, they they they fashioned a flag and put it up there, and then they built a fire that that they hoped would be spotted from a distance away. And they didn't have to wait long, just a few hours later, later that day, this Australian ship was Coornag under Captain Hayward, and they they came by, they spotted the the crew, and

And stopped and and they rowed the the the cutter out to to the Coorang and the second mate tried to persuade Captain Hayward that you know they they needed to be rescued, that there was 33 people aboard. Originally the captain said, I can't take everybody, I can take a couple of you. And they they basically told him, you know, if you don't take all of us, the others aren't going to live. So eventually he

Rich (21:30.955)
Yeah.

Dustin (21:38.42)
acquiesced and and they all came aboard and he didn't have a lot of food on on board his own ship. They were it was bound for Australia. He didn't have a lot of of food but they were carrying a lot of sugar and he said they could eat all the sugar that they wanted. So you have a whole bunch of you know teenage apprentices just just chowing down on on sugar. But yeah, got to Australia and so that was his his first shipwreck.

Rich (21:58.017)
Mm-hmm.

Rich (22:05.608)
Wow, and that that story alone could be an entire episode of of this podcast. That's that's remarkable. and I'm sure there's a lot of details that that go along with that that we didn't that we can't talk about, at least not in this episode. But wow, that's that's amazing. And then on on to his second shipwreck on the George Stump. What what did he encounter with that one?

Dustin (22:10.911)
absolutely.

Dustin (22:21.687)
Sure.

Dustin (22:32.577)
Well the the second shipwreck was the was the Titanic. yeah, it was the Titanic. So I so after the the Holt Hill, you know, he he went back to sea. eventually he he stayed in Australia for about a year and and got up to had some shenanigans with his other sailor a as

Rich (22:35.898)
I'm sorry, yeah.

Dustin (22:52.299)
And we'll we'll talk about some of his later shenanigans. But he he yeah, it kind of wore out his welcome in Australia. He eventually returned to England and he served aboard. he actually went back to the Primrose Hill. He served aboard the Knight of St. Michael and a couple other ships. then eventually he switched to steam, and we had talked earlier about how you know he he he went to sea initially right at that that time when a lot of shipping lines were were making that switch.

Rich (22:54.526)
Yeah.

Dustin (23:20.391)
And he started his his career out working for the Elder Dempster line, then the Prince line, and kind of went through a variety of ships as he as he made his way up up the ranks. but eventually he needed he needed some

stability in his life. So in in January of 1900 he he he joined the White Star Line, the famed White Star Line, served aboard several White Star liners, started off as a sixth officer and slowly moved his way up. and then in 1912 he was selected as the first officer aboard the RMS Titanic.

So first officer, at that point, you would have your captain, which was Captain Edward Smith, your chief officer, which was Murdoch, Chief Officer Murdoch, who he had served with before. He had served with Smith on the Majestic as well before. and then he would he was set to be the first officer on board Titanic. so it would make him the third in charge. and then shortly before the ship sailed on April 10th, 1912, they brought in Chief Officer Wilde. He

served with with the captain on board the Olympic. It was Titanic's maiden voyage and they they kind of figured that they might need a little additional leadership for this maiden voyage. So what happened is there was a shift of officers and

Wilde became the chief officer, Murdoch moved down to the first officer, and Lightoller moved down to second officer. the the switch happened so fast, in fact just days before sailing, that both Murdoch and Lightoller actually wore their previous rank on their on their sleeves for that voyage. And and really, I mean it was probably it was only gonna be a temporary shift. by all accounts, Wilde would have left after that maiden voyage. He

Dustin (25:21.413)
he was given command of of another white star liner so by the next voyage by for Lightoller probably would have become the first officer but as we'll talk about here that that never happened so they the ship left april tenth at noon it it ran into trouble right away almost one of the one of the other ships in port the the SS New York

Slipped its its mooring lines and almost crashed into Titanic, missed it by just a few feet, which probably would have stopped that voyage and you know who knows what what would have happened in the future. But it it did avoid it. They went and they went down to Cherbourg France. They picked up

some passengers went to Queenstown, Ireland, picked up some more passengers, and they began to sail west toward New York on its main voyage. Lightoller being the senior or being one of the senior officers, the senior watchstanding officers, he would stand bridge watch with his team twice a day from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and he rotate rotated with the chief officer and the first officer in that rotation.

So the first couple days of the voyage went well. nothing too noteworthy besides some ice warnings about some icebergs and some ice fields ahead. But it it really was not uncommon that time of year to receive those ice warnings. Nothing that obviously gave anybody any any kind of apprehension about what lay ahead. And

On the evening of April 14th, Lightoller was on watch again from six to ten PM. He had just gone off a watch and did his his evening rounds and he was back in his cabin.

Dustin (27:24.117)
which was located just behind the the navigational bridge. he had been relieved by First Officer Murdoch, William Murdoch. And at eleven forty that evening, or eleven thirty nine I guess, the two lookouts in the crow's nest spotted a a dark mass in the water, called down that there was iceberg ahead, and you know, less than a minute later, the light the Titanic struck the iceberg and it it

scraped along the the ship's starboard side. Lightoller wasn't asleep yet. He he knew

⁓ i it sent vibrations throughout the ship.  it was felt differently depending on where you were at on the ship, but he he figured something was wrong shortly after Captain Smith had rushed on the bridge and and shut the engines down, the ship came to a to a stop. Lightoller stayed in his cabin. He didn't go anywhere. he figured he was just gonna add to the the problems if he went somewhere and if they were looking for him, he's he said, you know, his cabin was the best place for him to to be.

And soon after one of the other junior officers, or one of the junior officers came to him, said, Hey, we we've struck an iceberg. And so he got up, got dressed, he he threw his his jacket and everything over his pajamas, and he he went out to meet up with the senior the senior officers. And by that point the the true extent of the damage wasn't realized yet, but

Captain Smith had decided that they were going to prep the the lifeboats and and make them ready to put people in lifeboats. So Lightoller's job for the evacuation, being one of the senior officers, his job was to load the lifeboats on the ship's port side. William Murdoch, the first officer, his job was on the starboard side. and then Captain Smith and the chief officer, they would kind of rotate back and forth and assist and and work on other things. So Lightoller and other

Dustin (29:26.389)
other crew members began to load people into the portside lifeboats. and there's been a decent amount of criticism for Lightoller to this day of how the lifeboats were were generally loaded. Lightoller went by the the motto or the month mantra of women and children only.

men were to stand, you know, stand back while he loaded just women and children. Murdoch on the starboard side had a little more flexibility there. his wit his mantra was more women and children first. So on the starboard side, you know, if there weren't any women or children around, men could get into those lifeboats. And if you look at

Almost every male survivor of Titanic, they almost all left from Titanic starboard side. but again at at at at first there was really no sense of urgency. a lot of the pass you know, the the ship is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It's a cold night. the Titanic was viewed by many as being unsinkable, and there was a lot of hesitancy by by passengers to get aboard. And so many of the first

Rich (30:21.365)
Mm.

Dustin (30:44.687)
lifeboats on both the port and starboard side left the Titanic with with very few people on board, very very well below capacity. you know the the topic of lifeboats comes up often with Titanic

The board the British Board of Trade requirements were very lax and Titanic carried sixteen regular lifeboats, which was actually the requirement, and then four additional collapsible lifeboats. And they they met and actually exceeded the the requirements. The problem was ships had grown so large in size in the preceding decade that the border trade had failed to to keep up with with the size.

Rich (31:27.834)
yeah, you know, just to interject, something interesting about that time period that you know, may you know may maritime history buffs would would probably know, but the general public isn't aware of is that those big ships, especially I mean, we're talking the golden age of these ocean liners. they were seen themselves as the lifeboat. The the the the thinking was that

These ships are so big and so safe that if they were to get in trouble, that they would stay afloat for a very long time, plenty of time to get everybody on lifeboats, or or more likely another ship would come and assist them and get everybody off. So they viewed the ship itself as the lifeboat. So that's that's at least partially why they didn't have lifeboats for all, because because they didn't believe that they would need them.

Dustin (32:24.043)
Yeah.

Rich (32:24.214)
and and also like you were saying, though a lot of people just didn't want to get on the lifeboats. You know, they're on this luxurious ocean liner with all of the best accommodations, at least if you're in first or even second class. they didn't want to get into the lifeboat and go out into the cold water. They wanted to stay where it was warm. until it was too late, of course.

Dustin (32:47.531)
Yep. Yeah, and and and really, I mean, you you've mentioned some of the previous podcasts you talk about the the Marconi wireless system, you know, that had came along. And of course Titanic had it. They actually had two operators, which was rare. White Star Line wanted two operators for around the clock operation compared to most lines that only had one. and just a few years before in nineteen nine, the RMS Republic, which was another White Star liner, had had sank off

The coast of Nantucket, and they had used that wireless system to call for assistance. And there was a few people killed in the actual collision, but nobody died in the actual sinking. And it kind of reinforced that idea that yes, if there's a problem, the ship will stay afloat, it will be a lifeboat onto itself, they'll call for help, and you know, within hours, all these other ships will will appear and and rescue people, right? So a little bit of hubris I

Rich (33:28.896)
Yeah.

Dustin (33:47.358)
unfortunately. but but that was not to be the case. So you know the Titanic took it took two hours and forty minutes to to sink. but I again at first it didn't really appear that it was going to sink. So the the lifeboats weren't really loaded very very much to to c to p capacity.

Rich (33:47.701)
Mm-hmm.

Rich (33:53.152)
Right.

Dustin (34:11.017)
later on as the night went on they started loading them with more and more people and there was a more of a sense of urgency. but on on well on both sides of the ship, all the lifeboats were were launched by the time the ship sank. The last two, which was a a collapsible on the port side and a collapsible on the starboard side, they were pushed off the ship. but people were able to climb on board so they're still being used as lifeboats. I would I would argue because of

kind of the complacency and how long it took to load these lifeboats that if the li if the Titanic had had more lifeboats in this particular situation, because they weren't loading them to capacity,

probably no more people would have been saved anyway because they wouldn't have had time to load those other lifeboats. I mean maybe they could have disconnected from the falls and they would have floated free. So some of those people that ended up going into the water may have been able to climb aboard. So maybe that would have saved a few. it's hard to say. Hard hard to play Monday morning quarterback on that one, but Yeah. But

Rich (35:15.482)
Well yeah, in in hindsight it's easy, but w there was a controversy as well with with Lightoller about he he didn't believe the life boats were they could be they he didn't believe that the the falls would hold the boats, that they were gonna be too heavy. So he he at one point ordered some some gates on a lower deck to be opened so they could access the boats f

Closer to the water so it didn't put so much strain. what what what can you say about that? I I remember reading that in the book.

Dustin (35:49.838)
Yeah, so and and Leitroller wasn't alone in that opinion. Even though they were there were obviously brand new lifeboats and brand new falls and de and and well and davits and everything like that. there were a lot of people ca s even some of the other surviving officers, junior officers,

They later testified  the same thing that they didn't believe either that the new Davits would hold the weight of of 60 some people in these lifeboats, or that the lifeboats itself, unsupported as they went down the side of the ship, that they couldn't you know, hold that weight and that they would basically break apart and spill everybody into the water. so originally Lightoller the first boat that he tried to launch was was lifeboat number four. And

Rich (36:28.875)
Yeah.

Dustin (36:40.811)
The boats were numbered, even numbers were on the port side, odd numbers were on the starboard side. And so port side was just two, four, six, eight, you know, going back. So he tried to load, originally load lifeboat four. And originally he was going to lower it down to the deck below the boat deck, to the promenade deck. but then they ran into problems because there was closed windows and a a wood spar and things like that. and and he again, he wasn't alone in in trying to do that. Captain Smith was along.

him at that time and it was kept and Captain Smith was ushering people down to that lower deck. So he had he had the full support of the captain trying to do that. The other thing that he tried to do, there was various doors along Titanic on the port and the starboard side, lower down in the hull, where people would embark or disembark the ship. And it and they had him at different different decks on Titanic because depending if you were pulling into say Chebourg France, where you were loading and unloading with a

Rich (37:38.646)
Mm.

Dustin (37:40.878)
tender with a small boat or if you were in New York where where you were loading or or so Southampton where you were loading from the pier, it kinda depended, you know, you wanted different different decks where you would load and unload people. And so his plan was to open one of the doors down on I believe it was on D deck, so several decks down. So he had the one of the ship's boatswains and several of the the the seamen

go down there and open that door and his or try to open that door. And his plan was to lower the lifeboats down empty or near empty. And then that particular door sat, I don't know, maybe 10 feet above the water line. may maybe maybe I'm off a little bit, but probably 10 feet above the water line. So that way that boat could come alongside and load people from that from that opening. Which again would would if if it had gone according to

plan would have probably sped up

loading the lifeboats, not only would you have got more people on there, you know, light holder could have been launching lifeboats on the port side, while somebody else down below would be, you know, disembarking passengers and stuff down below. we don't really know whatever happened. The the the boatswain and the the six sailors, the crew members that he sent down there were never seen again. I I mean I suspect that they ran into a flooded compartment and just were just never able to to complete their tasks. So

Rich (38:55.574)
Mm.

Dustin (39:13.455)
So eventually he went back to just loading the lifeboats in the the regular manner.

Rich (39:13.77)
Right.

Rich (39:18.994)
Mm-hmm. And he was in his position, he was in charge of getting the collapsible boats launched as well. And if if I recall yeah, yeah, and one of them wa they had trouble launching one of them if I recall correctly.

Dustin (39:28.117)
He was the the two ports of him. Yeah.

Dustin (39:38.082)
They they did. So yeah, the both sides had had two collapsible boats. one was one was stored under the the forward lifeboat on the port side, one was stored under the forward boat under the on the starboard side, and then the other two were one deck above that, above the officer quarter. So essentially right above Lightoller's cabin. They were stored up on the deck. once all the regular lifeboats were launched, he moved to to the first collapsible on the port side.

they were able to to launch that. and and essentially they were yeah, they were like a canvas collapsible that you would pull up the sides on. so he he did that and but they they were only meant to hold, I think it was like 34, 35 people compared to the 65 that the the regular lifeboats were meant to carry. but as he as he moved up on top of the officers quarters to launch that final lifeboat, Titanic by that point was in its last minutes afloat.

The bow was, you know, most of the water rushed into the bow and and raised the stern up. I mean, everybody remembers James Cameron's 97 movie, and you know, you have the the big the stern of this this giant liner lifting up. so that's that's what was going on at that point. And so he's all the way kind of up forward near the bridge, near the navigational bridge, technically on top of the navigational bridge. And

The designers of the Titanic, ⁓ they had put that collapsible boat up there, but they had never figured out a way to actually launch that boat. There was no David up there. There was really no way to get it down. so him and a c Lightoller a couple others pushed the boat to the starboard side, or to excuse me, to the port side, pushed it off the top of the officer quarters, and probably damaged the boat.

Rich (41:14.432)
No right.

Dustin (41:31.209)
in the process and then the boat fell upside down on the deck. so it's upside down, it's laying on the deck. By this point water it's starting to work its way up the the promenade deck or the boat deck. and the ships again it's in its last couple of minutes. Lightoller realized there was no time to really launch that boat properly. you know

Panic was starting to set in amongst the people that were left on board by that point. They had been pretty calm up until that moment, but but panic was beginning to set in. and Lightoller decided,  he had been he had survived one shipwreck already. He decided, hey, this is this is the time to get out. So he jumped off the front of the ship and initially started swimming toward the crow's nest, realized, well, that's that's a dumb move. This whole ship is going down. So he he swam away. and if you again, if you remember the

Rich (42:18.878)
Mm.

Dustin (42:22.945)
97 Cameron movie. there's a scene where as the the stern of the of the Titanic lifts up and it it cracks the ship in half, but that tension and all that strain, the forward funnel falls down into into the water, and they show it in the movie. that funnel actually fell down just a few feet away from Lightoller. by that point he had swam toward the collapsible boat, that one that he had pushed off, the upside-down collapsible boat.

And there was a line hanging off of that boat, and he had grabbed onto that line and didn't didn't make an effort to get onto the boat at that point, but he was holding onto that line. Well, when that that funnel fell, it made a big cascade of water, this big wave, and it pushed Lightoller and that boat away from the wreck. and then eventually he climbed on board. There was about thirty people on board that that overturned lifeboat, and they survived on there for about

Yeah.

Rich (43:26.344)
Yeah, that was r really interesting to read about. very very nerve wracking even even knowing what happened that he survived. but the the way you describe it, that it was there's all these people jammed on a overturned lifeboat. Very delicate balance situation going on. And you know, they're all doing their best to just put their center of gravity over the boat, nobody move, any little slight change in motion could

could tip everybody over. And at one point when when the Carpathia w came eventually to to investigate what was going on, they could see the lights in the distance, but he had to shout to everybody no don't turn around, don't look, because he he was afraid everybody turning would just tip the boat over. So that was pretty remarkable as far as

staying out of the water, they were fortunate to not be directly in the water. I know there were some people hanging on to the sides that were not so fortunate and many of them didn't make it. But that's a I think a really good example of of Lightoller's life in general, that you know, not that he was any kind of superhero or anything, but and there were a lot of other people that survived. But he was just doing whatever he had to do one moment at a time.

doing his job and then and then doing his best to survive afterwards. So it's a it's a pretty pretty interesting story about about his survival specifically.

Dustin (45:02.239)
Yeah, yeah, he definitely, you know, he stayed calm in in times of disaster and and yeah, was able to you know, he was actually the last survivor to board the Carpathia. You know, all all the all seven hundred or so of the of the survivors were aboard the Carpathia, the the Cunarter. And so Lightjoller was the it was the last lifeboat that was brought aboard and he was the last survivor. And then Captain Smith, Chief Officer Wilde,

Rich (45:15.168)
Mm.

Dustin (45:32.343)
and First Officer Murdoch all perished in the sinking, so Lightoller becomes the the senior surviving crew member of of Titanic.

Rich (45:41.237)
Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's a really important distinction as far as w what's coming. You know, obviously there's going to be an investigation and a lot of questions. And as the senior most officer that survived, they're gonna come to him, as well as, you know, Bruce Ismay, but we'll t we'll talk about that later. so, you know, speaking of that, w how did he feel about being the only

Dustin (46:01.719)
Sure.

Rich (46:10.696)
Or being the senior most officer to survive when so many others died.

Dustin (46:16.293)
I mean he lost, you know, I as I mentioned, he had served with with Captain Smith and First Officer Murdoch previously on the Majestic. you know, and he and there was a lot of a lot of crew members lost their lives. I mean he he he was good friends with the the purser on board and the assistant purser and the surgeon and the and the

the assistant surgeon. So a l you know, a lot of those people kind of went from, you know, White Star liner to White Star Liner. And he had he had served with a lot of those of those people. So, you know, he lost a lot of close friends. but as as you mentioned, yeah, the burden kind of fell on him as the senior surviving crew member, to testify. So there was a there was a US inquiry and a British inquiry into kind of the loss of the ship and and

it was  his job to kinda go out there and and testify of, ⁓ the ship's speed and  which became a contentious issue and just a a lot of different things. And and Lightoller was a you know, he gets a little criticism for it. He was a company man. he kinda towed the company line. And you know, and I write in the book, you know, you have to think that when when the Titanic went down, he had just turned thirty eight years old.

or excuse me, forty years old, no, thirty-eight, yeah. Thirty-eight years old, I think just a week before or two weeks before. And he still had a lot of time

you know, left at sea, right? And he had worked with the White Star Line for twelve years at that point. he knew Bruce J. Bruce Ismay, the owner of the White Star Line. I'm sure he felt some kind of pressure if he wanted to keep his job to t kind of tow that company line. And so he was a big proponent. There was a lot of people when Titanic sank, that believed that the ship had sank all in one piece, that it hadn't broken in two.

Dustin (48:17.847)
and he was a big proponent whether and I I don't know whether he, you know, it was also dark very dark that evening. He was down in the water trying to survive at that same time. So his memoirs claim that the ship sank in one piece. there were many others that claimed the same thing. There was a lot of other people that said no, the ship broke in half or virtually in half and sank. And I you know, eventually when it was discovered by Robert Ballard in eighteen or in nineteen eighty-five, we we found out that it broke in two.

But

The Harlan and Wolf, it's a Belfast shipyard, they're the ones that made all of the White Star Line ships. So for them to have a ship, you break in half on its maiden voyage, would look poorly. You know, the British Board of Trade that that verified that this ship was good to go to sea just a few days before it left for its voyage, it would look bad on them. And then, you know, how much of the public would want to to go to ride on a White Star line ship again if they knew that the ships were

Rich (49:01.419)
Hmm.

Dustin (49:19.499)
inferior, right? So so Lightoller did a good job. He he he towed the company line. And what he found out after the British inquiry or after the American inquiry and the British inquiry is that really anybody that was a associated with the Titanic

was kind of blacklisted. he never did receive command of his own white star line ship. He and none of the other officers, any of the junior officers, some of them rose up through the ranks and stuff, but none of them ever got command of their own ship. It really if you were kind of involved with that tragedy, yeah, your your upward mobility was kind of limited.

Rich (50:01.332)
Yeah, they just washed their hands of of any any remnant of that sinking very clearly. That's that's unfortunate for him, but but they you know, the Whitestar was also taking some lumps prior to that, the Olympic had been involved in a couple of scrapes and damaged as damaged propeller and collided with the yeah, the collided with the hawk.

Dustin (50:23.969)
Yeah, the collision with the HMS Hawk.

Rich (50:28.904)
So Titanic going down was obviously a huge not not a not a good PR event for them, so to put it bluntly. but i he he moved on to to other things. So where did he end up after departing white stars?

Dustin (50:35.222)
Yeah.

Dustin (50:45.117)
Deal.

So after well he didn't depart White Star right away. He he stayed with them, you know, the Titanic was in April of twelve. So after Titanic, after all the inquiries and everything else, he went he went back to sea. You know, there were there were some crew members that never went to sea again, but he he went back to sea aboard the Majestic, aboard another White Star liner. there is probably some evidence that he probably suffered from PT what we would call PTSD today. there was this this

Rich (51:16.235)
Yeah.

Dustin (51:17.359)
Story that the following year after Titanic, he was playing tennis one day with he had a tennis court, I guess, at his house. And he was playing tennis on a hot summer day. He had gone upstairs to take a cold bath and just getting back in that that that water, because remember that the water on the Atlantic that evening was 28 degrees. Lightoller described it in his memoirs as like 10,000 knives being you know driven in.

into you. but but soaking in that cold water again kind of brought that back and his wife, Sylvia couldn't couldn't figure out where he was at and finally found him in there and she had to call a doctor doctor. So probably suffered, you know, some some traumatic

you know, mental fatigue and and PTSD because of it. but yeah, but he he rebounded, he went he went to served on board the Majestic. he eventually served or eventually switched to the RMS Oceanic, the former flagship of the White Star Line. He always described that ship. he had served on board several times and he always described that as his favorite ship. and he he was always convinced in his memoirs that that ship was built so solidly that if that ship had struck the iceberg,

that it would have stayed afloat, but you know, we don't know. But but it also happens to be a kind of it's a great segue because it's it happens to be his third shipwreck. So after Titanic, just two years after Titanic, the Great War breaks out, or World War One as we know it today,

And he was serving on board the Oceanic when it when it when war broke out. In fact, he was in, they had just left New York. They're on their way east to to Southampton when word arrived on board the Oceanic that that Britain had declared war on Germany. And so the Oceanic went to went to Southampton and the British Admiralty took over that ship, confiscated that ship.

Dustin (53:20.459)
and they turned it into an armed merchant cruiser. And they did this with the Lusitania, with the Aquitania, the Mauritania, eventually the you know, the Olympic as well. A l a lot of British ships. they had been partially built with government funds or government loans. They were

subsidized and some of their maintenance was subsidized. But from the start they were designed to be used for armed merchant cruisers, for hospital ships, troop troop ships, you know, they were they were large ships. unfortunately, Churchill, who was the first Lord of the Admiralty, they found out very quickly that these ships were were ill-fitted for that particular type of duty. You know, they used way too much coal for for fuel. They were just really too big for what, you know,

the the Admiralty wanted to use them for. And the Oceanic had been around at that point for about 15 years. It was built in the late 1800s. Unfortunately, now operating as the HMS Oceanic, it lasted less than a month during the war. They were they had converted it, like I said, to an armed merchant cruiser. It was up north of of England up by the Shetland Islands and its job was essentially to go out and stop

it was on patrol and it would stop suspicious vessels and search them for contraband or German German citizens, things like that. And unfortunately, one day they in September of of 14, they were

They're they had noticed that there was something wrong with their compass, for one. And then two, they had heavy fog and  those two things conspiring. And then the other problem that Lightoller points out, they had they had two captains. And as you know, as somebody that served in the military, having two people in charge doesn't really work. And and what happened was the the Royal Navy had decided to keep Captain Smith, not not Captain Smith of Titanic fame, because he passed away, but another Captain Smith who had been the commanding officer or

Rich (55:19.519)
Mm.

Dustin (55:32.584)
the the the master of the of the oceanic during its its civilian life. They decided he was a he was a Royal Navy officer, reserve officer, so they decided to keep him on board, but they also brought in a Royal Navy captain as well. And they had worked out this really weird where one was in charge of the ship at night, one was in charge during the day, and it was just this weird

you know dichotomy of yeah two different two different captains in charge and then added with the compass problem and the fog issues and they were they were operating in waters really that a ship of that size really had no business being in and they they ran aground the navigator on board was david blair who had been the original second officer he was a good friend of light holers he had been the original second officer on board the Titanic and then when the they did

Rich (55:56.362)
Yeah.

Dustin (56:26.019)
That officer shift and Lightoller moved down to be the second officer. Davy Blair found himself without a ship and left the ship and it may have saved his life. But he was the navigator on board. the ship ran aground and on this reef and they realized there was nothing they could do, so they basically offloaded as much stuff as they could, and then eventually the the seas took custody of that ship. they held an inquiry again, Lightoller,

Rich (56:38.731)
Yeah.

Rich (56:52.726)
Mm-hmm.

Dustin (56:57.057)
you know, testified at the inquiry, probably to no surprise, again as kind of a company man. He sided with the former White Star Line captain versus the Royal Navy captain, of of kind of who was at fault for for the wreck. eventually the Royal Navy kind of realized that they probably shouldn't have used the oceanic for that type of duty anyway, and they basically found everybody not guilty except for David Blair, the navigator.

And they gave him basically a slap on the wrist for it. So that was that was shipwreck number three.

Rich (57:32.042)
Hmm. Now it it am I if I am I am I remembering correctly that I'm sorry, let me do that over. I stumbled my words and then I hit my microphone. So Am I remembering correctly that the that was the last time that the Royal Navy used such a large ship like that as a armed merchant cruiser?

Dustin (57:58.05)
not the I mean I I believe that was the last I mean World War One was the last conflict that they used, but they continued to use them for a while for a while afterward. Yeah. I most of the bigger ships, I mean, 'cause Oceanic was a a pretty large ship, it was nowhere near the size of, you know, the Lusitania, the Mauritania, Aquitania, Olympic, Britannic, things like that.

Rich (58:07.934)
As troop ships and things like that, yeah.

Dustin (58:25.269)
The bigger ships basically ended up being either troop troop carriers or or hospital ships. some of the smaller ships, the ocean liners were still used.

for most of the war as Armed Merchant Cruisers. my my second book deals with Captain Henry Kendall of the Empress of Ireland that you you've done an episode on. And during the war he was on the Kelgarian, the HMS Calgaryon, which was also shipwrecked. and that ship was about the size of the Oceanic. and he served on there for well until late in the war when when that ship was lost by a German sub.

Rich (59:07.072)
So the oceanic was his third shipwreck. So let's move on to his fourth shipwreck.

Dustin (59:10.657)
Yeah. Okay. So yeah, after so he was a Lightoller like like all White Star Line officers, were basically they were members of the Royal Navy Reserve.

and that was a requirement at some level to to gain employment as as an officer in in most of these British lines. So when the war happened, a lot of them served in some other capac or all of them probably served in some other capacity during the war. So what happened was with Lightoller after the loss of the oceanic, him and David Blair

were assigned a desk job, I think, in Portsmouth, and they were sitting there in Portsmouth and they're bored. You know, he's this adventurous guy and there's nothing for him to do. And the pair, they found out about

This new mission down in south southern Britain down in the the Channel. and it essentially it was Q ships. you know, these these ships that were built in Queensland, Queenstown, Ireland, and they were disguised as like fishing trawlers and stuff. And they some of them had a s a full civilian crew, some of them would have a partial Royal Navy crew, and they would go out and try to entice these German subs that were

Hunting to come in close, and then they would try to ambush them with a with a gun and and fire upon the submarines. So David Blair and Lightoller, they went down, and eventually Lightoller gets command of this this Brixham Smack, this little fishing vessel called the Kermak, and essentially goes around you know the channel and he's hunting for submarines, not really finding anything, and he's he's

Dustin (01:01:03.935)
writing up all these reports about how he find these mysterious he found some mysterious stairs in a cliff and he thinks that the they're using this this house painted white up on a hill to signal German U-boats and kind of just a little bit of adventurous. You know, they're he gets in a little bit of trouble 'cause he he there's different stations that he's supposed to check into and he kinda blows by these stations without checking in kind of stuff. But that that was that Q ships was kind of short lived for him. He got measles

He had to spend some time, a little bit of time in a hospital. And then when he was done there, he got assigned to a to the HMS Campania, which is a former Cunarder that the Admiralty had converted into the first, essentially the first aircraft carrier. And they were, you know, the the aircraft, this was a another another, just like the submarines, kind of another new tool  war in World War I. And

The campania, they had basically built this giant ramp on there where it it carried these fourteen seaplanes and they would launch these seaplanes. They would use them for reconnaissance mostly, just scouting. And then the seaplane would land back in the water, and they had a essentially a a giant hook that would lift these planes back on board or whatever. And Lightoller with really no experience, they were they were two man aircraft. You had the pilot in the front and the the observer reporter in the back, and somehow without really any experience.

as the non-pilot in these in these seaplanes. he hated it, you know, they were very unreliable. They kinda they gave they gained the the moniker whites coffins because they were pretty dangerous. And he he hated every minute of it. But luckily by December of nineteen fifteen, he was finally given command of a small torpedo boat, HM TB 117, his majesty's torpedo boat. and he actually used that

Rich (01:02:42.367)
Mm.

Dustin (01:03:06.465)
To in July of 1916 to shirt at it shoot at a German Zeppelin. he he in the channel there was a whole bunch of German Zeppelins coming over for bombing missions over Britain and he fired three three shots at this German Zeppelin. he thought he had actually hit the thing, but the shots actually never never hit the Zeppelin. and the the Zeppelin ended up being chased off. And he was Lightoller was actually.

given his awarded his first distinguished service cross for that. I actually just recently I had somebody a relative of the the Helmsman it was the grandson of the Helmsman of that ship that was there for that event who

that he he got in contact mi with me and I was able to talk to him a little bit. I wish I had had that information when I wrote the book, but but yeah he was on there and and he has some paperwork from his grandfather that was actually signed by Light Lightoller. So it's kinda neat. but but because of that award and and stuff like that, he was given command of the of the destroyer HMS Falcon, which will

Rich (01:04:10.028)
Yeah.

Dustin (01:04:19.981)
so the HMS Falcon originally it was just it was assigned to the Dover Patrol. he would spend his time doing anti-submarine operations. They were they would basically go go back and forth between Dover and Dunkirk on in France, and they would deliver mail, they would do patr you know, patrol, they would check on sea mines, just various things like that. you know, during World War One, the the

British Admiralty, the Grand Fleet held all the you know, the the big dreadnought battleships and all the the good the good ships, the the capable ships. And basically the Dover Patrol was all these very dated, slow,

Rich (01:04:59.979)
Mm-hmm.

Dustin (01:05:07.039)
antiquated ships and they were mostly commanded by Navy reservists. there was there was kind of reading some other documentation there were there was a lot of kind of a love-hate relationship between the regular Royal Navy and the the Royal Navy Reserve. So you know somebody like Lightoller who was he was a merchant sailor, not a you know a a career Royal Navy sailor, he was never gonna get command of like, you know, a a cruiser or a battleship or something along those lines. But anyway

Rich (01:05:34.263)
Yeah.

Dustin (01:05:36.896)
so eventually the the Falcon is moved. in nineteen seventeen we were the British were losing so many ships that they they implemented the the convoy system, to keep these ships together and and

And so eventually the the HMS Falcon was moved from the Dover Patrol up to the North Sea, up in kind of northeast Britain. And it was assigned to escort some of these convoys going to various countries, bre basically bringing war material and supplies back to Britain during the war.

And what happened was on the night of March 31st, 1918, so the war is in its last six months or so, he's in in command of the HMS Falcon and they're doing convoy duty. And he was down in the wardroom, which is you know the eating area for the officers, and the ship's gunner, this warrant officer, was was at the helm.

And they were near the front of the convoy. I think it was 14 merchant tankers and and different ships. And they decided that they were they had to go to the back of the convoy. So the ship's gunner made a starboard turn to eventually bring them kind of alongside the the convoy, and then they would do another turn to bring them back behind the the convoy. And the reason for that was the operating speed that the the warships were heading was much faster than.

what these you know merchant ships could go. So eventually you kind of had to keep circling back. it was a move that they that this ship's gunner had done many, many times. But unfortunately, there were some other issues going on and he didn't he had moved the he was the officer of the watch. He had moved the

Dustin (01:07:27.471)
the watchstand or the lookout, the starboard lookout to an another area, so there's nobody watching the ship's starboard side. So he starts making this turn and there was another ship coming up alongside them. It was a the armed trowler HMT John Fitzgerald and the Fitzgerald basically rammed right into the side of the Falcon and and basically cut the ship in half.

Rich (01:07:52.566)
Yeah.

Dustin (01:07:54.366)
and cut the ship cut the ship in half. there was one sailor on board, George Laycock, that he was a stoker that was scalded with hot steam and and passed away a couple days later. And but but Lightoller was able to get everybody else besides him, the executive officer and then the ship's gunner, off the ship. And they were they were put onto the ship's lifeboats or lifeboat and rescued by some of these other ships that were part of the convoy.

And there's a scene that I I actually start the book with this scene and I I think it's such a British thing. Lightholer s you know sits the the ship is in no risk of sinking initially. It's just half of the ship is sit the back half of the ship is just sitting there. And the three men that are on board gather in Lightholder's cabin and they start a fire for warmth, because it's a by this time it's early April it's April 1st. It's a cold April day. And so they start a fire, they make tea and they start listening.

to a gramophone that that Lightoller has and they're just listening to music for hours, essentially waiting for the ship to sink 'cause they they can't they refuse to leave the ship until it till it sinks. They don't want it to fall into the enemy's hands or whatever. And so after several hours they decide, hey, we're gonna get off this thing so they jump into the water and they're eventually rescued by one of the trawlers and then

Just like all the other shipwrecks it goes to a a naval inquiry where the ship's gunner and Lightoller were found not guilty in the loss of the of the Gary. Or excuse me, of the Falcon.

Rich (01:09:31.303)
Yeah.

yeah, and it's it's remarkable too for for somebody like him that had so many experiences that you know, each time this these things happen, there's obviously going to be some some kind of inquiry and or investigation, but he was not at fault for any of them. I I was joking with somebody once about Charles Charles Leitler and about how many shipwrecks how many shipwrecks he had been on.

And that person just said, Well, w why didn't everybody just stop getting on a ship with him? Like, well, it wasn't his fault.

Dustin (01:10:09.174)
Yeah, yeah, I mean

All four ships that he was on that sank, he was he was never on the bridge when when it happened. He was usually in his room or in his cabin when it happened. But and I've had, you know, as I've told the story to people or or or, you know, I've had a lot of people like, he was very unlucky, kinda the same thing. Why would you get on ship? And I I would argue that, you know, he was probably I mean, he survived all four and he survived all these other things. I would say that he was actually very lucky. you know, so but but again, I mean, w as I dug into this this

story and really realized how often ships wrecked, there was a lot of people out there that survived multiple shipwrecks. Maybe not four of Obviously maybe not to the notoriety of the Titanic, but there were a lot of people that that survived shipwrecks.

Rich (01:10:58.647)
Yeah. now we're gonna move on to maybe the most extraordinary thing that Charles Lightoller did during his life, at least in my opinion. he was involved in the now miraculous moment in history, the Dunkirk evacuation. So how how did he get involved in that?

Dustin (01:11:10.839)
Sure.

Dustin (01:11:23.021)
So, you know, after the after the war ends, he goes back to the White Star Line. as we mentioned before, you know, a lot of the officers were were kind of blacklisted. and he it by February of nineteen twenty, so just a year and a half after he had returned, or not even a year and a half, he kind of realized that his

chances of commanding a vessel were were gonna be slim with the White Star Line. And and I think a lot of it too, I talk about in the book. You know, he went from, you know, shooting at German Zeppelins, he we didn't even get to this, but he used one of his boats to during the war to ram a German U-boat and sink it. you know, and so a very, a very adventurous time during the war, right? And then you go back to, you know, just kind of the the North Atlantic r route, right? And it's it's kind of

Rich (01:12:03.297)
Hm. Yeah.

Dustin (01:12:16.719)
Boring mostly. I mean and obviously in the civilian side, you know, boring is a good thing, but but boring and then kind of knowing that he was never gonna get a ship, he he resigned from the White Sur line in nineteen twenty. and then he went through a various

collection of of jobs. He started a business with his relative importing fur furs from Canada. He wrote for different publications, he ran a lodging house, he raised chickens. he tried to co-found a another shipping line that didn't that didn't work out. Just he he raced motorboats. He he planned treasure hunts. You know when he was on when he was marooned on St. Paul Island he he was

sure that pirates had left treasure there. And so he decided he was going to make a trip back there. Never did, but tried to plan a trip to go back and search for treasure. Just again a very adventurous life, right? And but as he as he got older, you know, the the love of the sea had never left him. And as I mentioned, he had he had raced motorboats and he had some success actually doing that. But he decided that he wanted to buy a

A boat that his whole family could go on. You know, by this time his kids are older. he he had three sons and two daughters, and he wanted something the family could take out and and go out on the channel and go around Europe. So in the early 1930s or late late 20s, really, he found this old Royal Navy steam pennis that ironically was built in nineteen twelve, the same year the Titanic was lost. And he he had the boat completely

redone, extended, new engines in it and everything. And he he christened it the Sundowner.

Dustin (01:14:07.689)
And that's his wife was Australian and Australi a sundowner in Australian is kind of a a term for like a hobo or a wanderer, which I I think in a lot of ways, you know, the the the wandering spirit kinda you know encapitates Lightoller. So I think it was a a good choice of names. So he they build the Sundowner and

you know, they they take it on family trips around the Channel to various ports like Dunkirk and and and stuff and they take it up to the Baltics on this big adventure and just all around and and you know, by this time he's he's well into his sixties. He's he's he's older.

And he's he still has some he's still doing some real estate development and he he's still raising chickens and things like that. But he's he's slowed down a little bit. And what happened was in in July of thirty-nine, so just a month or two before the war broke out, well, World War Two broke out, the the Royal Navy came to him and and basically asked him to go and spy on German defenses off the coast of Germany. And

It's it's a really funny story. I'll I'll I'll I'll leave the details to the reader, but essentially him and his wife go out there and he's making maps and things of the German coastline for an invasion and and kind of gets caught up a little bit and gets out of it. It's it's kind of a funny story. But the war breaks out and unfortunately World War Two proved pretty tragic for the Lightoller family.

on the first day of the war, their youngest son Brian, he was a RAF pilot, was killed in the first air raid of the war. And then, you know, shortly after, in May of May of nineteen forty,

Dustin (01:16:01.974)
You had the phony war in there and by May of nineteen forty, you know, the same day that Churchill takes over as the Prime Minister, the Germans bust through the lines and they come flying into Belgium and and and France. And you have well over four hundred thousand, almost half a million British, French, and Belgian troops that are on the run. And they're they're racing back, trying to get back to the French ports, to get back across the Channel. And they're they're

dumping their their equipment and just they're on they're on the run. and basically by the time that these troops get back to the the French ports, the Germans have already captured most of the ports and the only one that's still available to get troops out of there is Dunkirk.

And so what happened was the the Royal Navy was engaged in a lot of other stuff and they didn't have the ships to go and get, you know, almost half a million troops off the off the beaches of Dunkirk. So what happened was they they went out to the British public and this is this is known as Operation Dynamo.

And it it's I mean, one of the largest evacuations in world history. And Lightoller was sixty I mean, he's sixty-six years old at this point. And they they went out to the public and they said, Hey, we need to we need basically any boat that you have, we need to to confiscate your boat. And the vast majority of the boats were actually confiscated by the Royal Navy and they were actually manned by the Royal Navy, not by civilians. But what happened was one night

one night Lloyd Lightoller gets this phone call for these two Royal Navy officers to meet him down in the the basin where the Sundowner was being kept at. He he gets down there and they said, Well, we wanna we wanna take your boat. you know, it's a 58 foot motor yacht. We want to take this boat to Dunkirk. And he said, Well, no way. He said, If if anybody's gonna take my boat, it's gonna be me and my son. So again, Leit Toller had.

Dustin (01:18:15.215)
66 years old, his son, I I think he was in his mid-30s, and then this 18-year-old Sea Scout named Gerald Ashcroft. it's kind of like a Cub Scout, but for the Sea, the Sea Scout.

They set off with with a whole bunch of other boats. They go down to Ramsgate down on the the channel. And at the time the British were using the Royal Navy was using the Dover for the larger ships to go back and forth to rescue people from Dunkirk. And the smaller boats were leaving from Ramsgate. So he sets out from Ramsgate.

to go to Dunkirk and there's German aircraft in the air and they're they're shooting at him, they're dropping bombs on this on this or near this ship. they had mined the water so so the boat you know, Lightoller, his son Roger is at the helm, Lightoller is up in the bow, kind of directing the path or whatever. And it's very it's a very nimble ship. I've been on board.

it's it's being restored right now over in England. I was on board about three years ago. they they gave me a piece of it I actually brought back to the States with me. So but it it's a very small, nimble boat, and they're avoiding, like I said, sea mines or avoiding, you know, fire or gunfire and and bombs. They come across this other little British boat called the Westerly that's on fire, and they find five people on board, and that boat was coming from Dunkirk already, but it was on

Rich (01:19:21.308)
wow, great.

Dustin (01:19:47.826)
fire, they had some kind of engine problem. So they pull up alongside, they rescue those five people off of that boat. and then they had just got away when that boat blew up, which the big you know ball of fire attracted even more German aircraft. So more German air aircraft come in and they're shooting and dropping bombs on the Sundowner and it's it's avoiding these avoiding the

 the d the damage. at some point one of the bombs had landed close enough that it opened up a few of the seams. And so the boat did start taking on a little bit of water. Lightoller rushed down down below the pilot house and started up one of the the bilge pump and is trying to pump this water out. And they eventually get into Dunkirk, Dunkirk Harbor, and they pull along one of these moles or these big piers that they have there. And

They pull up alongside the HMS Worcester, which is destroyer, and the Lightoller approaches the captain of this destroyer, and the captain's like, Well, how many how many people can you get on board this ship? Well, Lightholer had at one point he the the boat was only built for like a dozen people, but at one point he had had twenty-one people on this boat. And Lightoller says, I can get a hundred on this on this boat. And the c captain kind of looks at him, you know, in shock, but he's like

I can get a hundred on here. So they they start they start loading people on there. I I've talked to some of the relatives. In fact, one of the son a son of one of the guys that was on that boat. And his his dad claims I w his dad's passed, I wasn't able to talk to his dad, but his dad claims that there were so many people hesitant to get on that boat that they actually

pull the g pulled guns and forced people onto the sundowner at gunpoint because some of these soldiers on the beach they felt much more comfortable on the Worcester than they felt on this tiny little motor yacht. But one way or another they they kept loading this boat or kept loading the sundowner out with people. Lightoller had everybody throw their

Rich (01:21:42.583)
my god.

Dustin (01:22:01.154)
their weapons, their helmets, their boots into the into the harbor, because they didn't need that extra weight and that extra, you know, equipment. And by the time he was done, again, this boat, you know, was built for like a dozen people. he had 130 people on board this. It was a it was you know, a hundred and including the people that he had rescued off off of the Westerly, it was 127 people plus the three that had taken it from Ramsgate. so the boat is barely afloat. It's only a couple inches of you the gunnels

Rich (01:22:16.087)
So that's amazing.

Dustin (01:22:31.127)
Only a couple inches above the water. They're heading back across the channel. Again, they're being shot at, bombs dropped on them.

Rich (01:22:33.109)
Yeah.

Dustin (01:22:39.185)
somehow they they make it back. and you had you had mentioned earlier about how when Lightoller was on the the overturn lifeboat in on Titanic, he had basically he had people lined up in two different rows and he basically leaned, you know, one way or another, or had people lean one way or another to kind of balance out this boat as the weather started getting worse. And he did the same thing here again, the perfect parallel. He because of the amount of

people on board. He had people leaning one way or another, 'cause as as these other boats would head by at high speeds to go rescue other people, it would create a wake and of course the boat was only sitting a couple inches above the water. so he had people, you know, kind of counteract that that, you know

that movement. But they get he gets them back to Ramsgate. they were all soldiers and he he mentions, you know, not a lot of them were great guys, but they really weren't built for the sea and he had a lot of a lot of vomit to clean clean up afterward, but he they cleaned up the vomit. He he, you know, prepared the boat to to go back out again. But by this time that by this time it was like the fourth or fifth day of the Operation Dynamo.

the the Sundowner wasn't armed and it had a top speed of about ten knots. It wasn't extremely fast. So at by that point the Admiralty's like, you're not taking this boat back out there again. the Admiralty actually took possession of that boat and it served during the war as essentially as a patrol craft throughout the rest of the war. Lightoller himself moved on and served with the s small ve vessels pool and basically I mean again he's

Rich (01:24:03.615)
Ha ha

Dustin (01:24:22.893)
you know, in his by this time his late sixties, and he w he would move boats and different naval assets from one port to another. And so he he was still out there even at in his late sixties, still supporting the war.

And then kinda t kind of as as a bookend of tragedy, in the last month of the war, last two months of the war, his son Roger, which was the son that had gone with him to Dunkirk, was killed in the Granville raid in France. So he lost his youngest son and his oldest son in the war.

And then after the war he he still wasn't ready to slow down and he started a shipbuilding business or ship repair business with his son Trevor, his one remaining son. And and then eventually, you know

he passed away in December of nineteen fifty two, during the great London smog that killed about twelve thousand Londoners. but yeah, just a a very adventurous, just a a great a great story, I think, of just of hope, of survival. just a a really interesting and largely unknown story, I think, you know, outside of the, you know, the real maritime historians like you said. I mean I've I have told this story to

hundreds and hundreds of people. I've had like three people who knew who he was, right? You know, and all three of they knew him because of Titanic, right? They didn't know they didn't know about Dunkirk or about the other stuff, so

Rich (01:25:46.113)
Yeah.

Yeah, right.

Rich (01:25:53.362)
And and again, I think there's you know, we talked about a lot already, but there are so many other details that you write about in the book. a lot about his family, some of his personality traits, you know, he's very mischievous kind of guy. He got into some trouble now and then. so there's a lot to be to be gained about his life and his personality from from your book. but what in your opinion?

What is his what kind of a man was he? how would you describe him? Obviously courageous, adventurous, but what's your take on on on him as a man?

Dustin (01:26:35.077)
yeah, I I adventurous would be the I mean the one word, I mean, definitely. I would say, you know, like cool cool under fire. I mean he had he was you he faced a lot of you know, life or death a different thing, you know, life or death situations and he was always able to, you know, to come through and and yeah, but just yeah, just very adventurous and and cool headed, I would say.

Rich (01:27:02.123)
Yeah. Would you say he had any weaknesses?

Dustin (01:27:07.641)
Rich (01:27:09.591)
I mean, we all do.

Dustin (01:27:10.829)
Yeah, sure, sure. I mean for the for the critics of Lightoller, you know, they'll they'll point to on Titanic they'll point to, you know, that he

potentially sentence a lot more people to death by not loading those lifeboats out to capacity, right? And and again, it's it's very in hindsight, it's a very easy to look back, like, yeah, you could have saved all these people. I would argue, I don't necessarily know that even at two hours and forty minutes, that they would have had the time to to load all those lifeboats.

Rich (01:27:42.23)
Mm-hmm.

Dustin (01:27:48.482)
But th the the critics will point out some of that stuff. there are a few questionable situations that he talks about in his nineteen thirty-five memoir that some people have called have questioned a little bit of the honesty in it. I I guess I kinda look at most of it. He you know, in his memoirs he writes he they were written in the mid-19

mid nineteen thirties and he goes back into, you know, the eighteen eighties when he first went to sea. Well, how many of us could remember forty, fifty years ago, all the exact details, right? So there's probably a few names that are messed up and and things like that. we didn't really get into the the U-boat attack when he rammed a U-boat, but the the captain of the the commander of the U-boat did accuse

him and his crew of a of a war crime after the sinking of of opening fire. So there are some critics out there that will point like, he opened fire on these survivors. it's questionable. I mean th the the accusation wasn't raised till years afterward, when Germany was on the brink of another world war and this guy had written this book about it.

And Lightoller himself,  he's not accused of actually opening fire, but his crew was and him  not stopping that. And in his own memoir or his own writing, he says, you know, I wasn't I wasn't gonna give up on any of that or give into any of that hands up, kind of surrender kind of thing. he did have an a l and this isn't uncommon of mariners of that era, he did have a deep hatred of of some mariners. He

A lot of you know, it was a new weapon. It was very destructive. It killed, you know, I mean, look at like the Lusitanian stuff. It killed a lot of a lot of people. but it was it was

Rich (01:29:41.473)
Mm.

Dustin (01:29:52.694)
kind of looked at by a lot of British mariners as kind of ungentlemanly warfare, right? I mean, you you're not facing off, you know, a destroyer on destroyer. You're looking at, you know, you're hiding in the depths and stuff. so he he really did have a a pretty good hatred that he talks about several times in his memoirs about how much he disliked submariners. And I I do kind of find I find it ironic that his grandson, he he his oldest grandchild, Timothy, he lives up in Scotland

And he's a retired Royal Navy officer and he actually commanded several British nuclear submarines. And I always thought, boy, if he if if he knew that his oldest grandson, who he knew, because his Timothy was like ten years old when his grandfather passed and spent time with him on the sundowner and everything. But I always wondered like how Leitholer would feel about his son becoming a a submariner down down the road.

Rich (01:30:31.617)
Ha ha ha.

Rich (01:30:37.174)
Yeah.

Rich (01:30:46.549)
Yeah. Well, again, I think there's there's a lot of nitty gritty details that like like you're talking about the the sinking of the sub, the the allegations against him and and and those kind of things that can be left for those who purchase your book. but one last question, and this time about the writing of your book. You mentioned the memoirs

Written by Charles Lightoller, but what other sources did you use to piece together his lifetime?

Dustin (01:31:22.145)
Sure. So I mean the memoir, you know, was kind of the the outline, right? Kinda gave me the the bare facts.

Rich (01:31:27.063)
Sure, yeah.

Dustin (01:31:27.537)
but again, I mean, memoirs, autobiographies, you do have to kind of look at them with a little bit of you know, a careful eye. not not in again, not everyone is written with, you know, complete inaccuracies or not intentional inaccuracies. I mean you're just a lot of memoirs are written many, many years after the fact and and details fade, right? But so I kinda took, you know, use that as the base and then I I I dove deep and I mean I I forget exactly.

Rich (01:31:36.897)
Yeah.

Dustin (01:31:57.364)
Exactly how many different sources I use for this this particular book. But I spent a lot of time at the the British National Archives and in Kew going through various you know original documentation. read, I mean, I don't know, maybe 75, 100 different books from everything from, you know

the history of sail of sailing ships to World War One to Q ships to you know, to kind of get that context and and stuff. one of the one of the

sources that I use what I found particularly interesting was newspapers dot com. you know, at this time there was tons and tons of newspapers and you're getting people that are, you know, being interviewed by reporters within days, weeks, you know, or a month of of a tragedy or something. And so you're getting you know, this isn't, you know, hearsay or something, you know, twenty years after the fact, but you're getting a lot of really good quotes and a lot of context for for different events. So

That was very, very helpful.

Rich (01:33:08.181)
Well, the book is Unsinkable Lights, Charles H. Lightoller's Epic Tale of Hope and Survival by Dustin D. Hyland. And where can everybody purchase the book if they choose to?

Dustin (01:33:21.995)
it's  it's available on the publisher's website. it's a UK publisher, pen and sword, Barnes and Noble, or I I do have sign copies on my own website, Dustin Hyland, that's Hyland H Y L A N D, but dustinhyland.com

Rich (01:33:39.095)
Great. And anything in the works that you want to mention?

Dustin (01:33:42.726)
so I'm I'm working on you know my my we talked, you know, before recording. so I'm I'm working on my my third book now. My my second book got picked up by by the same publisher Pen and Sword. Should be coming out probably early next year and that's you know, I I I had such a fun time writing a solo biography that I decided I was gonna write a three part biography for the next one. and it ended up being ridiculously long. I had to make

Rich (01:33:44.096)
Ha ha ha.

Rich (01:34:12.471)
Mm.

Dustin (01:34:12.753)
A lot of cuts. I had to cut about half the book. It was it was like two hundred and thirty some thousand words. but it's actually a a a a triple biography of Captain Edward Smith of the Titanic, Captain Henry Kendall of the Empress of Ireland, and Captain William Turner of the Lusitania. you know, for I mean most of the listeners are gonna be aware of it, but those are at the time those were the three largest shipwrecks in the world.

Rich (01:34:36.791)
Yeah.

Dustin (01:34:39.221)
the three largest shipwrecks in the world, and they all happened within three years of each other. And so it it's kind of telling the stories of those three shipwrecks through their captains. and I I have a personal attachment to the Empress of Ireland. I know you did a episode early in the podcast on the Empress. And largely unknown, especially compared to the Titanic and the Lusitania, but my my great great grandfather was actually on the Empress of Ireland when it sank.

Rich (01:35:08.289)
Wow.

Dustin (01:35:08.975)
he was a third class passenger. He was heading back to to Sweden. he was very lucky he actually survived. He was he was actually knocked knocked out. they threw him in with the pile with all the

all the victims and at some point he must have moved or something and somebody's like, he's still alive. he lived for a couple of years after that. He had a lot of health issues and kinda died because of some of the of of the exposure. But but I I've always found that a very interesting story and and again, kinda like the Lightoller story, largely unknown outside of Canada and and, you know,

marine hers maritime historians. So, yeah, working on that I mean, that one's off to the publisher and then my my third book I'm I'm

getting close to the the the first draft, finishing the first draft, and that's that's another two part biography on Captain William Turner again of the Lusitania and Captain Charles McVeigh of the USS Indianapolis. and th those two stories have a lot of parallels. Essentially they were both you know, both both of them were torpedoed by submarines. And essentially those two captains were kind of blamed for the loss of their ships, right? And there there's a lot of parallels between those two. So that's

Rich (01:36:10.941)
Right. Hmm. That's a good story.

Rich (01:36:29.013)
Yeah, that story about Charles McVeigh is that's that's a really interesting story and very sad too. So yeah, I did a episode about the Indianapolis as well. But yeah, I can't wait to read that. I will put links to your publisher and your personal website in the show notes of this episode for for everybody that's listening. And Dustin, thank you so much for joining me. what a fascinating story.

Dustin (01:36:58.423)
Well th Well thank you for having me, Rich. I like I said, I've listened to the podcast for a while. I'm I'm all cut up on all my episodes and you do such a great job of of telling these stories. I mean a lot of them I'm I'm aware of being around you know, being a a history buff and but there's still so many of them that I'll I'll listen to. I'm like, I've never heard of that shipwreck or you hear facts that I've I was unaware of. So I again I really appreciate you having me on the podcast.

Rich (01:36:58.473)
about Mr. Lightoller. Once again.

Rich (01:37:07.937)
Thank you.

Rich (01:37:27.961)
thank you so much. and best of luck with your upcoming books. And again, I can't recommend the Uncycle Lights book enough. I really enjoyed reading it. So thanks again. It was a pleasure to talk to you.

Dustin (01:37:42.689)
Thank you very much.