Thomas B Williams - Titanic and the Californian

Not many men can count themselves lucky enough to enjoy the love and respect of two wonderful women in their lives. It is therefore with great love in my heart that I dedicate this book to my late wife Mary, who passed away before this work was completed, and to my current darling wife Marie, my best friend and soulmate, who has always had faith in my passion for writing.Thank you both for putting up with me!

This book also honours most respectfully the memory of all those men, women and children who lost their lives in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic when the White Star Liner RMS Titanic slipped beneath the waves on that fateful night of 14 April 1912. It is also dedicated to all those people who, over the intervening years, have carried on a relentless fight to clear the good name of an officer and a gentleman the late Captain Stanley Lord Master of the SS Californian and yet another victim of the Titanic tragedy.

I wish to express my sincere and deep appreciation to my good friend and colleague Rob Kamps of Maastricht, in the Netherlands, for his unstinting and devoted attention to the editing and revision of this book and also for his literary skills in preparing the book for publication. Many, many thanks, Rob!

I must also acknowledge my deep and sincere appreciation to fellow writer Monica Harding OHara. Monica is more than deserving of all my appreciation, not only for her dogged insistence that Captain Lord was an innocent man and as much a victim of the Titanic tragedy as those poor unfortunates who lost their lives on that great ship, but also for kindly agreeing to write the foreword to this book. Indeed, it is as a direct result of Monicas convictions that this book came to be written and that the evidence unearthed during research was instrumental in bringing about a reappraisal of the evidence surrounding Captain Lord.

I must likewise offer a very special word of thanks and appreciation to Mr Stanley Tutton Lord, Captain Lords son, now also deceased, for bearing with me in what must have been for him an opening of old wounds.

In England, my sincere thanks go to Mr John Booth of White Star Publications, formerly Titanic Signals Archive, co-author (with Sean Coughlan) of Titanic: Signals of Disaster, for his permission to reproduce his Olympic Message Book in full. Id like to also thank the author Mr Geoff Whitfield of Merseyside; author Mr Brian Ticehurst of Southampton; Mr Howard G. Mortimer from the Department of Leisure and Tourism in Liverpool; Mr Gordon J. Read of Merseyside, who is Curator of Archives, National Museum and Galleries; author Mr Richard Garrett of Tunbridge Wells in Kent; author/journalist Mr Derek Whale (deceased) of Liverpool; Mr Alastair Porsyth, who is a maritime researcher in Southampton City; Messrs Lloyds of Lime Street in London and the Public Record Office in Kew. I must also record my grateful appreciation to my late friend and mentor, Mr Leslie Harrison (RIP). The invaluable assistance of this noble man will always be remembered.

A special word of thanks to the staff and officers of the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, Guildhall Library in Aldermanbury, London. Also thanks to the Department of Transport which put up with my incessant representations on behalf of Captain Lord. In particular, I wish to extend my appreciation to Chief Inspector Captain P.B. Marriott; Deputy Chief Inspector Captain J. de Coverly; Commissioned Inspector Captain T.W. Barnett and also to the British Secretary of State (then Mr Cecil Parkinson, MP) for reopening the case.

In Northern Ireland my thanks go to Mr Michael McCaughan, author and curator of the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum in County Down, and to Messrs Harland and Wolff of Belfast.

In the Republic of Ireland grateful thanks to Patricia Grimes of the Irish Titanic Historical Society, the historical librarian Mr David OBrien of the Cork County Library; Dr John de Courcy (19112006) from the Maritime Institute of Ireland; Dr R.B. Swain from the Department of Applied Psychology at University College in Cork. Although Dr Swain was able to offer little in the way of concrete assistance with my research, he did manage to bring a smile to my lips and therefore merits a mention for psychology successfully applied. Thanks as well to journalist Mr Colm Connolly of Radio Telefis Eireann; the staff of the American embassy in Dublin; the Cork Examiner Newspaper Group on Patrick Street in Cork; photographer Mr Bob Rock of Youghal, County Cork; and printer and stationer Mr Billy Field of Youghal, County Cork.

In America, my thanks go to Messrs Charles Haas and Jack Eaton of the Titanic International Society Org.; Mr Ed and Mrs Karen Kamuda of the Titanic Historical Society Inc.; and Mr Jon Hollis of Whitman, Massachusetts. Jon, a worldwide authority on shipping in general, and the Titanic in particular, has become a valued friend. Thanks also to the Peabody Museum of Salem, Massachusetts, and author Mr Joseph A. Carvalho of Winchester, Massachusetts. Joe too has become a good friend and his letters are always looked forward to with great interest.

In Sweden, my sincere thanks to Mr Claes-Goran Wetterholm, author, lecturer and noted authority on Titanic and Lusitania.

In Spain, special appreciation to Mr Pete Elverhi of the former Den Nordiske Titanic Foreningen.

In conclusion, I must offer my deepest gratitude and appreciation to all those kind people who took the time and trouble to respond to my various advertisements for information and who kindly offered me all their assistance. They are, unfortunately, much too numerous to mention here. Suffice it to say that the intentions of these good people were more than instrumental in bringing about justice for Captain Lord and his memory. I salute you.

Finally, if there are any people or organisations whom I have inadvertently forgotten to include in my list of acknowledgements, I sincerely offer my apologies and deepest thanks.

Thomas B. Williams

Youghal and Portaferry, 2007

The purpose of this book is to get to the facts states its author Tom Williams, and he has certainly made a determined and fascinating effort to do so.

Titanic and the Californian is an in-depth investigation into what went wrong on that fateful night of 14 April 1912. It goes behind the headlines and delves into the contemporary reports to study the many contentious issues surrounding one of the greatest maritime tragedies the world has known.

Tom Williams re-examines the entire situation with the eye of a lawyer who might have been present at the time, and he arrives at some thought-provoking conclusions. He finds Captain Stanley Lord of the Californian innocent of any crime and proves his case beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt. Being a fervent believer in the integrity of Captain Lord, I am personally delighted about this and am most impressed at how he has set out to prove his case most meticulously. It is an issue of which I feel strongly about and that, I suspect, is why Tom Williams invited me to write this foreword. Indeed, I dedicated a book on the tragedy to the memory of the captain, whom I too believe to have been a man maligned.

No pun is intended when I say that this book delves much deeper into the events of that momentous night than it was possible for me to do in my own slim paperback, which focused primarily on the characters and personalities aboard both vessels. One astounding and important point made by the author is that the RMS Titanic was, in fact, unseaworthy and should never have been allowed to be put to sea in the condition she was in! But this fact like so many others was covered up in order to keep certain aristocratic and political noses clean.