“Long and myself stood by each other and jumped on the rail. We did not give each other any messages for home because neither of us thought we would ever get back.” ²

Milton jumped first. Jack followed, but would never see Milton again. Jack’s account of his time in the water is as follows:

“I jumped out, feet first, went down, and as I came up I was pushed away from the ship by some force. I was sucked down again, and as I came up I was pushed out again and twisted around by a large wave,³ coming up in the midst of a great deal of small wreckage. My hand touched the canvas fender of an overturned lifeboat. I looked up and saw some men on the top. One of them helped me up. In a short time the bottom was covered with twenty-five or thirty men. The assistant wireless operator⁴ was right next to me holding on to me and kneeling in the water.” ²

This upside-down lifeboat was the Engelhardt boat B, one of the Titanic’s four “collapsible” lifeboats. B in particular had been swept off of the deck before it could be properly launched, landing itself in the water bottom-side up. This boat carried 30 men through the cold night, only three of them passengers, the rest crew, being led by 2nd Officer Charles Lightoller. It was a constant battle of balance, desperate not to release the small pocked of air trapped under the boat that kept it afloat. By daybreak, they were all standing, the lifeboat almost fully submerged, feet freezing.⁵

With daylight, they were finally able to locate the other lifeboats, and with a whistle easily identified as that of an officer’s, Lightoller directed two lifeboats to meet their overturned one, so the exhausted men could all offload onto drier and safer wood. Of these two boats, one of them was lifeboat 4, holding Jack’s mother.

One can hardly imagine what it must’ve been like for Marian Thayer, the crushing emotions she may have felt in those moments. To take the sea in a lifeboat, knowing both her husband and son were still on board the doomed ship. To see that ship disappear under the surf, and to hear the screams until they too vanished like the liner. To know that the worst has happened to her family, but maybe, that dangerous inkling of hope, or more so, denial, that many survivors had felt, telling themselves that their loved ones must be on one of the other lifeboats - they just must. And then as the dawn brakes, distraught and cold, she doesn’t even recognize a familiar face on that overturned boat they had gone to relieve. Jack, too, did not notice his mother at this time, likely hypothermic⁶ from his plunge the night before. It wasn’t until they were safe onboard the RMS Carpathia that the two were truly reunited, and as I said before, one can only imagine the outpouring of emotions that must have caused. Not to mention, that there was still someone missing from this reunion. Jack’s father had not survived.

While Jack and his mother’s survival might call for a relatively happy ending, I’m afraid that can’t be the case. After graduating from college, becoming a successful banker, and settling down with a family, Jack still found himself extremely haunted by that fateful night in 1912. In 1940, he wrote about his experiences to try and expel the troubles from his mind, but it seemed that it was not enough. Then, with the outbreak of WWII, both of his two sons joined the services, and one did not return. Not long after, Jack Thayer followed his late son, taking his own life on September 18th, 1945.

...

Notes:

1. Jack’s father was John B. Thayer II, vice president of the Pennsylvania railroad.

2. These quotations are as written in The Truth About the Titanic, written by Col. Archibald Gracie. Gracie was one of the other two passengers (all three of which were first class) who found refuge on the Engelhardt boat B.

3. This large wave was likely caused by the falling of one of the Titanic’s funnels. This wave also accounts for how Jack jumped off of the starboard side, but ended up on port. 

4. Refers to Harold S. Bride, the junior wireless operator, working for the Marconi Company. 

5. While Jack came out of the whole ordeal uninjured, other occupants of lifeboat B did not fare as well. Bride, for example, suffered frostbitten and broken feet.