#theresalwayssomething

I have been obsessed with the Titanic for months now. I could probably describe minute-by-minute the sinking on the night of April 15th, 1912. I recently stumbled across some videos on TikTok talking about Titanic and more specifically the RMS Carpathia (the ship that rescued Titanic’s survivors). There seemed to be a running theme of people stating they weren’t sure why the SS Californian didn’t come to Titanic’s aid- implying that they were careless or reckless in the matter. It got me thinking about how when I started being obsessed with learning about Titanic and how little base knowledge I was ever given about many aspects surrounding the sinking. Up until this point, I didn’t even know about the Californian. After reading everything I could find about that night (minus On a Sea of Glass due to not being able to find any copies anywhere //totally not bitter about that//). I’d like to blab a bit in defense of the Californian on the night of the Titanic’s demise.

As anyone who has delved into the night the Titanic sunk likely knows, the Carpathia was the closest ship to come to Titanic’s aid. However, she was roughly 4 hours away when she received Titanic’s CQD distress call; The Titanic, sunk in 2. There was a ship much closer to the Titanic, though. The SS Californian was so close to the Titanic when she hit the iceberg and came to a halt that her lights could be seen by passengers and crews on the horizon. Before the Titanic struck the iceberg, they received many ice warnings from multiple ships- including from the Californian. Their warning was sent to the bridge by one of Titanic’s wireless operators, Harold Bride. Later on in the night the Californian encountered a large ice field. Her captain, Stanley Lord, decided to stop the ship until morning. Her wireless operator, Cyril Evans, attempted to relay the information to Titanic due to their close proximity. Titanic’s other wireless operator, Jack Philips, had his volume turned up high which sent the pings of the morse code from the Californian blasting into his ears. This, on top of his exhaustion and stress from rushing to send passenger messages, caused him to snap at Evans, replying for him to “shut up”. After receiving Philip’s message, Evans turned his system off and turned in for the night. Around three hours later, Titanic struck the iceberg.

Being unable to reach the Californian via the Marconi Wireless System, the crew of the Titanic attempted to first contact the Californian via morse lamps- lamps used to flash morse code in order to communicate without the use of the still new wireless systems. However, a majority of the crew aboard the Californian were not very fluent in morse code. Those who knew some were unable to tell if the morse lamps were truly using morse lamps or if they were just flickering oil lamps on the Titanic due to some party or celebration. Something that supported this mindset and lack of alarm was the Titanic’s crew firing off distress rockets. Standard protocol with distress rockets were to fire them off in 30 second intervals to signify distress. However, many ships would fire rockets as “company signals”. The crew of Titanic stopped attempting the morse lamps and turned to the rockets, however they were not shot off in 30 second intervals, but rather in inconsistent intervals close to 1 minute apart. During this period, the crew had continued to assume the rockets were being fired off in celebration rather than distress. They did eventually decided to attempt to contact the Titanic with their own morse lamps, but by the time they began trying to reach Titanic in this way, the crew had their hands full trying to help passengers and control the panic in both the passengers and themselves.

One of the main arguments against the crew of the Californian is that throughout the entire night, no one decided to wake their wireless operator (who I should add was the only one able to use the Marconi Wireless System). Even if it was just a celebration or party, having him get ahold of the Titanic just to check would certainly have saved hundreds of lives that night. But I don’t believe the crew of the Californian can fully be blamed for their lack of action. They were confused by Titanic’s mixed signals and didn’t know how to react. Due to the same mirage effects that caused the Titanic’s crew to not see the iceberg, the Californian’s crew couldn’t quite trust the morse lamps and with the misfiring of the rockets, their confusion that in hindsight should have provoked more concern was understandable at the time. They also claimed later that they didn’t realize the ship was Titanic which to this day is still a disputed claim considering their communications and knowledge of her being nearby.

The SS Californian’s inaction certainly caused hundreds more to die that night than should have, but they are not the only ones to blame. The Californian was sunk on the 9th of November, 1913 by a German Uboat, ironically sinking not far from the location the Titanic’s sister ship, the HMHS Britannic.

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