He claimed they were saying a Titanic lie.
While Titanic captain Edward John Smith, the official cause of death remains one of the stable mysteries of history, author Dan E. Parkes has thrown cold water into the theories he took his life, claiming that these rumors unjustly damaged his legacy.
He made these bomb claims in the book “Heritage Titanic: Captain, his daughter and spy”, which details the eyewitnesses’ accounts from Shipwreck’s survivors, who discuss, among other things, how Captain Smith met with his end, the Daily Mail reported.
Over 1,500 people died when RMS Titanic sank on April 14-15, 1912, after her fatal clash with an iceberg in one of the most notorious maritime catastrophes in history.
Unfortunately, the body of the British naval officer was never found – only 337 were ever – making a wide range of explanations of how he disappeared.
These went from his confessions, giving a galantly descending with the ship – as described in James Cameron’s “Titanic” epic in 1997 – in conspiracy theories claiming the legendary sailor was living in Maryland.
As author Wyn Craig Wade wrote in “The Titanic: Fund of a Dream”, Captain Smith – who was played by the late Bernard Hill in the film – “There were at least five different deaths, from heroic to impatience”, according to Histori.com.
Forensic postulation came three days after the tragedy, when Los Angeles Express announced on his front page: “Captain Ej Smith shot himself.”
A day later, the UK’s daily mirror stated on its first page: “Captain Smith shoots himself in the bridge.”
During investigations into the maritime tragedy held in New York and London, survivors claimed they would have heard rumors of the unbearable end of 62-year-old Commodore.
Suicide was seen as a cowardly way to come out during a time when the captain was honorably connected to land.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg: there were also controversial reports that tarnished Smith’s reputation when he was alive, claiming that he had an appetite for the booze, was piloting the Titanic at a precarious speed, and also ignored Iceberg-Salt warnings in his widow’s wound and their seven-year-old daughter Mel.
However, Parkes labeled these rumors of unfounded character assassinations and claimed that the honorable captain sank or raised to death in the North Atlantic with other victims.
Despite the abundance of eyewitnesses of an officer’s suicide, the author believes that the official in question was not Smith as he was not appointed.
Instead, Parlia claims that gunshots were fired to calm the passengers in panic, and traumatized travelers assumed, without evidence, that they were listening to the captain’s self-esteem wound.
He emphasized that many of these eyewitnesses who claimed that the latter were unreliable as they were in the rescue boats that landed long before Titanic’s final background.
Parkes, who also dismissed claims of the captain’s intoxication, reckless direction and resting warnings, added that perhaps the passengers needed a redemption for the misfortune and settled in the marine.
There are many accounts of eyewitnesses who support the Parliament version of his latest moments, including one by Robert Williams Daniel, a 27-year-old banker who said he “saw Captain Smith in the bridge” while Titanic sank.
He had told the New York Herald at the time he would see the water swallow the whole captain, stating, “He died a hero.”
Isaac Maynard, a 31-year-old chef, testified in New York that he would have seen Smith on the bridge while he himself was included on board, adding that he later saw the white beard sailor swimming in water completely dressed in his captain’s hat above his head.
“One of the men climbing the raft tried to rescue him by reaching a hand, but he would not leave him and called out” care for yourself, boys, “Maynard claimed. “I don’t know what was done by the captain because I couldn’t see it at the time, but I think he was drowned.”
Parles quotes other survivors who claimed that the captain even rescued a child and handed him a lifeboat but refused to board the boat himself.
“Fifteen yards away was the body of a baby who drew the sailor to the war,” George Brerton, a gambling player and rogue who rode on the Titanic under a false name to deceive wealthy passengers, he told the Daily Eagle “he caught the baby
Parkes labeled this heroic work entirely in character for Smith, who nicknamed the “Millionaire Captain” because of its popularity with senior travelers.
The survivors even claimed that the sailors put a bold face, despite knowing that the sentence was immediate, according to History.com.
“I saw Captain Smith being excited; passengers would not have noticed it, but I did,” wrote May Sloan, a surviving Titanic stewardess, in a letter shortly after the disaster. “I knew we would then go fast.”
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