What the real passengers of the "Titanic", which we were shown in the movies, looked like

The sinking of the Titanic is one of the most terrible and tragic shipwrecks in history: out of 2,200 people, only 700 survived. Many films have been made about this catastrophe, but the most famous is the picture of James Cameron. Maybe also because some of the characters in the film are remarkably similar to their prototypes.

Margaret Brown

Margaret Brown, known as the Unsinkable Molly Brown, was a socialite, social activist and philanthropist. In the film, she helped Jack get to dinner with the aristocrats by lending him her son's suit. In real life, Molly put passengers in boats until the very end and refused to board herself. She was nevertheless persuaded, but even then she did not stop trying to save people: she managed to order the elder in the boat to turn the ship around and pick up several more drowning ones.

When the survivors were picked up by the crew of the steamer Carpathia, Margaret began helping the victims: distributing food and blankets, compiling lists of survivors, helping family members find each other. She later organized a disaster relief committee. For her services, Margaret was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor and received her absolutely deserved nickname.

Captain Edward Smith

Edward Smith was one of the most experienced captains of the White Star Line Steamship Company: by the time he stepped onto the bridge of the Titanic, Smith had forty years of experience. In the film, the captain heroically remained on the bridge at the time of the crash. In fact, he helped the crew and passengers to escape and went to his seat only at the moment when the Titanic had only a few minutes left and there was no hope of saving anyone else.

Thomas Andrews

Thomas Andrews was the designer of the Titanic, and therefore could not and did not want to refuse to participate in the first voyage of the steamer. But it was Andrews who was the first person who, immediately after the collision of the ship with the iceberg, realized that a disaster was inevitable. Thomas Andrews urged passengers to leave the cabins, put on life jackets and get into the boats almost immediately after the collision. And he continued to do this until the end: eyewitnesses saw Thomas Andrews for the last time on the deck from which he dropped the sun loungers, hoping that the drowning would be able to use them as rafts. He himself did not survive.

Joseph Bruce Ismay

Joseph Bruce Ismay was chairman and director of the White Star Line Steamship Company. The Titanic was his dream: Joseph always wanted to create a vessel so luxurious that none of his competitors could even come close to this level. It is for this reason that the number of boats was reduced from 48 to 16.

This terrible mistake cost Joseph his reputation: to the end of his days he lived with the stigma of a coward. Although in fact he helped the passengers to escape to the last and took the last place in the last surviving boat. In the film, however, Ismay is shown as the person who saved himself in the first place. Cameron flatly refused to change the character of the character, because he was sure that this is how the audience would want to see him.

William Murdoch

The first mate had 16 years of sailing experience, but, unfortunately, this was not enough to save the steamer: the iceberg was spotted too late, and Murdoch could do nothing to prevent the disaster. In the film, he was shown as a bastard who accepts bribes and is ready to shoot people, which greatly angered his descendants. In fact, the first mate, like the captain, did everything in his power to save the passengers. The filmmakers personally apologized to Murdoch's family and donated money to a charity award named after him. William Murdoch was killed in the crash.

Charles Lightoller

The second mate survived the crash, and thanks to him, other people were saved: 29 people were on an overturned boat, and Charles taught them how to balance correctly to prevent capsizing and flooding. Not everyone managed to survive until morning and until help arrived, but without Lightoller there would have been even more victims.

After the disaster, Charles Lightoller began to develop new rules for the carriage of passengers on ships. He insisted that the number of boats be increased, that the crew undergo trainings on their use, and also suggested establishing constant communication with each vessel. And it saved many lives in the future.

Frederick Fleet

Fate has prepared for Frederick a difficult role: on the night of the crash, he was the lookout and the first to notice the iceberg, but, alas, too late. Subsequently, he told the disaster investigation committee that he could not have seen the danger earlier, because the observers were not given binoculars. However, experts believe that in those conditions, even binoculars would not help anyone see the iceberg.

Fleet found himself an oarsman in the same boat where the Unsinkable Molly had escaped.

Archibald Gracie IV

Colonel Archibald Gracie IV, a rich first-class passenger, American writer and amateur historian, did not wait to be rescued, but began to rescue himself: as long as there were still places in the boats, he helped Lightoller place women and children in them. The colonel himself escaped in an overturned folding boat. Immediately after the disaster, Gracie wrote a book about the sinking of the Titanic, and it is thanks to him that we know so many details of the disaster.

Unfortunately, 8 months after the tragedy, Archibald Gracie died - his health was severely damaged by the disaster. His last words: “We have to put them in boats. We have to put them all on boats."

John George "Jack" Phillips

In those years, the radiotelegraph was a novelty, and therefore the radio operators of the Titanic, including Jack Phillips, were simply inundated with private messages from passengers: everyone wanted to inform their relatives about themselves - right from the ocean. Because of this, the transmitter was out of order, and it took the radio operators about six hours to fix it. In the meantime, messages kept piling up. In such a situation, they could lose their vigilance and did not pay sufficient attention to ice warnings coming to them from other ships. This is exactly what happened.

Harold Bride, the second radio operator of the Titanic, was about to replace his comrade, but at that time the captain entered the wheelhouse and reported a collision with an iceberg. Jack Phillips has refused to resign. He sent out the SOS signal to the last. Bride, who managed to escape, recalled this night like this:

“… I went out on deck and looked around. The water was already very close to the boat deck. There was a real panic, and how poor Phillips continued to work, despite this, I do not know. He was a brave man. I fell in love with him that night and suddenly felt real awe as I watched him continue to work quietly as everyone around me rushed about in a frenzy. I will never allow myself to forget the work of Phillips in the last terrible moments. The boat deck began to be covered with water. Phillips sent and sent signals without interruption. He continued to do so even ten or fifteen minutes after the captain released him. Then water poured into our cabin."

Jack Phillips did not escape, but his body was not found among the dead.