LETTERS

TITANIC FAILURE?

I suspect the reason that Stanley Lord, captain of SS Californian [the ship that failed to come to Titanic’s aid on the night it sank] was never punished was because he was a useful scapegoat for the incompetence of the officers of RMS Titanic, who charged through an icefield at full speed.

SS was a vessel of around 6,000 tons and with decks 30 feet lower than RMS , which was some 52,000 tons; it was stationary in the dark in the middle of an ice field some 10 miles away and would not have been able to reach in the hour between Captain Stanley Lord being told about the rockets to when the ship sank. All Lord could have done was to rescue slowly (as he only had a small crew) those who were already in lifeboats. Those not in lifeboats would have still drowned in minutes in the icy Atlantic before they could have been rescued.