Original subtitles

SHOUTING

The things I saw made impressions...

..I can never forget.

I can't describe it.

I can't say how it was.

It was just terrible.

GASPING

I dream of being trapped on the ship with no means of escape.

But I always wake up before the boat sinks.

He told me that apparently we'd struck something.

BELL TOLLS

Iceberg dead ahead!

SIREN TRILLS

I didn't become alarmed.

There was no danger, they said.

I told her to come at once - we were sinking.

You can you imagine the chaos and the fear and the terror

of finding water in your cabin

and you're in the bowels of the ship.

It makes me panic just thinking about it.

The story of the Titanic is the human condition

spread out, pinned on a board for us to examine.

Then came the terrible cry.

"Women and children! Women and children!"

Marjorie!

Two men lifted me up and put me in a boat.

It's these small decisions,

these little butterfly effect moments

that change the outcome.

Stand back!

GUNSHOT

It really was every man for himself.

My heart stood still.

Hurry up!

Pull!

If we're going to die,

best to die gripping something.

It's a split second decision.

What would you do? What would I do?

Oh, it was a terrible sight.

Men swimming and sinking.

I'd been brought up to believe in a hell after death.

But now I think I went through a hell that night.

I nipped along to have a look down the emergency staircase,

to gauge the speed the water was rising.

That cold green water crawling its ghostly way.

The electric lights shone under the surface

with a weird effect.

So Lightoller knows now things are getting more serious.

He thought this thing could not go down,

and now he knows it could sink.

This is a terrible shock for him.

Captain Smith is at fault here.

He has not informed his senior officers

of what he has known for some time.

It's very hard to know why Captain Smith did not

give out the information to his most trusted command.

Maybe it's important to keep this away,

to stop them panicking and to keep control.

There are just ten standard lifeboats

left on the ship,

along with four collapsibles.

There's 2,000 souls and more on board

and only around 700 places.

There's no rescue ship coming any time soon,

so if you don't get in, you're going to die.

Lightoller is going to continue doing

exactly what he's done before -

but with even more fervour and rigidity

enforcing the plan.

It's the only thing he can do.

Women and children only.

Charlotte Collyer's just about holding herself together

in her family unit.

Her husband, Harvey,

and her little daughter, Marjorie.

Mr Lowe rushed among the passengers

and ordered the women into the boats.

Many of them followed him

in a dazed kind of way,

and others stayed with their men.

A sailor caught Marjorie in his arms...

..tore her away from me

and threw her into the boat.

I was crying for my doll.

Then two men lifted me up and put me in a boat.

- Marjorie! - Marjorie!

She was not even given a chance to tell her father goodbye.

"You, too," a man yelled,

"You're a woman.

"Take a seat in that boat or it will be too late."

I heard my husband say...

.."Go, Lottie!

"For God's sake, be brave and go!"

For God's sake, be brave and go!

And saw my husband's back as he walked

steadily down the deck

and disappeared among the men.

If they'd not wrenched Marjorie away from me...

..I wish I had gone with him.

The courteous, deferential veneer is not there any more.

The officers will pull apart women from their men

and make them go into the boats whether they want to or not.

This is new in the course of the night,

and it's frightening.

There's a really stark disadvantage facing third class passengers.

From the beginning,

they are stuck in the bowels of the ship,

trying to get to where the lifeboats are.

I'd been seasick the whole trip.

ANNA GASPS

ANNA RETCHES

All I wanted was to be left alone so I could lie down.

Anna Sjoblom is a teenager from Finland.

She's a Swedish speaker,

but a third of steerage passengers on the Titanic

were from Nordic countries.

There were so many people who did not speak English,

but they spoke Spanish, Arabic, Swedish.

Swedish is the second most spoken language.

When the boat struck,

the 14th of April,

which was my birthday,

I was 18.

I didn't become alarmed.

I just couldn't believe that this wonderful ship

could possibly be in trouble.

There are 14 stewardesses in first class

to help those passengers leave the ship.

In third class, there's only one.

There was no Tannoy system or announcement

of what was going on,

of what to do.

They had to work it out themselves.

A crash woke me up.

Nearly jolted me from my bed.

I put on my trousers and shoes and got up.

Eugene Daly is a 29-year-old textile worker

from County Westmeath in Ireland.

After years of saving,

he's immigrating to America along with his cousin, Maggie,

her friend, Bertha,

and his beloved Irish pipes.

The stewards came through,

told the passengers that they shouldn't be frightened.

There was no danger, they said.

Everything was all right,

and that I might go back.

The third class passengers don't know what's going on

because they're not being told.

And there's nothing worse than having an idea

that something's really wrong

but not knowing exactly what it is.

Above deck, the first and second class passengers

and the crew, they can all see there aren't enough boats left.

And there are hundreds of them on deck.

I stood at the bulkhead with the other stewardesses.

A ship's officer ordered us into the boat.

Some lifeboats are only at half capacity.

Now, there's fear everywhere,

so they're filling them up as quickly as they can.

Looking along the length of the ship...

..I noticed the forward part of her was lower now.

Much lower.

My heart stood still.

When you're in the military,

this is what we talk about - triaging.

This is a case of thinking,

"How many people can we save at this point?"

There's only room for 800 people in the lifeboats that remain,

so that's best-case scenario.

But in crisis situations, you're not getting the best-case scenario -

within the panic, the confusion.

The boat was full now.

As the boat was being lowered,

the ship's officer called,

"Here, Miss Jessop,

"look after this baby."

Someone had dumped it on the deck beside his feet.

At this stage, Violet is handed a baby

that has been sort of separated from their family

or whoever was caring for them at that point.

It's hard to fathom that.

That panic beginning to spread,

it's making their circumstances worse.

It's making everybody's chance of survival worse.

But it's such a natural reaction.

BANGING

I could hear the commotion overhead increasing.

I decided to go up,

even though I still felt very ill.

I was fully clothed

and I had a lifebelt.

My railroad ticket to Tacoma

and a small amount of money were sewed

in a little bag and hung around my neck so I couldn't lose it.

I went down into the room where Maggie Daly

and Bertha Mulvihill were.

The men and women in third class are separated,

so for Eugene to find Maggie and Bertha,

he has to cross from one end of the ship to another.

No-one is guiding them, no-one is saying,

"This is the best way to get around the flooding."

- They have to work it out themselves. - KNOCKING

Come with me...

"Come with me, the ship is sinking."

There's hundreds of third class passengers trying to navigate

the warren of corridors, hallways, staircases,

and they're trying to get to a part of the ship -

the boat deck - that they've never been allowed onto before.

It's difficult to convey the size of a ship like the Titanic.

It took me 14 days

before I could find my way from one part of that ship

to another via the shortest route.

Eugene, Maggie and Bertha must navigate up several decks

to the boat deck.

It's now a very challenging situation,

and the feeling of a loss of control on the part of the crew

is getting stronger and stronger.

It was about this time that the Chief Officer came over

from the starboard side and asked,

did I know where the firearms were?

I told the Chief Officer,

"Yes, come along and I'll get them for you."

Come along and I'll get them for you.

Drawing weapons is very unusual.

The officers are clearly all aware of how panic was setting in

and order and discipline amongst people were falling apart.

There are guns on board the Titanic.

Like the lifeboats, nobody expected to ever have to use them.

Into the First Officer's cabin we went -

the Chief, Murdoch, the Captain and myself.

I hauled them out,

still in all their pristine newness and grease.

Here you are.

I was going out when the Chief Officer

shoved one of the revolvers into my hands

with a handful of ammunition and said,

"Here you are. You may need it."

The fact of the matter is there are far more passengers than crew.

British and American society at this time

is hierarchical and it's rules-based.

People will do what they are told,

but not when their lives are at stake.

This is what the officers fear.

But, you know, Chekhov said,

"You can't put a gun in the room and not use it."

Third class passengers naturally gravitated towards

the aft well deck,

which is the outdoor space that they'd had use of.

But it is still three decks below the boat deck,

where the lifeboats are.

There was a lot of confusion,

with people running around,

crying, swearing and... praying.

Since I couldn't speak English,

I hardly knew what was happening.

I had to push people apart to find a place to walk.

She doesn't speak English,

there's no-one experienced to advise her,

so she's working this all out with so much against her.

There's a sea of passengers already gathered there,

so Eugene and Anna are joining this throng of people.

I went up on deck.

People were running around.

The Titanic, being an immigrant ship,

it must conform to American and British immigration laws,

and one of those laws is around quarantine -

maintaining steerage class passengers

in areas separate from the first and second class passengers

to stop the spread of disease.

Before the third class passengers have even boarded Titanic,

they've had to be subjected to medical examinations.

They're hemmed in by locked gates,

and these same gates that were meant to prevent ill health

are now blocking their access to the lifeboats.

Eugene's cousin, Maggie, tries to go back to her cabin -

but that corridor is under five foot of water.

There's no chance she can make it, and she turns back.

All this time, we knew that the water was coming up -

and up rapidly.

To know that safety is on the other side of that locked gate,

it must make them despair.

The boat was practically full

and there were no other women anywhere near it

when Fifth Officer Lowe jumped in and ordered it lowered.

Lower the boat.

A young lad,

hardly more than a schoolboy,

was standing close to the rail.

Now, realising he was to be left behind,

he leapt down into the boat

and crawled under a seat.

But the officer dragged him to his feet

and ordered him back onto the ship.

We begged for his life.

Please, give him a chance!

The officer drew his revolver

and thrust it into his face.

GASPING

"I give you ten seconds

"to get back onto that ship

"before I blow your brains out."

Please! Please!

The lad only begged harder.

Please! Please! Please don't!

My mother said I called out, "Don't shoot!"

The officer suddenly changed his tone.

He lowered his revolver

and looked the boy squarely in the eyes.

"For God's sake, be a man.

"We have got women and children."

For God's sake, we have women and children.

The little lad turned round and climbed back without a word.

He was not saved.

Lower the boats!

To avoid another occurrence of that sort,

I fired my revolver

as I was going down each deck.

Because the boat wouldn't stand the sudden jerk.

She was loaded already with people and would not stand any more.

GUNSHOTS

Actually drawing the gun shows that the ship's officers

realised that things were very, very desperate indeed,

and of course we did not have enough lifeboats for everybody on board.

There are ten lifeboats left on deck now,

and 1,960 people still to save.

Titanic now was so low in the water

that iconic areas like the grand staircase

and some of the luxury state rooms were flooding.

There was no doubt at all that this was unstoppable.

It was merely a question of time.

Phillips told me the wireless was growing weaker.

Jack Phillips has spent the last few hours

trying to communicate with other wireless operators.

Carpathia is sailing at full speed towards Titanic,

but she's still two hours away.

On the nearest ship, the Californian,

nobody recognised or responded to the distress flares.

But Phillips stills believes that, as long as he can get signals out,

he may be of some use.

But now the electricity is starting to fail.

Then he does get a message from his sister ship, Olympic.

But she seems not to understand at all

what is happening to Titanic

and thinks Titanic must be limping along,

sailing towards them.

The frustration here is now clear

because the messages are not getting through.

For this young man in his mid-twenties,

I think this is the place of utmost distress.

Right now, it's clear on board ship that no rescue vessel

is going to reach Titanic before she sinks.

The third class passengers are at most risk at this moment.

There's the language difficulties,

there's probably a bit of aggression I think that's setting in -

annoyance, frustration.

We had quite a number of hot-headed Italians

and other people who got crazy and made for the stairs.

These men tried to rush the stairway,

pushing and crowding and pulling the women down.

At this moment, we would expect the adrenaline to kick in.

The body wants to survive,

and it gives us some sort of innate choices.

You might fight your way to the front physically,

people might freeze -

where they're just stuck.

They're in terror, they don't know what to do.

We also see people who are turning inward,

and that would be turning to God as well.

Making the sign of the cross and so on.

The first class deck was higher up than the steerage deck

and there were some steps leading up to it

and a gate at the top of the steps.

They tried to keep us down at first

on our steerage deck at the back of the ship.

They're trying to keep order,

but by doing so in such a chaotic way

they probably contribute to a greater loss of life

than they realised.

I can't say who they were.

I think they were sailors.

DANIEL SCOFFS

They didn't want us going up to the first class place at all.

Even though there's no direct policy

preventing third class passengers from accessing lifeboats,

it's clear from their testimony after the sinking

that there was not a level playing field.

The third class were left marginalised

and endangered by crew's actions.

There was no help...

..of any kind to reach safety.

So, time is ticking down,

the water's rising,

they're sandwiched in-between

the sea and the locked gate.

They're having to make life or death decisions in moments

with very little information.

I got talking to a young Swedish girl

returning to the United States.

She knew about an emergency stairway

to where the lifeboats were.

Anna's interesting because she's come from

a different environment.

She's come from Finland, where the social strata

isn't quite as defined as it is in England at the time.

Perhaps she has a little bit more leeway

to not rely on following the authority figures' orders.

We climb a ladder up to the first class deck.

And then an officer saw me...

..and dragged me up to the next deck.

We passed a window...

..and we looked into a beautiful room.

The tables were so beautifully set.

The silver and all the furniture.

The other girl,

she wanted to kick the window out

and walk in and help ourselves.

ANNA SPEAKS SWEDISH

I told her that they might make us pay for the broken window

so we didn't.

There's some evidence that growing up

in adverse situations

actually gives you a kind of cognitive toolkit to be able

to get through those situations.

All kinds of skills where you've needed to survive

and depend on yourself.

And that translates really quite well to an emergency scenario.

The third class passengers have survived

so many different challenges already.

They must've felt their confidence and trust

in the crew and officers had gone.

I think these were people who were not taking no for an answer.

They couldn't keep them down.

GUNSHOT

The gate was broke.

All the steerage passengers went up onto the first class deck.

They're going to take fate into their own hands,

and they will get to those boats.

In the same way that I think,

when Officer Lowe fired his gun, he changed the terms -

by breaking the gate, they changed the terms.

I rushed to the lifeboats.

There seemed hundreds of people around me.

Half the lifeboats have already gone.

They're in the water.

There's only four lifeboats at this end of the ship,

and the others are hundreds of yards ahead.

Seeing only four lifeboats available

and nearly 2,000 people trying to get into them,

there is such panic in that crowd.

Everywhere, everybody was confused.

I saw a lot of people,

Catholics,

make the sign of the cross.

I had to step...

..on many of these people

to reach the side of the deck.

The crying of children

and the screaming of a woman -

you know, these are terrifying sounds

that we are programmed to have a sort of visceral reaction to.

I remember from living through my trauma,

my wounding in Afghanistan,

sounds stay with you far more than sights.

That is a powerful thing for the senses

to take on board

and for ultimately you to then have to live with.

I tried to get into a lifeboat.

And I was pushed back.

It seemed as though I would go down with the ship.

Ideas about self-control and stoicism

and self-sacrifice

are celebrated

as forms of gentlemanliness, as well as manliness.

These are the values that they've been told to hold to.

And it means putting yourself second.

That is the ideal

as far as Edwardian society is concerned.

Bruce Ismay, who is the Managing Director of the White Star Line,

his father had founded the White Star Line.

And The Titanic is basically his idea.

This is the crowning achievement of his career -

the creation of this amazing, opulent ship.

And now he can see that it is all going to the bottom of the sea.

Did you think it was in a very serious condition?

As time got on, I did.

And that the ship was sinking?

I did.

I helped for nearly two hours, as far as I can judge,

at the starboard boats,

helping women and children into the boats

and lowering them over the side.

I think the sense of responsibility for Bruce Ismay

must have been huge,

and we see this in the fact that he spends time

patrolling the boat deck,

putting people into boats,

instructing crew how to behave.

But he knows that there aren't enough lifeboats on board.

He knows by this point that there's no rescue ship coming

any time soon.

These lives are on his conscience.

The ship was listing heavily

in the bow.

Somebody gave me a push

towards a boat...

..and I got in.

That girl and I went together.

The lifeboat was so crowded.

When I got to the deck, a lifeboat was having from the davit.

Number 13 boat.

It was pretty well-filled when I got there.

Right!

The boatswainer knew me,

as I'd sailed with him on other ships before.

Said to me, "You get on this boat and pull an oar."

Get in the boat! I need oarsmen!

Fred is in the lifeboat.

Because, you know, he's one of those strong enough to be able to row it.

And at this stage, the crew is now starting to really

fill the lifeboats.

So I took his orders

and I got on as she swung from the davits.

We had women, men and two little babies.

One two months old

and the other ten months old.

There is no real order.

People are sitting on top of one another.

And, you know, you're sort of being crushed

underneath this mass of people.

It's suspended by davits

off the side of the ship at this point.

It's about 18 metres above the water.

But every person that gets in adds that weight,

adds that movement, adds that risk.

And so there has to be a point at which you say, "That's enough."

About three more people got in after I did,

and then the orders were given.

"Let no more on that boat or the falls will break."

That means looking into the whites of people's eyes

and saying there's no more space.

The boat was being filled with women.

Maggie and Bertha got in.

And I got in.

The officer called me to go back, but I got in.

Life was sweet to me

and I wanted to save myself.

It was the early hours of the morning,

the lifeboats were being filled to the brim now,

over-filled.

Naturally some male passengers want to get in.

They want to be with their loved ones.

And they just want to save their lives,

as any of us would.

They told me to get out,

but I didn't stir.

Then they got a hold of me and pulled me out.

Eugene's testimony makes me like him.

I think he's honest, he's frank.

He's not trying to put a spin on his own behaviour

or anyone else's.

I get the feeling of a real historical account

in its warts-and-all attitude.

What's sad about this story

is that most of those officers knew the people

that they were turning away -

in the sense that they were from the same class, the same kind.

Well, if I didn't save myself...

..at least I saved the two girls.

Captain Smith had severe doubts

about whether a fully laden lifeboat could be lowered properly.

He knew there were a lot of people

waiting down at the gangway doors to get into boats,

and therefore he thought,

"How can I manage to get these boats full?

"how can I save as many of the people

"whose lives I am responsible for as is possible?"

The captain came and said,

"Mr Boxhall, you go away in that boat,"

pointing to boat number two.

I tumbled into this lifeboat and started to lower her,

and the captain looked over and told me,

"Go round to the starboard side..."

To the gangway doors!

Which was practically on the opposite side

to where I was lowered.

Pull!

So Boxhall's lifeboat

was only about 45% full,

was meant to go round to the starboard side

of the ship to take on more passengers.

Pull!

I had great difficulty in getting that boat around there.

There was suction.

Pull!

I was using the stroke oar standing up

and there was this lady helping.

She was steering around the ship's stern.

When I passed around the boat

to get to the gangway door on the starboard side...

..her propellers were out of water.

But when I did eventually reach there...

..I found that there was such a mob standing at the gangway doors.

SHOUTING

If they jumped,

they'd swamp the boat.

I daren't go alongside.

She was only a small boat.

Boxhall should've made sure that he filled the lifeboat up,

and take necessary action to make sure he wasn't swamped.

He was in a position to do that - and he didn't.

Pull!

It's a really tricky one -

because, yes, crew should follow orders

and the structure of discipline is how you can try

and create some form of order in moments of chaos.

There is a good reason why,

you know, in circumstances,

we are not to question orders.

Having said that,

it's all well and good one of your superiors

giving you an order.

But they're not seeing the circumstances

that you are witnessing.

Pull!

I pulled off and laid off...

..until I pulled away about a quarter of a mile, I suppose.

So, the instinct to row away is very normal,

very human.

Everybody wants to get away from the scene

of an accident or a disaster.

And this ship is huge.

People had never seen anything this big.

Captain Smith is out there with his megaphone

barking orders...

Bring those boats back!

..for the lifeboats to come back and pick up other passengers.

It's almost instinctive,

and it's driven into you from the day you join the Royal Navy -

or the Merchant Navy - that you obey your captain and do as he says.

He is God, in a sense.

And therefore not to do as you're told

is a heinous crime.

Quartermaster Hichens,

who was in command of one of the lifeboats, said,

"It's our lives now, not theirs."

I find that quite extraordinary.

The bottom line should be:

"I want to save as many as I can."

"It's our lives now, not theirs."

This is the moment of mutiny.

This is when all order has broken down.

"We are not going to stand by any more and drown

"because you tell us to."

Fair enough.

We had gone perhaps half a mile

when the officer ordered the men to cease rowing.

No other boat was in sight.

We didn't even have a lantern to signal with.

We lay there in the silence

and darkness of that calm sea.

No sound reached us...

MUSIC PLAYS

..except the music from the band,

which I was aware of for the first time.

Those... brave musicians.

They were playing lively tunes.

Ragtime.

I will never forget the terrible beauty

of the Titanic at that moment.

I started to count the rows of lights.

One,

two,

three,

four,

five...

I stopped.

Surely I had miscounted?

I went over them again, more carefully,

and I had made no mistake.

There were only five decks now.

As if all could read my mind,

the women in the boat started to weep.

Some silently, some unrestrainedly.

Just before launching the last lifeboats,

I'd made my final hurried visit to the emergency stairway

to gauge how quickly she was going down.

It was then conclusively evident that not only was she going,

but she was going very soon.

Even in pants and sweater over pyjamas alone,

I was in a bath of perspiration.

If we were to avoid the disgrace of going down with lifeboats

still hanging to the davits,

there wasn't one moment to lose.

The forward well deck was under water.

I saw Phillips still sending away.

I suspect many people on the ship by now

were in an altered state,

which we know is what happens when people are facing death.

Jack Phillips won't leave his post.

It is a clear, single focus on what he believed to be right.

And he believes the right thing to do

is to stay there until it's all over.

Again, Phillips called SQD and SOS for nearly five minutes

and got no reply.

We now realised the awful state of affairs,

the ship listing heavily to port and forward.

I thought it was about time to look about

and see if there was anything that would float.

I remembered that every member of the crew had a lifebelt.

And then I thought how cold the water was.

I remembered I had some boots, and I put those on -

and an extra jacket.

We picked up the Olympic and told them

we were sinking by the head and were about all down.

Phillips is leading from the front.

He's a hero.

It's easier to understand

fear and self-interest

than it is to understand

sacrifice and heroism,

especially now in our world.

We think that everything is about greed and "me first".

That generation did not.

As Phillips was sending the message,

I strapped the lifebelt to his back.

I'd already put on his overcoat.

I wondered if I could get him into his boots.

Just at that moment, the captain came into the cabin

and said, "Men, you have done your full duty.

"You can do no more."

Abandon your cabin.

Now it's every man for himself.

"I release you."

"Every man for himself now."

In the conflicts I trained for,

it's unimaginable that we would ever find ourselves

in a circumstance where it was every man for themselves.

All of the order has been lost,

and actually trying to maintain that order -

whether it's, you know, pointing a gun at a crowd

or screaming at the top of your voice -

all you're doing in that circumstance

is wasting energy.

SHOUTING

The last of the hard-hulled lifeboats

have been dispatched,

but there is still two collapsable lifeboats left on the boat deck.

They're a little bit more flimsy, but they still are a lifeline.

There was some disturbance

loading the last two forward boats.

A large crowd of men were pressing to get into them -

though there were many crew and men lined up

with apparently not a thought

at attempting to board the boats without orders.

I saw Bruce Ismay,

who had been assisting in loading the last boat,

push his way into it.

It really was every man for himself.

Bruce Ismay decides to save himself.

He is about the only man on board

who can't be ordered out of that spot

by any of the remaining crew.

You were one of those,

as the Managing Director,

responsible for determining the number of lifeboats.

Yes, in conjunction with the shipbuilders.

When you got into the boat,

you thought that The Titanic was sinking?

I did.

Did you know that there were some hundreds of people on that ship?

Yes.

Who must go down with her?

Yes, I did.

Prepare to lower the lifeboat.

Has it occurred to you that you,

as the responsible Managing Director,

deciding the number of boats,

owed your life to every other person on that ship?

It has not.

I have searched my mind with the deepest care.

I'm sure I did nothing that I shouldn't have done.

My conscience is clear.

I took a chance of escape when it came to me.

I did not seek it.

It is true I am president of the company,

but I didn't consider myself any different

from the rest of the passengers.

I took no other man's place.

"I took no man's place."

This is palpably untrue,

but I think he must believe it.

I think that Bruce Ismay comes from a class of society

who believes that they have everything they have

because of grit and character.

I mean, it's like being a billionaire today

in a world of hungry people.

The only way you can live with yourself

is to imagine that you deserve it in some way.

And so I think that Bruce Ismay

believes, contrary to all rational fact,

that he hasn't taken someone else's place.

Even though he really must know internally that he has.

There was a terrible crowd standing about.

The officer in charge pointed a revolver,

waved his hand and said that if any man tried to get in,

he'd shoot him on the spot.

If anyone tries to enter, I will shoot.

Two men tried to break through and he shot them both.

GUNSHOTS

SCREAMING

I saw him shoot them.

I saw them lying.

One seemed to be dead,

the other was trying to pull himself

up at the side of the deck - but he couldn't.

I tried to get to the boat myself

but was afraid I would be shot.

And stayed back.

When we rowed away from the Titanic,

my face was towards the sinking steamer.

The things I saw...

..I'll never forget.

I saw an officer...

..shoot himself through the temple with a revolver.

GUNSHOT

The story of the officer shooting himself is contested.

Even the name of the officer is in dispute.

They were meant to help others, not shoot them -

and you're certainly not meant to shoot yourself

when you make a mistake.

I saw the officer himself lying on the deck.

They told me he shot himself.

It's not a line of inquiry that is pursued,

and I think that is because,

in Edwardian society, there is such a taboo

around death by suicide.

It looks like the easy way out,

though it can hardly have been so.

It suggests that the people who did it

have failed that test of being an Edwardian man,

which is to demonstrate heroicism and courage

and stoicism in the face of disaster.

Death stares everyone in the face -

some will escape, some won't.

Jack Phillips - he's young, but he's responsible,

he's self-reliant.

He thinks he's going to die.

And so he decides to die doing his best for everyone else.

Phillips clung on for about ten minutes

after the captain had released him.

I learned to love him that night.

I suddenly felt for him...

..a great reverence, to see him standing there,

sticking to his work...

..while everybody else was raging about.

I will never forget the work of Phillips

for those last awful minutes.

He was a brave man.

People find themselves facing this life or death moment together.

Titanic broke in two before my eyes.

Striking water was like 1,000 knives

being driven into one's body.

To die slowly within earshot of people

who might save your life -

there's a particular cruelty to that.