Lead: When H.M.S. Titanic went to a watery grave on her maiden voyage in the spring of 1912, heroes were common. Harold Bride tells the story of one.

Tag: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: At the age of twenty-one, Harold Bride considered himself quite lucky. He landed a job as the assistant wireless operator of the brand new passenger liner, the White Star Titanic. Had he had the time, Bride might have enjoyed the excitement of the ship's maiden voyage. Titanic carried more than 2000 passengers on that first transatlantic trip, but an insufficient number of lifeboats. Such a fact seemed inconsequential in view of the common belief that the ship was unsinkable.

Bride was so busy in the wireless cabin that he had little time to take in the great occasion. Since the radiotelegraph was a relatively new device, the passengers kept Bride and his boss Jack George Phillips busy sending personal messages of a trivial nature. On the afternoon of April 14th the equipment broke down and Phillips spent seven hours getting it repaired. By that time the backlog was huge and had hardly been dented when the fateful message of the Californian came through announcing the close presence of pack ice and icebergs. Phillips failed to acknowledge the transmission preferring to continue his transmissions of "wish you were here," messages.

At 11:40 the massive Titanic bounced along the side of an iceberg enduring a fatal ripping of her hull under the water. At first the two men treated the accident as a joke, but as the ship began to list visibly to the front, all joking ceased and Bride watched as Phillips desperately tried to contact ships and bring them to the rescue. With little concern for his life and perhaps haunted by the idea that his mistake in relaying the warning to Captain Smith had been a decisive one, Phillips stayed on the key without letting up. Bride found an overcoat and put it on him. He did not stop when the power began to fail or when water began to wash into the cabin, or when the captain released them from their duties, or when a stoker from below tried to steal the life vest from his back as he transmitted. Bride struck the assailant from the back and the two made their way onto the deck. Then separated, Phillips disappeared, Bride was fished from the water into an upside down collapsible boat and survived to tell the story of a hero who did his duty to the last.

At the University of Richmond this is Dan Roberts.

Resources

Ballard, Robert D. The Discovery of the Titanic. New York: Warner Books, 1987.

Lord, Walter. A Night to Remember. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1955.

Lord, Walter. The Night Lives On. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1986.

Article, "Harold Bride and the Sinking of the Titanic, New York Times, April 19.1912.

Padfield, Peter. The Titanic and the Californian. New York: The John Day Company, 1965.

U.S. Senate, "Subcommittee Hearings of the Committee on Commerce, U.S. Congress Hearing on the Titanic Disaster. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1912.

Copyright 1995 by Educational Broadcast, Inc.