Lifeboat 14

Lifeboat 14
Lifeboat 14 (right) towing Collapsible lifeboat D (left)
Type	Standard
Location on deck	Port aft
Time when launched from Titanic	1:15 A.M.
Launched by officers	Wilde, Lightoller, Lowe
Capacity	65
Estimated occupancy at launch	40
Estimated occupancy at rescue	40
Previous lifeboat launched	16
Next lifeboat launched	12

Lifeboat 14 (foreground) at the Carpathia with Lifeboat 11

Lifeboat 14 forms a small flotilla with another lifeboat, possibly 10 or 12, in A Night to Remember.

Lifeboat 14 was the fourth boat to be lowered from the port side, after 6, 8, & 16. Fifth Officer Lowe took charge of the boat. About 30-32 passengers were in it and there were ten or eleven crewmen and two stewardesses; probably no more than 45 in total when lowered. Chief Officer Wilde was, according to George Crowe & Joseph Scarrott, also in the vicinity.

Lowe thought that the crowd began to be unruly and men threatened to jump into it, so as a matter of precaution, he fired a few times in the air with his gun when the boat was lowered away. Nobody was hit, but some people heard the shootings, however, and it may turn out that those who heard it thought that people were shot and killed. One young man had tried to enter the boat and been thrown out and either him or another man was threatened by officer Lowe, at gunpoint.

When the boat was near the water, there was some sort of trouble and they let the boat drop three or four feet, which apparently led to the boat springing a leak and water started pouring into it, and some ladies had to take care of that problem.

Later in the night, they encountered boats 4, 10, 12, and Collapsible D and Lowe decided to distribute his passengers among the others boats, wanting to go back to the wreckage to see if he could save people in the water. It is believed that eight or ten crew remained, as well as Second Class passenger Charles Williams, whom Lowe took for rowing before the boat was lowered away (Williams would later claim that he had been swimming around in the water, yet Officer Lowe's testimony proves that Williams entered the boat from the deck). Rowing into the area, No. 14 encountered few left alive: First Class passenger William Hoyt was hauled in but later died, Fang Lang, a Chinese Third Class passenger, was rescued as well as steward Harold Phillimore. There may have been a fourth person rescued, even though some in the crew thought there were three saved and one died and another crew member said they found four, but two died. After having rescued these people, they spotted the swamped Collapsible A and took the about 13 people from it into boat 14. There were perhaps a dozen people on boat A. No. 14 reached the Carpathia, after 7 o'clock in the morning, with perhaps 25 or so people on board.

Isabella and Aase on board the Lifeboat 14 in 'Titanic' (1996)

Based on a summary by Peter Engberg 

Notable occupants

• Harold Godfrey Lowe ----------------- Fifth Officer (in charge)
• Joseph George Scarrott -------------- Able Seaman
• George Frederick Crowe -------------- First Class Saloon Steward
• John Stewart* (15?)------------------Verandah Cafe Steward
• Frank Herbert Morris ----------------- First Class Bathroom Steward
• Harold Phillimore* -------------------- Bath Steward
• Mary E.I. Compton -------------------- First Class Passenger
• Sarah R. Compton -------------------- First Class Passenger
• Lillian Minahan ----------------------- First Class Passenger
• Daisy E. Minahan -------------------- First Class Passenger
• Edith Eileen Brown ------------------- Second Class Passenger
• Clear Cameron (t> 10) ----------------- Second Class Passenger
• Ada Maria Clarke --------------------- Second Class Passenger
• Charlotte Caroline Collyer ------------ Second Class Passenger
• Marjorie Lottie Collyer ---------------- Second Class Passenger
• Selena Cook ------------------------- Second Class Passenger
• Eva Miriam Hart ---------------------- Second Class Passenger
• Esther Hart -------------------------- Second Class Passenger
• Bertha Ilett* -------------------------- Second Class Passenger
• Elizabeth Anne Mellinger --------------Second Class Passenger
• Violet Madeleine Mellinger ----------- Second Class Passenger
• Ellen Wallcroft (t > 10)-----------------Second Class Passenger
• Edward Ryan* ----------------------- Third Class Passenger
• Thamīne Tannūs --------------------- Third Class Passenger

Collapsible A rescuees

• Edward Brown -----------------------------First Class Saloon Steward
• William McIntyre* ---------------------------Trimmer
• John William Thompson -------------------- Fireman
• Augustus Henry Weikman ------------------- First Class Barber
• George Alexander Lucien Rheims ------------First Class Passenger
• William John Mellors* (B?) ------------------Second Class Passenger
• Olaus Jorgensen Abelseth ----------------- Third Class Passenger
• Carl Olof Jansson* -------------------------Third Class Passenger
• August Edvard Wennerström ---------------Third Class Passenger

Retrieved from the water

• Harold Charles William Phillimore ----------Second Class Saloon Steward
• William Fisher Hoyt (died) ----------------- First Class Passenger
• Emilio Ilario Giuseppe Portaluppi* ----------Second Class Passenger
• Wing Sun Fong (Fang Lang) ----------------Third Class Passenger

_{* = not certain}

Popular Culture

Fictional Occupants

1. Leigh Goodwin
2. Isabella Paridine
3. Simon Doonan (died)
4. Aase Ludvigsen
5. Stoker Lyons

Retrieved from the water

Rose DeWitt Bukater

1996 Miniseries Titanic

Lifeboat 14 gets some good screentime in the 1996 Miniseries. Two of the main characters board to escape the sinking. Aase Ludvigsen is put in the lifeboat by Jamie Perse, and she just stares at him, sad, worried and broken. Jamie promises her to go back, in order to get the Jack family and save them as well. In this film, the fictional, evil, corrupt steward Simon Doonan sneaks onboard pretending to be an Arabic woman. Later on, when the lifeboat is rowing away, Aase takes off the woman's veil, revealing Doonan. Aase starts slapping Doonan for what he did to her, but he punches her overboard. Doonan tries to hold the passengers at gunpoint, but Officer Lowe, who is in charge of the boat, swoops Doonan in the head with a paddle, which seems to kill him. Then the group quickly retrieves Aase from the water.

The other main protagonist is Mrs. Isabella Paradine, and she has to part ways again with her old fling Wynn Park, with whom she now is re-engaged. He cannot board but urges her to leave. As the boat is lowered, Isabella confesses to Wynn her long kept secret: her daughter Claire is actually Wynn's.

Lifeboat 14 is manned by Fifth Officer Lowe and contains only women. Isabella asks the officer if they can go near the Titanic to rescue some survivors that are in the water, since there's more room in the lifeboat to take on more people. Isabella begs Lowe, knowing that Wynn is there and needs help. Lowe agrees to go back, but is interrupted by an old woman with a heavy voice. Then Aase unveils it is Doonan and the beforementioned scene takes place.

The officer wants to wait some time, but after a while the lifeboat comes to the rescue of the survivors. Unfortunately, they have waited too long and there not any survivors in the water, only dead corpses.

Titanic (1997)

Shootings at Lifeboat 14: a movie screenshot

Lifeboat 14 gets a lot of attention in Cameron's movie. The film shows the impatient Lowe shooting over the ocean while getting women onboard, when the crowd gets too troublous and want to have a go at the lifeboat all together, especially some male passengers. After Titanic's death, he is shown to be upfront about going back to pick up survivors but wants to wait first, whilst also distributing passengers over other boats to make room. When actively searching for survivors in the icey waters, he utters with regret they've waited the long, when they come across nothing but dead bodies, most notably a woman with a baby in her arms. Lowe also plays a role in picking up Rose from the cold when she uses Chief Officer Henry Wilde's whistle to draw their attention, as she has a inaudible voice due to the cold. Lowe yells "Come about!" and she's picked up. In a deleted scene, he gets mad at a young lad who he discovered to have been covered up to appear feminine so he could be saved. He pushes him down, shouting "How dare you!"

Boat 14 ties with other boats to begin distributing passengers to make room before searching for survivors in the water, in the 1997 film Titanic.

The movie however dipicts one thing historically incorrect though. It's shown that Lowe lights green roman candles in lifeboat 14, while it was Fourth Officer Boxhall who did that, in lifeboat 2.

Sources

1. _{'Titanic' ©1996 (second print, 1998) Edward P. De Groot}
2. ^{https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic/lifeboats/lifeboat-14/}