Frederick Fleet
Frederick Fleet (born October 15, 1887 in Liverpool , † January 10, 1965 in Southampton ) was a member of the crew of the RMS Titanic , which went down on April 15, 1912 after a collision with an iceberg .
Life
Frederick Fleet began his training at the age of twelve on a training ship , which he left at sixteen. In 1903 he went to sea as a cabin boy . Before joining the Titanic , he worked as a lookout aboard the White Star Line steamer RMS Oceanic for four years .
Later he worked as a lookout and able seaman on the RMS Olympic , the sister ship of the Titanic , as well as on ships of the Union-Castle Line . From 1936 he no longer went to sea and worked as a shipbuilder for the Harland & Wolff shipyard , later as a boatman on land for Union-Castle.
Shortly after the death of his wife, Fleet died by suicide in January 1965 . He was buried in a poor grave in Southampton. In 1993, donations from the Titanic Historical Society raised a tombstone with the Titanic and the name Frederick Fleets engraved on it.
Titanic
In April 1912, Frederick Fleet hired as a lookout on the Titanic. Along with Reginald Lee he released on April 14, 1912 at 22:00 the guard in the crow's nest from. At about 11:40 p.m. he discovered the iceberg and immediately reported to the bridge (“Iceberg directly ahead!”), Which the Sixth Officer James P. Moody received . However, the rudder maneuver of First Officer William M. Murdoch could no longer prevent the collision. After the Titanic stopped its voyage, Fleet and Lee were withdrawn from the crow's nest around midnight.
Fleet was later assigned by the second officer Charles Lightoller to fill and board the lifeboat No. 6, which left the Titanic at 0:55 a.m. under the leadership of quartermaster Robert Hichens , before the ship went down at 2:20 a.m. Like all other survivors, Fleet reached New York City port aboard the RMS Carpathia .
Fleet has witnessed both the US Senate Commission of Inquiry and the British Commission of Inquiry. There he could not give any answers to the question of the approximate height of the crow's nest, nor how far the iceberg was after the first sighting. Nor could he say whether an hour or ten minutes passed between sighting and colliding with the iceberg. The statement "I have no idea of distances and sizes, sir." Was his answer to the question about the approximate size of the iceberg. Overall, he stated that if they had been equipped with binoculars as usual , they would have spotted the iceberg earlier. The iceberg would have been a so-called “blue iceberg”, which would have been easily recognized by the prevailing calm sea and due to the moonless night.
In the 1997 film adaptation of the Titanic , Fleet was portrayed by Scott G. Anderson .
literature
- Roger Bansemer: Journey to Titanic . Pineapple Press, 2003, pp. 82 ( Google Book [accessed February 28, 2010]).
- Stephen Spignesi: Titanic - The Ship That Never Sank: Chronicle of a Legend of the Century . Goldmann-Verlag, ISBN 3-442-15068-X .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolf Schneider: Titanic Myth. (PDF; 197 kB) rowohlt digital book, accessed on February 15, 2016 (reading sample).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fleet, Frederick |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Lookout on the RMS Titanic |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 15, 1887 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Liverpool , Lancashire , England |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 10, 1965 |
| Place of death | Southampton , Hampshire , England |