The Decisions that Define

Bruce was eager to live up to the expectations of his prominent family. His father, an adventurous world-traveler, founded the company that made them famous, though they were already of considerable wealth by that time. If he wanted to succeed in the eyes of family and friends, Bruce needed more than to meet expectations, he had to surpass them. In any objective analysis, he did just that.

Bruce was intelligent and possessed a sharp mind for business. With ambition, smarts, acumen, and money at his disposal, he built the company into a powerhouse, then sold it to perhaps the richest man in the world. So important had he become to the operation of the business, Bruce was retained as the president of the new company. Then, Bruce unveiled his most ambitious project yet: the building of the three largest ocean liners in the world. On October 20, 1910, vessel Number 400 was launched. It had not yet been christened a name.

Number 400 sailed for nearly 25 years. Her service included a highly publicized arrival in New York City where she was met with enthusiastic throngs and toured by over 8,000 people. More than 10,000 saw her off when she left the dock. She ferried luxury-class passengers across the Atlantic for three years until she was impressed into the war’s service as a troop carrier. During the war, she transported over 200,000 troops earning her the nickname “Old Reliable.” She rescued hundreds of seamen off the sinking battleship HMS Audacious. She even rammed and sank a German U-Boat preparing to torpedo her. In the last 15 years of her life, she returned to passenger service. Cary Grant took passage on her when he was only 16 years old and going by the name of Archibald Leach. Old Reliable, Number 400, is better known as the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Olympic. Bruce, and his company, had designed and produced maybe the most famous and respected civilian ship in British history. Certainly, accomplishments such as this should be enough to make a man among the most admired people in the world.

What I haven’t told you yet is that the RMS Olympic was only equipped with 20 lifeboats when it sailed to New York. There could have been up to 64; the naval architects designed special davits to handle that many.  Bruce himself authorized the reduction in lifeboats, but not to save money. He lavished funds on the design and construction of the ship. He did it to preserve the ocean view for his prestigious first-class passengers, and maybe to allay any fears they might have. And he was allowed to do it because no one thought the Olympic could sink. He was allowed to do it because the regulations were based on the tonnage of ships less than a quarter of the size of the Olympic, regulations that the government hadn’t upgraded for decades.

Nobody died when the Olympic sank. Because it never did. If it had been the only one of the three huge ships he planned to build that made it onto the high seas, maybe no one would have remembered the lifeboat decision. Everyone would have remembered Bruce as the ambitious pioneering visionary that he was. But that’s not what happened. On this day, 111 years ago, 1,512 passengers and crew lost their lives when the Olympic’s sister ship sank after hitting an iceberg. As with the Olympic, only 20 lifeboats were on board.

While the ship slowly settled into the frigid water, the cry “Women and children first” rang out from the crewmen assigned to load the few lifeboats. All of the first-class and second-class children passengers survived that night. All but four women from first class survived. But 80 children from steerage perished. As for women, 110 died that terrible night.

Bruce watched as the crew began to lower the last departing lifeboat. Then, he stepped in. He left behind his compatriots Captain Edward Smith and Chief Naval Architect Thomas Andrews. He was one of only 16% of adult male passengers that survived. Some say that no women or children were around to go first when that lifeboat was launched. Some say he had spent the hours before rendering assistance to as many as he could. Some say his death would have been useless and just added one more number to the final ghastly tally.

Perhaps.

The court of public opinion can be unforgiving. It does not remember the astounding fruits of Bruce’s vision. It does not remember that he took the company his father founded to unexpected heights. It does not associate with him the faithful and heroic service of the almost identical sister ship he built.  It only remembers the two horrible choices that defined him ever after.

Fairly or not, we are sometimes remembered only for our poor decisions. J. Bruce Ismay, President of the White Star Line, will forever be remembered as the man who cheated so many of a chance to survive an icy sea. And he will always be known by the moniker the newspapers gave him in 1912: The Coward of the Titanic.