Charles Herbert Lightoller, DSC & Bar, RD, RNR (30 March 1874 8 December 1952) was a British Royal Navy officer and the second officer on board the RMS Titanic. He was the most senior member of the crew to survive the Titanic disaster. As the officer in charge of loading passengers into lifeboats on the port side, Lightoller strictly enforced the women and children only protocol, not allowing any male passengers to board the lifeboats unless they were needed as auxiliary seamen.Lightoller served as a commanding officer of the Royal Navy during World War I and was twice decorated for gallantry.During World War II, in retirement, he provided and sailed as a volunteer on one of the little ships that played a part in the Dunkirk evacuation. Rather than allow his motoryacht to be requisitioned by the Admiralty, he sailed the vessel to Dunkirk personally and repatriated 127 British servicemen.Two weeks before the sinking, Lightoller boarded the RMS Titanic in Belfast, acting as first officer for the sea trials. Captain Smith gave the post of chief officer to Henry Wilde of the Olympic, demoting the original appointee William McMaster Murdoch to first officer and Lightoller to second officer. The original second officer, David Blair, was excluded from the voyage altogether, while the ships roster of junior officers remained unchanged. Blairs departure from the crew caused a problem, as he had the key to the ships binocular case. Because the crew lacked access to binoculars, Lightoller promised to purchase them when the Titanic got to New York City. Later, the missing key and resultant lack of binoculars for the lookouts in the crows nest became a point of contention at the U.S. inquiry into the Titanic disaster. On the night of 14 April 1912, Lightoller commanded the last bridge watch prior to the ships collision with the iceberg, after which Murdoch relieved him. An hour before the collision, Lightoller ordered the ships lookouts to continually watch for small ice and particularly growlers until daylight. He then ordered the Quartermaster, Robert Hichens, to check ships fresh water supply for freezing below the waterline.[14] Lightoller had retired to his cabin and was preparing for bed when he felt the collision. Wearing only his pyjamas, Lightoller hurried out on deck to investigate, but seeing nothing, retired back to his cabin. Deciding it would be better to remain where other officers knew where to find him if needed, he lay awake in his bunk until fourth officer Joseph Boxhall summoned him to the bridge. He pulled on trousers, and a navy-blue sweater over his pyjamas, and donned (along with socks and shoes) his officers overcoat and cap. During the evacuation, Lightoller took charge of lowering the lifeboats on the port side of the boat deck.[9] He helped to fill several lifeboats with passengers and launched them. Lightoller interpreted Smiths order for the evacuation of women and children as essentially women and children only. As a result, Lightoller lowered lifeboats with empty seats if there were no women and children waiting to board, meaning to fill them to capacity once they had reached the water.[2] Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Godfrey Peuchen has the distinction of being the only adult male passenger Lightoller allowed into the boats on the port side evacuation, due to his previous nautical experience and offer of assistance when there were no seamen available from the Titanics own complement to help command one of the lowering lifeboats.[15] There were fears from some of the officers that the davits used for lowering the boats would not hold the weight if the boats were full, but they were unaware that the new davits on the Titanic had been designed to do so. Under this misapprehension, Lightollers plan was to fill the lifeboats from the waterline and sent 10 men to open the gangway doors in the ships port so that passengers would have access. The men failed in this task and were never seen again (presumed drowned carrying out this final order). The under-capacity boats then pulled away from the ship as soon as they hit the water, rendering the plan a failure. At least one boat is confirmed as wilfully ignoring officers shouted orders to return.
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