Page 91 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 32 - 36

deck if for no other higher motive than that of shifting the responsibility for inaction from his own shoulders to that of the Master. He was quite content to remain during that watch with the knowledge that the Master was sleeping in the chart room alone, and he made no attempt to bring the Master on to the deck. I say he would certainly have called the Master on deck and communicated with him and taken measures to see that the Master did come on deck if he had for one moment thought there was a vessel in distress and wanting assistance. He would also have called the Marconi operator. It would have been no trouble for him to do so; he would have done that, and not remained content with signalling to her by Morse signals. The Commissioner: What was the colour of the rockets that you saw? Mr. Dunlop: I do not know, my Lord; they were said to be white rockets, and there was a discussion as to whether they had any colours in them or not. The Commissioner: They were white rockets. Mr. Dunlop: I think the evidence is they were white rockets. The Commissioner: What was the colour of the rockets from the “Titanic”? Mr. Dunlop: Oh, white rockets. The Commissioner: At all events, the rockets you saw were the same colour. Mr. Dunlop: Oh, yes, they were the same colour as, I suppose, most of the rockets that exist in the world are. Most rockets are white rockets. The Commissioner: Are there not some green and red? Mr. Dunlop: Yes. Some use what are called private night signals which consist of different coloured balls thrown up, red and green and blue. There are coloured rockets in use, but I think I am right in saying the rocket most generally used is the white rocket. The Commissioner: Distress rockets may, according to the Rules, be anything? Mr. Dunlop: Yes, they may be any colour. The Commissioner: They are generally white. Mr. Dunlop: I expect they are generally white because most rockets are white. My Lord, he did not call the Marconi operator; he was content to go on signalling to this vessel by Morse signals and getting no reply. That I submit he would not have done had he thought this vessel was a vessel in distress and wanted assistance. He would not have been content with the steps he took to get into communication with her. And lastly, if they had been distress rockets, you would have found those signals entered in the scrap log. According to the evidence they were not entered there. The Commissioner: We have never seen the scrap log. Mr. Dunlop: No, my Lord, and the Third Officer, Groves, who had no responsibility in the matter at all because at all material times he was below, was asked if he saw the scrap log on the following morning and he said he did. He was asked was there any entry in the scrap log of those signals. The Commissioner: I have forgotten what your explanation is, or was, of the fact that rockets are not referred to in the log at all. What is the explanation? Mr. Dunlop: The explanation is because they did not think that the rockets were signals of distress. They thought they were what they call private night signals. The Attorney-General: They did the next morning when they knew what had happened to the “Titanic.” Mr. Dunlop: Not the officers. The Attorney-General: Oh, yes. Mr. Dunlop: They still in the witness-box denied that they were distress rockets in the sense of being rockets from a vessel in distress. The whole of their evidence is to the effect that they were not. In one sense distress rockets, true, because they are rockets which show a white light, but in the sense of being rockets from a vessel in distress their answer is no, and there is no evidence to