I recall him lying at the Inquiries. What were some of the things he lied about?? I can't remember what it was. Thanks

The first thing that comes to mind is that he lied about never having to use his gun. Later on privately I recall hearing that he admitted it to other people (although I cannot remember a source on than one).

I don't know if it is a total fib (at least the entire night), but when Sen. Smith asked him how the men acted on deck he replied "they could not have stood quieter if they had been at church" (Am Inq. Day 4) I always wondered if this statement was elaborated so that the re-telling of the event could be portrayed as, no one paniced and "I did not have to use my gun to keep them from rushing the boats".

Another point that I put down on my notes when reading the inquiry is that Lightoller seemed to imply that the steerage were not kept below decks by anyone or anything.

Light: the steerage have no right [up on the boat deck].
Smith: did they on that occasion?
Light: Oh, yes.
Smith: there was no restraint?
Light: Oh, absolutely none. (Am. Inq. Day 1)

Did he not know about the gates that seperated the classes? Or was this a lie?

He did seem to not know much about the ship, as he was new to it. He also said that he thought the ship had 40-50 watertight compartments, and that he had been in all of them! (Am Inq. day 1) (Maybe he is thinking of each individual deck that had a watertight bulkhead attached to it? )

Yeah that's odd he would think that. Maybe he is referring to each level...How about he ordered the gangway door opened on E-deck. I never saw the point to this one. He did claim at that point he didn't think the ship was actually going to sink. I do believe that because I was watching a TV exclusive that said at one point, the only people who knew what was happening were Mr. Andrews, Mr. Ismay, and Captain Smith. I always liked the scene in ANTR, when Ismay gets into the lifeboat and Officer Murdoch just stares at him, then lowers it away.

He said that the reason he wanted to open the doors was to allow boats to come back and to load themselves to maximum capacity. I think he was just trying different techniques in ways of filling the boats.

He tried to lower boat 4 from A deck, but found it too much trouble to load the other boats from that deck because you had to open the windows! On that boat he also tied the boat to the wire hawser running along the side of the ship for coaling purposes, so that it would hold the boat and no one would fall between the ship and the open space. Aparently, he also waisted a bunch of seaman on that mission as he did not see them again and he was getting short of seaman to man the boats.

Its interesting you bring up that he did not know the ship was in trouble until some time. Aparently, it was not until he lowered his third boat (and that would be number 10 at about 1:00 am) that he suddenly realized the seriousness of the situation. By this point, he told Sen. Smith that he decided to "take more risks" in regards to his judgement of the strength fo the tackle and the boats.

Interestingly, James Cameron put in a scene at that very lifeboat, only he wrote it as Thomas Andrews giving him the warning that he should start filling them to capacity.

I also remember reading in the inquiry that he did not want to fill the lifeboats to capacity up top because, although they were made to hod 65 ( I don't remember) he only wanted to load about 30-40 because he was afraid that might overload the boat in the middle. When he got to A deck he would stop it and then fill up to capacity but of course, the windows were all closed. He had also mentioned the wire that would make it easier for women to enter the boat as they could use it as a step.

Interesting....I do recall Lightoller being much more strict. Murdoch followed women and children first, then men. Lightoller was women and children only.

So he wanted to load people from the gangway door??

Yeah, that was the plan. And another thing with boat 4 was that it was delayed because of the sounding spar sticking out underneath it (another brilliant idea) and had to be chopped away (mentioned in Walter Lords "A Night to Remember"). One thing I WILL give Lightoller credit for though, is that when Wilde told him to man Collapsible D, he replied "The hell I will" which showed even HE was sticking to his own rules. About not knowing much about the ship or the seriousness of the situation, I've a couple thoughts.

1) If you're going to be an officer of a liner, wouldn't you want to know as much about it as possible?

2) The officers only knew as much as Smith told them. If he didn't stress the seriousness of the situation, they didn't have the urgancy to fill the boats until it was too late. Hell, Lightoller even went over Wildes head and asked Smith if he could start loading the boats.

By "man" Collapsible D you mean load it? Or get in it??

Yeah, like I said before, I can't believe it wasn't stressed to make sure the lifeboats are all loaded to the fullest. Especially when Smith knew the fate as of 12:05am. I understand he didn't want a panic. But with the # of lifeboats, about 400 more lives could have been saved at least. I believe they had room for 1,100 people. As we know, 705 lived.

One thing I was never quite clear about was the moment when Andrews told Smith that the ship was doomed. Many Titanic movies show Smith and Andrews looking over the plans and Andrews explaining about five compartments being breached so the ship would sink.

But did this meeting really happened as it shows, or did anything similar happen? Were the officers there? (I guess not since Lightoller did not know it was a serious situation for quite some time). Or did this meeting take place like in the firemans tunnel when Andrews and Smith did their own inspections?