12 Titanic Survivors Whose Stories Reveal The Tragedy’s True Scope

Published June 25, 2022
Updated April 23, 2025

Frederick Fleet, The Man Who Yelled “Iceberg! Right Ahead!”

Frederick Fleet

Wikimedia CommonsFrederick Fleet, Titanic Survivor. 1912.

Frederick Fleet, a British sailor, was just 25 years old when he signed on as a crewman on the Titanic. He was one of five lookouts on the ill-fated voyage, and it was Fleet who made the famous call to the bridge: “Iceberg! Right ahead!”

At 10:00 p.m. on the night of April 14, he took to the frigid crow’s nest with his watch partner, a man named Reginald Lee. The departing team warned them to look out for small bits of ice in the water — a difficult task on a moonless night.

At 11:39 p.m., with just twenty minutes left in his shift, Fleet spotted the iceberg suddenly off the bow. Panicked, he rang the bell and notified the bridge. By the time his shift ended at midnight, people were already swarming to the lifeboats.

He was ordered to row Lifeboat 6, the same one occupied by the Unsinkable Mollie Brown, and got his group of survivors to safety on the nearby RMS Carapathia.

Fleet’s reception on land was mixed. Though he had spotted the iceberg, his role in the sinking became the subject of a number of inquiries.

The world wanted to know whether the disaster could have been avoided. Fleet always insisted that he could have prevented it if he’d just had binoculars — something the Titanic’s watch crew had asked for and been denied.

As he reached old age, he suffered from depression and ultimately committed suicide in 1965.

author
John Kuroski
author
Based in Brooklyn, New York, John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of expertise include modern American history and the ancient Near East. In an editing career spanning 17 years, he previously served as managing editor of Elmore Magazine in New York City for seven years.
editor
Jaclyn Anglis
editor
Based in Brooklyn, New York, Jaclyn Anglis is the senior managing editor at All That's Interesting, where she has worked since 2019. She holds a Master's degree in journalism from the City University of New York and a dual Bachelor's degree in English writing and history from DePauw University. In a career that spans 11 years, she has also worked with the New York Daily News, Bustle, and Bauer Xcel Media. Her interests include American history, true crime, modern history, and science.
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Kuroski, John. "12 Titanic Survivors Whose Stories Reveal The Tragedy’s True Scope." AllThatsInteresting.com, June 25, 2022, https://allthatsinteresting.com/titanic-survivors. Accessed July 25, 2025.