Titanic Survivors: Harold Bride
Wikimedia CommonsHarold Bride (center).
A junior wireless officer aboard the Titanic, Harold Bride was one of the two people responsible for sending SOS messages to nearby ships, thus allowing the RMS Carpathia to rescue the Titanic survivors.
He and another man on duty, Jack Phillips, raced to send distress signals to nearby ships — but as the communications specialists, they knew that the closest, the Carapathia, would likely not arrive until after the Titanic sank.
They worked frantically until Captain Edward Smith came and told them they were relieved of duty; the ship had nearly lost power, and only two lifeboats remained.
They made a run for Collapsible B and were just getting it into the water when a wave swept across the deck, tumbling both Harold Bride and the upturned boat into the ocean.
Bride and 15 others scrambled onto the waterlogged, sinking collapsible and survived until other lifeboats collected them and conveyed them to the Carapathia.
Once aboard the Carpathia, Bride got back to work and began helping the ship’s wireless officer send messages from the other Titanic survivors.
When the Carapathia made land, Bride had to be carried ashore: he had sprained one foot in the plunge into the ocean, and the other was frostbitten after a night in the Atlantic’s frigid waters.
