Frederick Fleet, The Titanic Lookout Who Was The First Person To Spot The Iceberg
Wikimedia CommonsLookout Frederick Fleet was the first person to spot the Titanic iceberg.On night on April 14, 1912, Frederick Fleet was busy keeping watch, his eyes locked on the calm, dark waters of the North Atlantic. Then, from the crows nest of the Titanic, Fleet spotted a black mass in the dark sea. It was an iceberg. And the ship was heading straight at it. As one of the two lookouts in the Titanics crows nest, Fleet acted quickly. He rang the ships bell, then telephoned the bridge, famously crying: Iceberg, right ahead! Almost immediately, the ship began to veer to port. Initially, it seemed that the Titanic had narrowly avoided disaster. Fleet watched the iceberg scrape the side of the ship, leaving ice shavings on the deck. But, before long, it became clear that the ship was doomed to sink.When it did, Frederick Fleet managed to survive. But the tragedy of the Titanic would haunt him for the rest of his life.Frederick Fleets Path To The TitanicBorn in Liverpool on Oct. 15, 1887, Frederick Fleet grew up in foster care. He never knew his father, and his mother abandoned him at a young age. According to Encyclopedia Titanic, he was sent to a training ship at the age of 12. From that point on, Fleet developed a career as a seaman. He ascended the ranks, going from a deck boy to an Able Seaman. In 1908, Fleet began working on the RMS Oceanic, which, like the Titanic, was constructed by White Star Line, and sailed regularly between England and New York. Over the years, Fleet honed his skills as a ships lookout. Public DomainThe RMS Oceanic, where Frederick Fleet worked before joining the crew of the Titanic. Then, in 1912, Fleet joined the crew of the RMS Titanic. At the time, the Titanic was the largest ship in the world, and filled with incredible amenities like swimming pools, Turkish baths, squash courts, and even a ships gym. As on the Oceanic, Fleet would be a lookout. But neither he nor anyone else aboard could have predicted that the Titanics voyage would end in disaster. Iceberg, Right Ahead!: Inside The Titanics Final MomentsThe Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage on April 10, 1912, heading from Southampton to New York. Fleet was one of six lookouts onboard, working in two-man shifts that lasted two hours. Their job entailed climbing up the Titanics crows nest (90 feet high) and scanning the sea for any dangers.Wikimedia CommonsThe crows nest stood partway up the mast on the Titanic. From that position, lookouts scanned the horizon for danger.On the night of April 14, 1912, Frederick Fleet climbed to the crows nest for his 10 p.m. shift alongside his fellow lookout, Reginald Lee. They relieved two other lookouts, who advised them to keep a sharp lookout for small ice. Indeed, the sea was crammed with ice that night. Several nearby ships, including the SS Californian, had even decided to stop sailing until morning.Then, near the end of his shift that night, Fleet spotted a black objecthigh above the water, as he later testified. Fleet knew what it was: an iceberg. He immediately leapt into action, ringing three bells the signal for icebergs and then called straight to the bridge. Public DomainA possible photo of the iceberg which sank the Titanic, taken on April 12, 1912.Iceberg, Fleet famously declared. Right ahead! The bridge crew acted quickly. As Fleet testified, the ship began to veer to port even while he was on the phone. But it wasnt enough. As Fleet watched, the starboard side of the ship scraped against the side of the iceberg, producing a slight grinding noise. The collision also caused ice shavings to rain down onto the deck of the ship.I thought it was a narrow shave, Fleet testified. But the collision was more catastrophic than he realized. The ship began to sink, and those onboard were ordered to make their way to the ships lifeboats. Fleet and another sailor were put in charge of Lifeboat No. 6, which was filled with a number of passengers including Molly Brown. To their horror, the Titanic sank into the sea. Frederick Fleet and the other Titanic survivors were rescued the next morning by the RMS Carpathia. Investigating the Sinking of the TitanicNational ArchivesFrederick Fleet helped load two lifeboats and was ordered to row Lifeboat No. 6, which primarily carried women.In the aftermath of the Titanic sinking, the public sought someone to blame. Why had the Titanic sank? Could the tragedy have been averted? Both a British investigation and an American investigation attempted to answer the question. Investigators interviewed many people involved in the Titanic sinking, including Frederick Fleet, to find out. During his testimony before the U.S. Senate, Fleet described seeing the iceberg (a black mass) and how he immediately raising the alarm. Under questioning, he also admitted that he and the other lookouts had not been given binoculars, despite asking for them in Southampton. We had none this time. We had nothing at all, only our own eyes, to look out, Fleet replied, explaining that he had had binoculars on the Oceanic. Had they had binoculars on the Titanic, he continued, we could have seen [the iceberg] a bit sooner well, enough to get out of the way.As it so happened, the Titanic lookouts were supposed to have binoculars. But they had been placed in a locker, and the officer with the locker key had forgotten to give it back when he was transferred off the ship. Wikimedia CommonsIn his Senate testimony, Frederick Fleet stated that binoculars might have prevented the tragedy.Whether or not binoculars could have averted the tragedy is up to debate. Indeed, the reason behind the Titanic sinking is debated up to this day, with some laying blame at the feet of the ships captain, Edward Smith, and others claiming that the sinking was actually part of a conspiracy theory. Frederick Fleets Life After The Sinking Of The TitanicTwo months after the Titanic sank, Frederick Fleet went out to sea on the Titanics sister ship the Olympic. But Fleet found that crewmen who survived the Titanic were treated differently by other seamen. They were a bleak reminder of the disaster that killed 1,500 people.Encyclopedia TitanicaAfter surviving the Titanic, Frederick Fleet continued to work on ships for most of his career.By the end of summer, Fleet left White Star. He spent the next two decades sailing with other companies and, after retiring from seafaring in 1936, Fleet worked as a shipbuilder and shore master-at-arms. Along the way, Fleet also married and had a daughter. But the end of his life was a tragic one. After his wife died, Fleet was evicted from his home. Two weeks later, in January 1965, Frederick Fleet died by suicide at the age of 77. Wikimedia CommonsFrederick Fleets grave in Southampton, England. He was originally buried in an unmarked plot. The Titanic Historical Society paid for a headstone to mark his grave in Southampton in 1993.After reading about Frederick Fleet, the Titanic lookout who first spotted the iceberg, discover the heartbreaking stories behind these Titanic artifacts. Or, learn the tragic story of the Titanic band, which kept playing as the ship sank. The post Frederick Fleet, The <em>Titanic</em> Lookout Who Was The First Person To Spot The Iceberg appeared first on All That's Interesting.
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