WI: Jack Phillips survives Titanic sinking

We would know Titanic's real last transmission, which is one of my personal biggest mysteries about the sinking. I don't think it was "Engine room full up to boilers." I suspect his real last message, even if it was tapped out with the transmitter dead, was something like "goodbye, old man."

Phillips would have had to account for at least two major mistakes on the night of April 14. First, the ice warning from the Mesaba in the late evening, which was not relayed to the bridge. It was not a properly formatted message -- it did not have the MSG [Master's Service Gram] prefix that required the message to be relayed to the captain -- but it was an ice warning nonetheless. Charles Lightoller's memoirs, Titanic and Other Ships, faulted Phillips severely for failing to relay the Mesaba's message. Second, Phillips' message "Shut up, keep out, I am working Cape Race" to Californian, when that ship was announcing it was stopped in ice some 10-20 miles from where Titanic would hit the iceberg.

IOTL, things were relatively friendly between Titanic's surviving officers and Harold Bride. If Phillips had survived, things might not have been so friendly. It's easy to imagine Lightoller and the other officers faulting the wireless crew for not relaying the ice warnings, and Phillips and Bride being questioned about the officers' failure to reduce speed given the ice warnings. I personally don't think the captain and officers took radio seriously; they viewed it something like someone might have viewed email in 1995.
 
We would know Titanic's real last transmission, which is one of my personal biggest mysteries about the sinking. I don't think it was "Engine room full up to boilers." I suspect his real last message, even if it was tapped out with the transmitter dead, was something like "goodbye, old man."

Phillips would have had to account for at least two major mistakes on the night of April 14. First, the ice warning from the Mesaba in the late evening, which was not relayed to the bridge. It was not a properly formatted message -- it did not have the MSG [Master's Service Gram] prefix that required the message to be relayed to the captain -- but it was an ice warning nonetheless. Charles Lightoller's memoirs, Titanic and Other Ships, faulted Phillips severely for failing to relay the Mesaba's message. Second, Phillips' message "Shut up, keep out, I am working Cape Race" to Californian, when that ship was announcing it was stopped in ice some 10-20 miles from where Titanic would hit the iceberg.

IOTL, things were relatively friendly between Titanic's surviving officers and Harold Bride. If Phillips had survived, things might not have been so friendly. It's easy to imagine Lightoller and the other officers faulting the wireless crew for not relaying the ice warnings, and Phillips and Bride being questioned about the officers' failure to reduce speed given the ice warnings. I personally don't think the captain and officers took radio seriously; they viewed it something like someone might have viewed email in 1995.

This is supposedly one of the last complete transmissions:

"SOS SOS CQD CQD Titanic. We are sinking fast. Passengers are being put into boats. Titanic.", sent between 2:05 and 2:15 am. Because the power was rapidly failing by this point, none of the other ships were able to read the message. But then how do we know they sent that message at all? Virginian heard Titanic signal faintly around 2 am, perhaps this was what Titanic was signalling? Another mystery follows the next supposed message.


Apparently Titanic may have also attempted to send an incomplete transmission to Virginian around 2:17 am (?):

"CQD This is Titanic CQD This is..."

I highlighted the first two letters as some believe the transmission cut off after that point. The question is, how would they still be sending messages by 2:17 am? The wireless room would be underwater by that point.
 
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SsgtC

Banned
By going down with the ship, Phillips became a somewhat sympathetic/heroic figure. The wireless operator standing steadfastly at his station calling for help until the last. If he survives, much more attention is going to be placed on his failure to relay all applicable ice warnings to the bridge. In my own Titanic timeline, both Phillips and Bride are severely censured for this failure, and that was with Titanic surviving. In my opinion, with the ship lost, nearly all the blame for the sinking gets laid squarely on his head.
 
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