Walter Lord Quotes

Suddenly he was amazed to see a lifeboat floating near the starboard side. He phoned the bridge - did they know there was a boat afloat? An incredulous voice asked who he was. Rowe explained, and the bridge then realized he had been overlooked. They told him to come to the bridge right away and bring some rockets with him.

One man who could understand it very well was the architect of these stop-gap measures: General the Viscount Gort, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force. A big burly man of 53, Lord Gort was no strategist - he was happy to follow the French lead on such matters - but he had certain soldierly virtues that came in handy at a time like this. He was a great fighter - had won the Victoria Cross storming the Hindenburg Line in 1918 - and he was completely unflappable.

It's a funny thing, but today the Titanic is probably much more - that is people are much more aware of it than they were in 1954, when I was doing my research.

I look for something that is highly unusual, involving ordinary people caught in extraordinary situations.

You have to study the people and the ones that measure up are not always the ones you expect.

Robertson called his ship the Titan; the White Star Line called its ship the Titanic. This is the story of her last night.

Try and get off with Major Butt

There were exceptions, a couple of families that just plain didn't want to even think about it, although forty years had passed but mostly the people were very interested in talking about it.

Events alone rarely provide much guide to the future.

The clock in the wireless shack said 12:45 A.M. when the Titanic sent the first SOS call in history.

Someone once told me the one thread that runs through them all is a premium on personal courage - not intellectual courage, but just plain physical courage.

caused no end of trouble. It took the air cover from all four carriers to handle them properly.

An almost eerie quiet hung over Washington; it had been that way ever since the British left. Pennsylvania Avenue stood broad and empty, with Joe Gales's type still scattered over the 7th Street intersection. General Ross's horse still lay, legs stiff in death, outside the ruins of Robert Sewall's house. The rubble of the Capitol still smoldered quietly in the sun.

In ticking off the things that weren't done, it was easy to forget the big thing that was done. Against overwhelming odds, with the most meager resources, and often at fearful self-sacrifice, a few determined men reversed the course of the war in the Pacific. Japan would never again take the offensive. Yet the margin was thin - so narrow that almost any man there could say with pride that he personally helped turn the tide at Midway. It was indeed, as General Marshall said in Washington, "the closest squeak and the greatest victory.

Mrs. George Widener was met not by automobile but by a special train - consisting of a private Pullman, another car for ballast, and a locomotive.

It would be nice to say the rich people, the fancy people, all behaved like bastards and the poor slobs all came through like heroes. But as a matter of fact, sometimes the poor slobs behave like slobs and the great, noble, privileged characters come off very well, indeed.

It is a rash man indeed who would set himself up as final arbiter on all that happened the incredible night the Titanic went down.

What troubled people especially was not just the tragedy--or even the needlessness--but the element of fate in it all. If the Titanic had heeded any of the six ice messages on Sunday . . . if ice conditions had been normal . . . if the night had been rough or moonlit . . . if she had seen the berg 15 second sooner--or 15 seconds later . . . if she had hit the ice any other way . . . if her watertight bulkheads had been one deck higher . . . if she had carried enough boats . . . if the Californian had only come. Had any one of these "ifs" turned out right, every life might have been save. But they all went against her--a classic Greek tragedy.