The North Atlantic Tragedy: 8 Surprising Facts About the Sinking of the Titanic

The ship’s baker survived because he was drunk

Fans of the James Cameron movie might remember one particular character from Titanic‘s final moments. Dressed entirely in white, his only dark features being his black curly hair and thick Mario mustache, this character joins Rose and Jack in climbing over the edge of the stern as it lifts to a 90-degree angle. He then looks over at Rose—exchanging solemn looks of fear and acceptance—before the impossibly suspended ship begins its slow and final descent towards the bottom of the Atlantic.

Fans might also remember him pulling out a hipflask just before the ship breaks in half, and taking a generous swig of (what one hopes is) seriously strong liquor. Cameron had done his homework: unlike Jack and Rose, this character actually existed: his story being one of many remarkable ones from that fateful April night. Charles Joughin was the ship’s chief baker. He had been assigned as the captain of Lifeboat 10 but refused to assume his post. Instead, he assisted the other crew to load the boats and ferried women and children down forcibly from A Deck (where they thought they would be safer) before hauling them on.

Once the boats were launched, he went below deck to his quarters for half a tumbler full of liquor. In doing what I think most of us would do in his situation, he inadvertently ended up saving his life. Though alcohol normally speeds up hypothermia, when consumed in large quantities it can sometimes protect against it. Lougin spent two hours treading water and admitted to not feeling the cold. Eventually found hanging off an upturned lifeboat, would stay at least partially in the water until morning when the Carpathia‘s crewmen dragged him from the water. Incredibly, the only physical mark of his ordeal was his swollen feet.

Joughin went on to live a long and healthy life: not at all usual for those who had spent any considerable length of time in the icy waters. Colonel Archibald Gracie, for example—the American writer and historian whose own remarkable experience of the sinking “The Truth About The Titanic” was published posthumously in 1913—never recovered. After being pulled underwater, he had managed to scramble atop an overturned lifeboat, where he passed the night along with Charles Lightoller, wireless operator Harold Bride and (hours later) Charles Joughin. But he never recovered from the severe hypothermia he had contracted and died within mere months of the sinking on December 4, 1912.

After the disaster, Charles Joughin briefly returned to England before emigrating to America. Apparently not too deterred by his experience aboard Titanic, he subsequently worked on a number of ships: According to his obituary, he even survived another sinking—that of the SS Oregon in Boston Harbor—though there’s some inconsistency over the dates. After retiring, he contributed a chapter to Walter Lord’s seminal book on the Titanic: “A Night To Remember”. He died in 1956, aged 78.

Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Science Museum – Titanic, Marconi And The Wireless Telegraph

Google Arts & Culture – Guglielmo Marconi, The Radio, And Wireless Transmission

IEEE Spectrum – Who Invented Radio: Guglielmo Marconi or Aleksandr Popov?

Motor Biscuit – Ransom E. Olds and His Impact on the Automotive World

Business Insider – Years Before The Titanic Sank, Two Mysterious Books Were Published That Seemed To Predict The Disaster

Medium – Violet Jessop: The Woman Who Survived 3 Historic Shipwrecks

UPI Archives – Britannic Victim Of Torpedo Or Mine In The Aegean Sea

Zoomer – Why Did the “Titanic” Band Play On?

CS Monitor – The Band that Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

The Washington Post – Fact-checking QAnon conspiracy theories: Did J.P. Morgan sink the Titanic?

Reuters – CORRECTED-Fact Check-J.P. Morgan Did Not Sink The Titanic To Push Forward Plans For The U.S. Federal Reserve