Richard Norris Williams
Twenty-one year old Richard Williams was traveling home to the USA with his father when the disaster struck Titanic. Williams was a promising tennis player who intended to participate in some tournaments before starting his studies at Harvard University. When the ship collided with the iceberg, Williams and his father immediately left their first-class stateroom to make their way to the deck. On the way, they came across a steward trying to free a panicking passenger from their cabin. Williams helped by breaking down the door. Amazingly, the steward threatened to report him for damaging White Star property!
Father and son did not seek or expect a place in the lifeboats. Instead, they wandered the decks, watching the lights from those departing into the distance. Once it became too cold, they took shelter in the ship’s gymnasium. But when the ship finally foundered, Williams and his father found themselves in the water. When the forward funnel collapsed into the sea, it crushed Williams senior. However, the wave created by the falling funnel saved his son, driving him towards collapsible lifeboat A.
The occupants of the boat hauled Williams Junior aboard. The crew had hastily launched it just as Titanic was sinking, so it was half full of water. Like the thirty other people in the vessel, Williams had to sit up to his waist in water. The cold was terrible, but Williams diverted himself by trying to communicate to a foreign gentleman how to knock a dent out of his hat. Eventually, the group was picked up by Officer Lowe’s boat. But by the time they reached the Carpathia, William’s health was so bad a doctor wanted to amputate both his legs.
Williams refused to agree to this. Once home, he exercised daily, and remarkably his legs began to recover. Not only did he regain full use of them, but he also entered Harvard as planned and continued with his tennis career. That very year, Richard Williams won the US mixed doubles title, followed in 1914 and 1916 by the men’s singles title. In 1920, he became one of the Wimbledon men’s doubles champions and in 1924 crowned his achievements by winning Olympic gold.