RMS Titanic
In 1912 Bride joined the White Star Line ocean liner RMS Titanic as the Junior Wireless operator and assistant to John "Jack" Phillips at Belfast, Ireland. Stories have appeared that Bride knew Phillips before Titanic, but Bride insisted that they had never met before Belfast. The Titanic left on its maiden voyage to New York City from Southampton, England on 10 April. During the voyage, from the wireless room on the Boat deck, Bride and Phillips sent out passengers' personal messages and received iceberg warnings from other ships. On 11 April, a day after the ship set sail, Phillips and Bride had celebrated Phillips' 25th birthday, with pastries brought from the first class dining room. On the evening of 14 April 1912 Bride had gone to bed early in preparation to relieve Jack Phillips at midnight, two hours earlier than normal. The wireless had not been working earlier and Phillips was busy catching up on a backlog of passengers' personal messages being sent to Cape Race, Newfoundland.
The Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm that night and began sinking. Bride woke up shortly after and asked Phillips what was happening. Phillips said they struck something; Bride acknowledged Phillips and began to get ready to go on duty. Captain Edward Smith soon came into the wireless room alerting Bride and Phillips to be ready to send out a distress signal. Shortly after midnight he came in and told them to request help and gave them the ship's position.
Jack Phillips sent out CQD while Bride took messages to the Captain about which ships were coming to Titanic's assistance. However, the closest ship to respond, the RMS Carpathia, wouldn’t reach Titanic until after it sank. At one point Bride reminded Phillips that the new code was SOS and jokingly said, "Send SOS, it's the new call, and it may be your last chance to send it." Later Phillips took a quick break and Bride took over the wireless. Phillips soon returned to the wireless room reporting that the forward part of the ship was flooded and that they should put on more clothes and life vests. Bride began to get dressed while Phillips went back to work on the wireless machine.
The wireless power was almost completely out when Captain Smith arrived and told the men that they had done their duty and that they were relieved. Phillips continued working while Bride gathered some money and personal belongings. When his back was turned a crew member had sneaked in and was taking Phillips' life vest. Bride saw and grabbed the man while Phillips stood up and knocked the crew member out. Water was coming onto the boat deck as they ran out of the wireless room and Bride began helping remove one of the last two lifeboats, Collapsible B, off the roof of the officer's quarters. The crew was unable to launch the boat before it was washed off the deck upside down. Bride was also washed off the deck and found himself beneath the overturned boat. He swam out from under and climbed onto the boat, on which he and fifteen other men were able to survive, although the collapsible was waterlogged and slowly sinking. Phillips, who had also made it to this boat, died shortly before rescue arrived. Bride and the others on B were later assisted into other lifeboats and were eventually taken aboard the RMS Carpathia.
On the Carpathia, the seriously injured Bride rested, and later helped the Carpathia's wireless operator, Harold Cottam, send out the large number of personal messages from the survivors. According to Encyclopedia Titanica: "Incidentally, Bride and Cottam had met before the disaster and were good friends. After the tragedy they stayed in contact for many years".
Read more about this topic: Harold Bride