The Sinking of the Titanic

One of the survivors of the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912, Lawrence Beesley wrote a successful book about his experience, The Loss of the SS Titanic (June, 1912), published just nine weeks after the disaster. He saw two second class women who tried to get on a lifeboat, who were told to go back to their own deck, and that their lifeboats were waiting there. At the time of Lifeboat No. 13's launching on the Boat Deck, no women or children were in immediate sight, but it seemed there was room for more. As a result, Beesley was ordered to jump into it just before it launched. He managed to survive a subsequent incident, where Lifeboat No. 15 nearly came on top of No. 13. A stoker managed to cut the ropes connecting the boat to the falls at the last minute, and those in both boats emerged unhurt. Beesley and the rest of the survivors were picked up by the RMS Carpathia early morning on April 15. During the filming of A Night to Remember (1958), Beesley famously gatecrashed the set during the sinking scene, hoping to 'go down with the ship' that time. But he was spotted by the director, Roy Ward Baker, who vetoed this unscheduled appearance, due to actors' union rules. These events are parodied in Julian Barnes' novel A History of the World in 10.5 Chapters, where Beesley makes a brief appearance as a fictional character. Beesley was portrayed by actor David Warner in the 1979 dramatisation of the voyage and sinking, S.O.S. Titanic. He is the grandfather of New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade.