A Fellow You Should Know

Charles Herbert Lightoller, DSC & Bar, RD, RNR
(30 March 1874 – 8 December 1952)
(Source)

As my Christmas vacation winds down to its inevitable conclusion, with my return to work on Monday the 10th, I've been perusing lots of shows on Netflix, Disney, and Amazon Prime. The reason for that is, of course, no bloody commercials.

The program WWII in Color: Road to Victory (Netflix) particularly caught my eye because, well, it's history, it's World War II, and I like the idea of seeing those events in color. Life is in color, for far too many people historical events are seen as being in black and white. They weren't you know, color film did exist in World War II but it was pretty expensive. That's why most of the footage of the war was in black and white. It gives the events of that war a certain unreality. (There were many who were outraged by the colorization of the movie The Longest Day, I was not among them.)

My only quibble with this program is that whoever put the films together wasn't all that knowledgeable of the equipment used in that war. I mean seriously, when you're talking about the German Panzerwaffe, it's rather inept to show French tanks advancing to the attack. I suppose the historians (one of my favorites, James Holland, is involved) can't check everything!

At any rate, it's entertaining and informative. The first episode is about Dunkirk. Which is where I learned of Mr. Lightoller, pictured above. Seems that the episode depicted in the film Dunkirk, which featured one of the many small boats used to pick up troops from Dunkirk, was based on Mr. Lightoller's actions during the evacuation from France.

What I didn't know was that in addition to captaining this small boat -

Motor Yacht Sundowner
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With which he, and his crew of two young fellows, managed to save 127 men from Dunkirk, in a boat licensed to carry 21 passengers! He also captained this ship in World War I as an officer in the Royal Navy -

HMS Garry in 1905
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As commander of the River-class destroyer HMS Garry, he and his crew sank the German U-Boat UB-110 in June of 1918. That event was surrounded by some controversy, which you can read about here. Needless to say, the U-Boats were deeply hated by the Royal Navy.

While Commander Lightoller certainly led an eventful life, he had served prior to World War I aboard this ship, as her Second Officer -

RMS Titanic departing Southampton on April 10, 1912.
(Source)

You can read more about his experiences aboard RMS Titanic here.

This short YouTube film tells Commander Lightoller's tale from Titanic to Dunkirk.

I would recommend the Wikipedia article on Commander Lightoller and this entry from the Encyclopedia Titantica.

All three of his sons served in World War II, the youngest (as noted in the YouTube clip) died on nearly the first day of the war. The son who accompanied him to Dunkirk later served in the Royal Navy and was also killed in action in 1945. Unbeknownst to Lightoller, his middle son was serving with Montgomery's 3rd Division and had been evacuated from Dunkirk some 48 hours before his father and brother arrived to evacuate others. That son survived the war.

Lightoller's grandson also served in the Royal Navy during the Cold War, rising to command the submarine HMS Rorqual in the 1970s.

A man worth knowing.