Gus Cohen was a man that miraculously survived anything
Gerson or Gurson Cohen was a 19 year old from Whitechapel in London. Usually he was adressed with ‘Gus’.
He stemmed from a Russian Jewish family. His parents were Israel and Rachel Cohen. They were tailors. Gerson was born on 31 December 1892 in Whitechapel. He had one elder brother, Marks who was born in 1891. His younger siblings were: Abraham and Hyman, born in 1895 and 1901 respectively.
Growing up, he started a career in compositing. He wanted to go to New York, because he wished to join his uncle for more success in America, as his printing business didn’t go as well as he’d like. He had a relationship with Hattie Cohen. Her maiden name was the same as his last name. He wanted to bring her over for a possible marriage.
Titanic[]
He had borrowed £8 to get a Third Class ticket for 8,10. Het was looking for adventure and that’s why he was set for America. Instead of the Teutonic, he found himself boarding the grandest, most luxurious ship of the time, Titanic. He joined her on because the Teutonic set sail on a Jewish Holiday and his father was very strict about that. On Wednesday, April 10, he embarked in Southampton. He was in a cabin for six, probably in the bow of the ship and his roommates were all British men.
On Sunday, the 14th of April he had gone to bed at 11:30 P.M. Ten minutes later Titanic had made contact with an iceberg, and it woke him up. Cohen believed something must have gone wrong in the Engine Room. He was too curious to stay in bed, so he dressed and moved up to the Forward Well Deck. He found ice lying scattered around everywhere. After midnight he returned to his cabin when the seawater had started coming in.
One of the Master-At-Arms then told him and other steerage people to put on lifejackets. Gus proceeded to run through the large Scotland Road hallway and when he had gone aft, he saw men and women pray, among them a lot of young Irish women. He then moved up to a deck that was designated to First Class and had found a lifejacket.
He then made his way to the lifeboats, only to be stopped by crewmen. He had to make a jump for it when he saw a boat nearby in the was. Titanic was settling quickly at that moment and took a dive. Gus now was trying to reach a rope from a lowered lifeboat and made it onto her davit. But stokers got in the way and pushed him back, he didn’t give up though. He landed in the water and got near lifeboat 4 after five minutes of swimming which he described as ‘seemingly hours’. They pulled him in and that’s how he survived the Titanic disaster. But there are other stories about how he just sneaked into lifeboat 12 when nobody was looking.
While on Carpathia, he gave a lively and very accurate account of his own diegesis during the sinking. He believed the orchestra didn’t play till the very end.
Later life[]
Gus had many perillous moments in his further life, and more often than not, he came close to death. He survived severe wounds, got hit by cars, shot in the face during World War 1, fell from trains and sustained countless of fractures. He was within an area that suffered bombardements in World War 2 and made it out alive. No wonder why people close to him later branded him ‘The Indestructable.’ Others nicknamed him ‘the Cat’, because cats have 9 lives, as the saying goes. It was so crazy that he even avoided going on airplanes because in his belief he attracted disasters, he would fear too much for the passengers’ lives.
In 1917 he had proposed to his love interest that had the same last name as him, Hettie Cohen. In the 1930’s they had moved to London together. They never got any children.
Gus reached out to Walter Lord when he was collecting information for the creation of his Titanic novel 'A Night to Remember’ in 1958. The public appeal for Titanic skyrocketed after this book and Gus was brought together with several Titanic survivors he knew. He did plenty of interviews for both newspapers and television after that.
In the late 60’s the Cohens had moved to the coast after Gus’ retirement, and lived in Southend-on-Sea. They went on cruises together. At some point, Hettie suffered from a stroke.
The last couple of years his health declined rapidly. On 4 August 1978 he passed away at the age of 85, in Rochford Hospital, Rochford, Essex. The cause of death was a renal failure. His wife had died one year earlier.