Henry James Jukes was a Greaser on the Titanic.
Background[]
Henry James Jukes was an indigenous inhabitant of Wincanton, Somerset in England. He was the initial child that made a father out of Henry Joseph Jukes and turned Elizabeth Jane Godwin into a mother. She had sprung in North Cheriton in the south of Somerset. The first mention of Henry Joseph Jukes was in Stoke Trister, also in Somerset. The two were unified in 1873. On the last day of that year, they would be blessed with young Henry. Henry junior was dubbed ‘our Jim’ and went by ‘James’ most of the time.
Henry senior was an agrarian. His population grew steadily as James could call himself a brother with the arrival of Catherine May in 1876. Another brother to her was Edward, who was brought forward in 1879. Lily was next to start her life on earth in 1886 and Mable joined in 1888. The Jukes had made a move to Motcombe Somerset a short while before 1881, but were back in Somerset by 1891. James also laboured on the land and grew crops like his father by that time. Francis became the 6th child to be begotten in 1892 and Bessie followed in 1897, to round it off as the seventh and last.
It was 1899 when the family as a whole unit showed up in Hampshire. Around the turn of the century, James had chosen to be on the rippling surfaces beyond the shore. In 1901, he was not in his elderly home anymore, with his old man working as as a conveyor for a grain grinder.
In 1911, James had tracked to Southampton to make a home for himself there. He may have some romantic affiliations but they are a question mark. A fiancee could’ve been on the cards.
Titanic[]
In April 1912, James was with White Star Line and had been on one of their larger vessels, the Oceanic. Fate would determine that he would meet that ship again, perhaps not even realising it.
Reason for that was that he took up an occupation as Greaser for the RMS Titanic, a recent 45.000 tonner that was the second of two Olympic-Class vessels, incredibly tall, long, large and heavy. They would be a giant leap forward and could conquer the Atlantic route, or so White Star Line planned. On April 6, in Southampton, they took James onboard. He was literally onboard by April 10, when the Titanic’s engines cames to live. She was hardly finished when they had sent her on her primary route to America. James was 38 years old and had a shack at West End, east of Southampton.
The mechanisms surrouning the large engines of the ship needed a stable oil level which James would keep an eye on an fill up every now and the, as well as being an extra man-power should a leading Engineer need it. Greasers would be in Titanic’s Turbine Room, Recipocrating Engine Room and also the stokeholds.
The mighty could propel Titanic to a top speed of 24 knots. Her Captain wanted to show his skill and while taking a turn, he let a port engine slam into reverse to ease her steering, but Titanic had developed enough pace to create an abundance of draft behind her stern. This pulled the New York, stationary and moored, out of her moorings and she was aimlessly going to ram Titanic if Captain Smith hadn’t smartly given the Engine Room new orders to let the left engine push forward, demoting the New York back with it. Credit also needed to be given to the captain of tugboat Vulcan, who did everything in his power to control the prowling New York and gave an excellent report later. Oceanic was close by as well but she held on. It was a narrow escape. New York was believed to be mere feet away from Titanic's stern, which almost would be, something that had happened to her sister, the Olympic, in New York. New York would be Titanic's objective at the of her first trip.
This was Titanic’s first disturbance on her journey but not her last. Some onboard and others, who didn’t board for the same reason, had prominitions and bad omens ever since they saw the ship involved in the near-collsion.
The next few days, everything went by as per routine, but April 1912 saw unusal phenomenons. On April 14, the wireless operators had brought ice warnings to the bridge. More followed throughout the day. Titanic’s captain, the soon retiring Edward John Smith, was a very experienced sailor and wanted to avoid confronation with the ice. He plotted an alternative course in the afternoon.
But they had still come close to the icebergs and then, at 11:39 P.M, one of the larger ones came in the field of vision of her Look Out Men. One of them hung on the ship’s bell in the foremast, making it clamour three time, as they had their lookout post, the crow’s nest. They had a telephone at their disposal as well, connecting to the bridge. Lookout Fred Fleet used it to warn the Officers. This was a berg higher than Titanic’s highest deck, that grew ever larger within seconds.
The First Officer on the watch had seen it coming now and pointed Titanic into a port direction. Her machinery had to be turned quickly into the other direction as well. They couldn’t escape any contact however, which was only moved from frontal to sideways. A head-on collision would’ve been better for the ship. She was sideswiped over a significant part at the front. Under the water line, the ice had cut some steel open and popped rivets out, denting the vessel and a series of slits had emerged.
Titanic now had an uninvited guest. Her biggest problem was that it was liquid and hard to stop. The ocean had a look at Titanic’s internals. She wouldn’t need stairs, she climbed higher and higher.
The Captain was precarious and wanted to get data on this breach as the bump of the iceberg hadn’t been lost on him and got him rudely awakened. He let the carpenter check things out before he studied the infringement himself, after summoning his Fourth Officer to have a look, who found nothing yet a Post Tender brought up report about the Mail Room at the same time. It was flooded entirely. Smith called for the man who knew all about Titanic: Chief designer Thomas Andrews. Andrews took a different route than Smith, with both getting down the stairs to scrutinize the ordeal.
Thomas came back to the captain on the bridge before midnight. On April 15, at midnight, he made an estimation. Unsettling words were spoken by Andrews. He saw no way out, no way that Titanic could’ve been sealed. Even her watertight compartments and watertight doors would prove useless now. The pumps could only delay the sinking by 10 minutes or less. Six major areas were taking on water fast. The davits of the lifeboats had to be realed in and crew began with this process at 12:05, after the Captain gave the order. A quick evacuation was needed.
The evacuation was anything but quick. Valuable time was lost and not enough boats were filled. A crowd had gathered around the two last boats on both sides of the forward Boat Deck, 2 hours after the evacuation was started, when the water splashed over the bridge and engulfed both collapsibles.
The downfall of Titanic had now set in. Steadily, the sea poured over more section of the Boat Deck and had gone as far as the second funnel by 2:15 A.M, toppeling the first funnel in the process. The boats were swept away by the waves the funnel caused.
Titanic’s propellors showed up, giving off a bith of glinster in the dark, starlit night, as she lost her power gradually. Some stokers and all Engineers had kept at their posts to get her flooding rate down and provide energy. Her empennage was jacked up in the air and looked like a hotel in the eyes of some survivors. The vision of a hotel would not last much longer, as her power was now gone. The darkened hull was under huge strain, angled up well clear of the water. A series of loud bangs were heard by the people in the lifeboats, when Titanic’s mid-section crunched and both her forward end and her backside went their own way, although they still had the double bottom keeping them together for a while.
It was 2:20 A.M when the Titanic started a new journey, all the way down to a seabed at 3,8 kilometres of depth, becoming a new refuge for rattailfish.
This was James’ destiny. He hadn’t managed to catch a lifeboat, but how we died is something we cannot determine yet. With no body, there was nothing to point out anything that could have killed him. Most bodies were as they had been covered in bits of ice, the temperatures being the main cause of death for over 1500 people, out of 2209.
After his death[]
The famous Captain of the Carpathia, the vessel that selflessly sped to the rescue of Titanic’s surviving souls, also lived in West End at some point. His name was Arthur Rostron and he was praised and lauded for his briskly performance that night, only hindered by the short time in which Titanic sank, as well as the broad distance between her and his ship. The monument that was created in the new millenium in West End, had not only his name on it, but James Jukes was honored at the same time.