James Forward was a an Able Seaman on the Titanic.
Background[]
James Forward was gifted life in Portsmouth, England on the 26th of April in 1883. Little else can be found about his background.
In 1911, he was active as an Able Seaman and didn’t have a partner. He performed his duties on board Oceanic before he was called upon for the Maiden Voyage of White Star Line’s most impressive vessel until then.
Titanic[]
His name was put down on the 6th of April, 1912, to embark on the new liner, which had been delivered from Belfast days prior. On the 10th, she would begin her shortlived adventure in the Southampton harbor. James was 27 years old and resident in the Old Sailor’s home in the seafaring town.
On 14 April, at about 11:39 P.M, ship’s time, the Titanic collided with an iceberg that had slipped through the vision of the lookouts. They saw it right in front of her and the Officer on the bridge braced himself after he had attempted to turn her sharply to port with all of her speed cut down. The Titanic almost seemed to miss it, but underneath the water linie, sharp pieces of ice had extended further and were shaving against Titanic’s hull. On six crucial areas of the hull, there were slits that now were free openings for the sea water, which gurgled up through the first forward compartments.
On April 15, midnight, two men discussed the situation of the ship on the Bridge. Thomas Andrews, the ship's designer from Harland and Wolff, informed Captain Smith that the pumps were incapable of keeping up with the amount of water entering the vessel and would only buy them some extra time. The crew began hastily uncovering and readying the lifeboats to evacuate the vessel. Being aware there was barely enough lifeboat accommodation for slightly more than half of those on board must have weighed heavily on the captain's mind.
Fellow seaman Ernest Archer described a fellow sailorman getting into lifeboat 16 and his profile seemed to have matched that of Mr. Forward. Either way, Forward got off the ship with his life.
Over an hour later, the Titanic’s defences against the ocean couldn’t last. With the balance shifted forward to the submerged bows and bridge, the Titanic slowly hauled her backside out of the water and reached an angle of 45-70 degrees at 2:18 A.M. With dimming light and loud bangs, Titanic’s stern was torn off of her forward body and both parts quickly made it down the cold waters, along with most of her crew and passengers. Many souls were lost when they had gotten in water that was below 0° Celcius. Anyone that could not be picked up out of the water, would be dead in half an hour or less. This is how many of the 1503 people that weren’t saved, met their end.
After the sinking[]
James could thank his lucky stars that he was a sailor. Most lifeboats needed to be manned and many sailors, all of the quartermasters and lookouts, several stokers, trimmers and stewards were added to the boats.
As daylight crept over the disaster area, lifeboat after lifeboat was sighted by an oncoming ship, that had steamed to their position. It was the RMS Carpathia. As they closed in on the Carpathia’s position, the ship had come following the receval of Titanic’s CQD distress call. The following hours were expended embarking the survivors and retrieving what little remained of Titanic, her boats. When all was said and done, the Carpathia turned her bows westward and made it to New York on the 18th of April.
When he was back in Britain, Mr. Forward was summoned to come along to await giving testimony for the British Inquiry. In the end, they didn’t require his account and let him go, compensating him with a more than considerable £8 for the troubles. To compare, as a sailor he would make £5 on average each month.
Later life[]
Still living in London, James Forward picked up his profession and did some more crossings for various companies.
Funny enough, he had found himself in trouble with a colleague after they uttered some bad and indecent words on a passage, when they were stationed in New Zealand in October 1915. They were sent to confinement for this.
He traded in his homeland to the land down under, Australia. He had often gone back and forth on vessels between Newcastle upon Tyne in England and Sydney. Newcastle was falsely assumed to have been placed as his town of birth but this was corrected by later relatives decades further.
Not having been called for the Titanic Inquiries, James did find himself contributing to research done on the bulk freighter called Christina Fraser in the summer of 1933. She had disappeared into thin air without a clue and with the vanishing of all 18 crew. She must have foundered and because Forward had been working as a sailor on the ship before, he gave a statement, where James was quoted to have labeled the ship as ‘rickety’ and when asked whether he found her to be seaworthy, he said no, as he was often rudely having to be awakenend by the ship sloping back and forth at rough seas.
Throughout the 1930s, he still made his living on several vessels.
James Forward’s life also ended in peculiar circumstances in June 1940. He was part of the SS Aroona’s staff when the ship got 22 miles outside of Wilson's Promontory in Victoria. He had seemingly faded away out of existence, but a newspaper report at the end of June described how he was not feeling too well physically. One could perhaps deduct from this that he either didn’t know what he was doing and threw himself off the ship while no one noticed, or perhaps wanted to commit suicide. The case will probably never be solved.