William James Pitfield was a Greaser on the Titanic.
Background[]
William James Pitfield lived his first days in Woolston, Southampton. He had come into view on the first of December, 1886, greeted by Louisa Gorey, the sweetheart of William Henry Pitfield, a blue color worker who had his shifts at the marinas.
Louisa ultimately gave him 6 squirts, starting off with delvering Sidney William in 1878, a brother to 1880’s Arthur Henry, before it was time for George to make an appearnce in 1883. The last of William junior’s elder siblings was Albert, who preceeded him in 1885. William would remain the youngest for a good while, until the elders’ only girl, Daisy, picked up that honor in 1895.
In 1891, the Pitfields were accomodated in Woolston, but in another street. Still Sontonians in 1901, they had chosen Saint Mary Extra as their place to stay. William was a teenager that had just about concluded sitting in the schoolbanks as he followed though by picking up chores as a gofer and earn a few pennies that way.
In 1888, a Haidee Ethel Diaper had been placed on earth in Itchen, Southampton. In 1908, she had promised eternal faith to William, who by now toiled away in the bunkers of vessels as a stoker. It was not long before a fresh face had sprung from their special bond. He would also be called William, from 1910 onwards. He would not get to know his grandparents very well, as both William Henry and Louisa lost their lives in succession between 1910 and 1911.
In 1911, the family could be reguarly seen in Woolston, Southampton, the place where they abided that year. William was often on the shipping routes, trudging as an oiler.
Titanic[]
A collosal ship was stationed in Southampton since the 4th of April. She was just completed and probed. Her name was RMS Titanic, named for her size. She was a sight to behold. This liner would need a lot of crew. Many came over from the Oceanic, a much smaller vessel. Very recently, William had been with that liner’s traversal. Now, on the 6th of April, he was appended in the Engineering Crew of this marvel of engingeering. That day, William was again a Greaser. His wife was expecting, to be mothering another child within 8 months.
A Greaser was like a lower ranked engineer, but did less straining duties than the Firemen down in the Boiler Rooms and also made 10 shillings more in a month. A Greaser like William serviced the mechanical devices that made up the whole Engine and also tap pinguid substance into some components to reduce friction. He would sleep in a bunk on either F-Deck or G-Deck, where there was an area shared with about 29 others, deep down and far in the bow of the ship.
On April 10, Titanic filled the air with her steam engine’s waste, dwindling up from three of her gorgeous funnels. It was sailing time soon after noon and people were alerted at this fact with a few honks of the pipes’ whistles, which didn’t exactly whistle at all but roared loudly over the city of Southampton. Things went awry when she had made it past the 'Passenger Shed' as one of the dock places were called, where both New York and Oceanic, not under steam, were waiting for coal. One could wonder if William ever knew that the Oceanic almost came to meet him. The New York was very avidly following Titanic's wake and her moorings got undone with explosive force and a loud couple of bangs. It was a just a few metres before Titanic's left propeller went the other way while a tugboat bumped New York away from her.
The ship was again set in motion, the first trans-Atlantic Voyage was underway. To start off, Titanic crossed the channel to France just an hour later, a minor loss of time. The next day, she was anchored before Ireland. The North Atlantic, the second largest body of water, was the next step. It would take about a week to cross it.
There was something in the air on the night of April 14. One of the crewmen had smelled it, Reginald Lee, who held watch in the crow’s nest alongside seaman Frederick Fleet. It was ice. Their colleague, George Symons, had also sniffed it out.
It was about an hour later, that they got to meet the source, but in a pretty tense moment. A large berg, was less than a mile away and they were going right at it. Fleet’s hand clenched the rope of the ship’s bell and it tintinnabulated, drawing the attention of First Officer Murdoch. While Murdoch was looking ahead, Fleet called Mr. Moody, the Sixth Officer with the mast telephone. With the short conversation over, Murdoch came storming to the steering cabin and released a hard-to-starboard commandment. Quartermaster Hichens rotated the wheel rapidly as Murdoch desired the Engine Room to drop off the rate of knots via the chadburn.
Nothing indicates whether William was on call at that time, as the Titanic began to alter her line. Her starboard didn’t get round the pointer, which exceeded the Boat Deck in height. Instead, it rasped the ice below the surface, with a dull screeching sound.
A hissing sound was heard in the forepeak, which was from a stream of water entering. In 5 closed compartments, abaft of it, the water had also found its way in. The Fourth Officer had a look in the bow forward, on his own initiative, as the captain had gone from bed to bridge in a minute, snapping from whatever possible dream he had. The carpenter was sent down to make heads and tails out of it. In his view, the water level was rising alarmingly, which is also what a Mail Clerk said 10 minutes after the strike.
Smith knew that this was an unusal scenario. He employed designer Thomas Andrews to check things out. The captain and the ship designer goulishly watched with anxiety, focusing on the gush below from a different standpoint. By midnight, Andrews had worked it out. It would not be pretty and he earnestly primed the captain that evacuation was needed within 2 hours, as that was how long it would take for the ship to be beneath the waves from here on in. Smith recognized that Andrews would know best.
As it dawned on them that there were more than 2200 souls on board, Titanic was in the middle of an emergancy. While calling for help via wireless, as instructed to the two men at the wireless machine, the Captain impelled his crew to line up the boats to Deck level. The lifeboats would be able to hold half the people of the ship, but the officers didn’t know this at first.
Despite being tested at Belfast with the weight of 70 men, women and children were going first, yet in small numbers. Too many boats had open spaces when they made it down into the water.
The ship’s pumps could elongate her scarace buyoancy beyond the two hour mark, but it wasn’t for long that her upper parts could stay upright. Titanic flinched and the flat, calm sea didn’t look flat at the forward end of the Boat Deck, with her bridge inundated in quick time. Two boats hadn’t gotten away and were now whisked on the wave that knocked people off their feet.
Still over 1400 were onboard when the Titanic’s end was evidently near. Her two furthermost smokestacks were getting wet in the next minutes while Titanic heaved her dry part up at an ever growing inclination, far out of the water. Moments later, an abyss had formed between the third and fourth funnel in her superstructure, meaning the ship was soon in two halves, only having the keel unbroken for two minutes. Then, the giant was taken away, with her mizzen horizontal, as her ulterior standing up straight.
At some point, William Pitfield’s heart stopped. The most of the victims succumbed to the water, how Pitfield met his Waterloo is impossible to tell. The shipwreck was by far the worst the world ever saw till that point. The cost of human life was massive. No trace was left of Pitfield. Most of the stricken people succumbed in the very frigid waters where Titanic had brought them. For many, it was lights out in half an hour, if not sooner.
After his death[]
It were tough times for Haidee. Her former husband would never meet their daughter as he became a posthumus father in later months of 1912, when she gave life to Haidee Doris. The next blow for her came in the 1913, when she was deprived of her very young namesake.
Seven years later, Haidee made it work with another man, 7 years later. In 1919, she had joined in matrimony with Edward Wells. She would have a surviving daughter after all, that same year. A boy, Albert Ernest, popped up in 1922.
Tragically, he was only in his early twenties when he stepped out of his earthly life in 1943.
On March 6, 1950, Haidee saw her daylight for the last time.
William junior was bestowed with a long life and also had found love, with Dorothy Victoria Thorp. They had an amount of off-spring. William's last year was 1988.