Major Frank Prentice was 18 years old when he dropped over a hundred feet off the stern of the Titanic into a sea full of ice.
He survived. This is what he saw.
Prentice worked in the Purser's office.
He was in his cabin at midships when the collision happened. He describes no chaos, no impact, nothing dramatic:
"It was just like jamming your brakes on my car. There was no great impact you couldn't feel. Just a bit of a shudder and she stopped."
That quiet did not last.
As the ship began to sink, Prentice moved through it.
He helped stewardesses into lifeboats who did not know where to go. He helped a woman named Mrs. Clark with her lifejacket. She did not want to leave her husband. He told her the husband would follow on later.
He would not.
On his way back from the lifeboats, Prentice heard the band. They were playing "Nearer My God to Thee" and singing.
He kept walking.
When the end came, he made his way to the stern. He describes it as quiet up there.
By the time he let go, the ship was nearly vertical. He had been hanging onto a board that read "Keep Clear of Propeller Blades."
At the very last moment, he let go and fell.
"I just missed the propellers on the way down."
The drop was over a hundred feet. The water was packed with ice and chunks of berg.
His watch stopped at 2:20 am.
He was not alone in the water at first. Then he was.
"I gave it a long thought when I was on my own and everybody else seemed to be dead round me."
He had two life jackets and a cushion.
He paddled toward a light he could still see from the rockets the bridge had fired. He reached a lifeboat and climbed in.
Mrs. Clark was already there. She wrapped a blanket around him and tried to keep him warm.
Her husband had drowned.
When asked who was responsible for the disaster, Prentice did not hesitate.
He blamed the bridge. He blamed Bruce Ismay, chairman of the shipping line, for pushing Captain Smith to maintain speed through waters they had been warned were full of ice.
"We had warnings that there was ice. We had it from ships and shore, and we went straight ahead as if there was nothing there in our way."
His verdict was simple:
That ship was thrown away.
Prentice was interviewed decades later.
Asked if the memory still haunted him, he said:
"When I'm alone tonight, I still think a lot about it. Can't help it, can you?"
—
Source: @BBCArchive – The Great Liners (1979)
I am officially nominating Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) for the Nobel Peace Prize.
No President in History has ended the same war so many times.
Our Dear Leader has ended the war with Iran at least 38 times by CNN’s count.
No President has ever done this before.
And he is nowhere near finished ending it.
It’s a record worthy of the Nobel committee’s recognition. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
It’s genuinely tragic that this country has a stupid fat fuck MP who posts videos of himself eating bacon sarnies everyday in the hope it will make imagined Muslim Brits uncomfortable.
This is the caliber of the people governing us, it’s a joke.
Yes, I've played elite level sport where my particular job was running with a ball at feet at around 30kph+ multiple times a half.
6 ft 4, 95kg.
The tactical information given to me through a 7 day, not 3 minute period sufficed, as did the occasional squirt of electrolyte water per half.
My performance would not have been improved at all by a hydration or tactical break.
Pretty much like 99% of players over a 150 year period playing the most popular and most played sport on the planet by far.
So maybe you can tell me. When was the last time you put your fucking dorittos, big gulp and chicken wings down long enough to know what professional sportsmen need rather than advertising executives or couch potatoes who need to be told 6 times in 20 minutes to buy a Jeep Cherokee, Whopper or diabetes medication instead of just enjoying the sport?
There's always a photo... @RTCORGUK chief flagshagger Ryan Bridge out for a jolly day out with paedophile Ben Cullen... Feel free to share this far and wide.
Surprise fucking surprise.
Another paedophile exposed.
The same crowd who spend every day projecting onto immigrants seem remarkably quiet when it’s one of their own.
Operation Shag the Flag keeps unearthing more scum.
#FlagShag
Another lovely 'Raise the Colours' member, this time we have Ben Cullen.
He is due to appear before a jury at Reading Crown Court on July 1st having been found with 78 indecent images of children ranging from category A to C.
This whole movement needs
thoroughly investigating!
🚨🇬🇧 ANALYSIS: Tommy Robinson Inc.
Tommy Robinson raised millions from the public, ran it through companies that never filed a single set of accounts, and dissolved them owing the taxman over £300,000.
Not filing accounts is a crime. No one stopped him.
People ask how he affords the lifestyle. Wrong question. Look at the paperwork.
Let's take a closer look 🧵⬇️
Dear Prof. Cox,
If I have drunk, on average, 12 pints of bitter per week since 1980, what percentage of the observable universe’s total mass has passed through my penis?
Few weeks ago, I found something mislabeled in a second hand shop. Turned out to be a box full of slides from Vietnam war (1968-1970). I managed to scan around 300. Here its a small selection of somebody's memories I bought for 5,99 🧵
Avon and Somerset Police have launched a manhunt and are appealing for witnesses following a serious sexual assault on an 11-year-old girl in Bath.
The suspect is described as a white male in his 30s or 40s with a distinctive neck tattoo. He was wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and a cap at the time of the incident.
The assault took place around 5pm on Wednesday, 24 June, in a wooded area near Clarks Way playground in the Odd Down area.