Mr. OLIVER PERCY
BERNARD,
Saloon Class Passenger
The Boston Globe, Globe
Pequot Press.
Guilford, CT. Courtesy Carole Lindsay.
Oliver Bernard, 34, was born to a theatrical couple in
London, England. As a child he overheard his nurse chatting to
another that when he was shown to his mother for the first time, his
mother
had said, "Very nice, but please take him away."
Young Oliver was placed in the charge of his aunt who lived in the
Waterloo area of London so that his parents would not be "encumbered"
by him on their travels. At the age of thirteen, a Manchester
couple offered to adopt him, but after moving north Oliver decided that
escaping from Manchester would be in his best interests.
Oliver working tirelessly to become a designer. He found work in
a Manchester theater as a property boy and paint-room assistant, but
his earnings could hardly buy food for his survival, much less a train
ticket to London.
The next job Oliver took was cabin-boy on a Norwegian barque. He
had sailed twice to Montreal before finally settling in London to begin
his apprenticeship as a scenic artist. By 1914 Oliver had a
designing
job at the Royal Opera House in London's Convent Garden.
Months before the war started, Bernard was in Berlin for a production
of The Ring at Charlottenburg. He had been followed by a
German officer, lured into a quarrel with a group of German men, and
informed on the train that "Germany will soon show your Mr. Churchill
how to trim his navy."
At the outbreak of war, Oliver enlisted; however, he was rejected by
the British Army, the Royal Flying Corps, and the Royal Naval Air Force
due to his poor hearing. Ashamed of being a noncombatant, Oliver
quit his job and went to New York. He often disliked having to
explain to friends why he was in America instead of fighting the war.
Many of them tried to persuade him to settle permanently in
America. Oliver found New York invigorating but "in the throes of
a spectacular disease" that
created skyscrapers, monuments to commercial obsession. As time
wore
on, Oliver became disillusioned with New York and moved to Boston,
Massachusetts, where he took up the job of resident technician at the
city's new Opera House.
When he was told that the British armed forces would be changing their
standards to admit more men, he planned to return to London after a
commission from the Boston millionaire William Lindsey, "a deplorable
play set round medieval Picardy[.]" Truth be told, Lindsey's
riches came from his invention of the ammunition belt and not his
playwrighting.
Even though the play may not have proved to be one of Oliver's liking,
Lindsey persuaded Oliver to take his daughter Leslie
and son-in-law Stewart Mason under his
wing.
Leslie and Stewart had been married on 21 April 1915 and the Lusitania's
next voyage was to be a part of their honeymoon. Oliver stayed in
the Knickerbocker Hotel where he saw the German notice in the paper.
This
crossing would be his second on the Lusitania, but twelfth in
total.
As Oliver came down to the dining saloon for dinner on the first night
out, he noticed that a "supercilious steward" had given his table to
another. He snapped at the steward, saying, "Perhaps you could
tell me why
the genius of the engineers that built this ship should be depreciated
because you think some passengers are more important than others?"
"I beg your pardon, sir." Answered the steward, directing him to
another table.
A cynical social observer, Oliver was quick to disparage the wealthy
and affluent lifestyles of many onboard the Lusitania,
especially
that of Alfred Vanderbilt, whom he
often
observed during the voyage. Oliver was also not too fond of
romantic
love, and was quite relieved when Leslie and Stewart kept more to
themselves
instead of displaying their affections in front of Oliver all during
the
crossing.
On Sunday, 2 May, Oliver observed the half-hearted effort of a lifeboat
drill. A few men climbed into lifeboat #14 and then got out.
No attempt was made to lower the boat.
Oliver arrived late to the ship's concert on Thursday night. He
observed that Stewart and Leslie were already there, as was Alfred
Vanderbilt. Oliver couldn't help but notice that most in the
saloon class lounge were sitting in twos and threes, hardly mingling
with each other. He thought to himself, "A submarine would have
at least socialized the audience."
The blaring foghorn during breakfast made Oliver irritable.
Captain Turner was practically announcing to the enemy where the
ship was in the fog. He was also annoyed at the lack of speed at
which the Lusitania was proceeding. He wondered, "Is the
Commodore waiting for something to happen?"
At lunch Oliver grew impatient with an American woman who was going on
about which lifeboat she would pick should the ship be torpedoed.
Oliver's curt response was, "My choice would be a raft."
Oliver then gave
a coin to Josephine Brandell,
who
was collecting for members of the orchestra, and rose from his table.
He paid his wine bill and bid "Good afternoon" to Theodate Pope as he passed her table on
his way to the port boat deck. Oliver walked clockwise on deck,
past
the bridge and ending by the verandah café at the aft of the
saloon
class superstructure. He noted, "I have had sufficient exercise
on
this deck to last me a lifetime."
As Oliver gazed over the polished sea, he noticed a slight disturbance
in the water that was spreading and nearing the ship. An American
woman next to him asked, without much concern, "That isn't a torpedo,
is
it?"
The sight of impending doom made Oliver too sick to answer. He
shut his eyes and held onto the rail as a severe shock reverberated
through
the hull. As he opened his eyes his saw a gigantic column of
white
shoot up into the air. Oliver ducked into the café to
avoid
the debris raining down all over. After seeing the awning over
the
entrance sag under the weight of water and debris, Oliver ran back out
again. The ship began to list sharply.
On the port side he met up with Leslie Mason. She was hysterical,
shouting, "Where is my husband?"
"Your husband will soon be here." Oliver answered reassuringly.
"We shall be going ashore directly."
Leslie was still hysterical and Oliver grabbed her by the shoulders and
shook her violently, shouting, "Listen to me! If you stay right
here your husband will find you . . .. If you go running around
this town of a ship, you'll never meet up with him. Understand?"
He then told Leslie to wait for him in the verandah café
while he went to go look for Stewart and a lifebelts. A nearby
officer
shouted, "Nobody in the boats yet. Keep back, everybody."
As he made his way into the A Deck saloon class entrance, he saw Alfred
Vanderbilt there, calmly distributing lifebelts and directing
passengers to the boats, acting as if the whole sinking were a show put
on for his benefit. Oliver would never forget the grin on
Vanderbilt's face. Distracted,
Oliver lost his balance on the listing ship and crashed on the bottom
the
B Deck stairs. Getting up he heard the screams of passengers
trapped
in the elevators, but tried his best to ignore the unfolding horror as
he
ran towards the newlyweds' cabin.
"Stewart!" Oliver called.
Inside the cabin were only lifebelts. The ship was sinking
rapidly and quickly made his way back to the verandah café but
Leslie was already gone. In a moment of bewilderment, another
woman passenger screamed at him, demanding to know where Oliver
obtained the extra lifebelt. He let the woman snatch the belt
from his grasp. Oliver was not able to find Leslie or Stewart
afterward.
Climbing onto the funnel deck, Oliver saw a stoker covered with soot
and a scarlet smear on his face, the crown open "like a bloody sponge
pudding." Wondering how long the ship had left, Oliver saw a
naked man swimming away from the sinking liner on his back.
Oliver, too, began to undress and neatly folded his clothes and
unlaced his boots, thinking about life.
"Death is close. How insignificant everything seems in
retrospect. All one's struggles, hopes and achievements will be
wiped out in
seconds. What a fuss I've made about my life. It has amounted to
nothing. When I'm dead everybody will say 'How sad,' and go on
fussing
until they come to their own silly end."
He was next to the radio room at the time and saw Chief Electrician
George Hutchinson and wireless operators Robert Leith and David
McCormack. Leith was sending out his last SOS. Hutchinson
commented, "There are plenty of boats around."
"That doesn't interest me much." Oliver replied. "I can't
swim a stroke."
McCormack then pushed a swivel chair towards him, telling Oliver,
"Here's something for you to hang on to, sir."
"I'm no good at working waterwheels either." Oliver joked.
They all laughed as the chair slid out of the room and crashed into the
starboard rail. McCormick rushed outside with his camera and took
a picture of the event, facing the bow.
Oliver made his way to lifeboat #11 and helped others into the boat,
including D. A. Thomas. Lifeboat
#11 was one of the last to leave the Lusitania at the time and
was in danger of being crushed by the funnels.
Lifeboat #11 was picked up by the Wanderer of Peel.
After four hours of being cold and miserable, Oliver asked
D. A., "Exciting day, Mr. Thomas?"
"Outrageous. Simply outrageous." D. A. growled.
"They certainly made a job of it."
"Didn't you see what happened at the lifeboats? Deplorable.
The standard of human efficiency is far below what we are
entitled to expect -- today it was ghastly."
"Of course," Bernard said, "it's got to start at the top. You
can't expect efficiency from the crew if you don't set an example on
the bridge."
"What do you imagine the percentage of average efficiency to be?"
Thomas asked.
"Fifty per cent?"
"Nonsense, young man. Any employer who gets an average of ten per
cent efficency all around is doing extremely well."
As the Wanderer was becoming overcrowded, the skipper, Ball,
had to have many of the rescued transferred. Bernard and Thomas
was taken aboard the trawler Flying Fish.
In Queenstown, Oliver identified the body of Charles Frohman. He
did not find Stewart or Leslie Mason, but their bodies were
found and identified by others.
Upon Oliver's arrival in London, The London Illustrated News
contacted him and asked him to draw sketches of the sinking. He
thought that his drawings would only be used as guides for
a professional newspaper artist. When he was told that the
sketches would be published as is, he went back and added notes to each
picture. The editor and he then celebrated the occasion with
champagne.
Unlike many other passengers who were reluctant to relate their
experiences, Oliver gladly told to story to as many presses as he
could. He was adamant that only one torpedo sank the ship, and
probably because of his insistence on the matter, he was not called up
at Lord Mersey's inquiry, which had decided that two torpedoes would be
more "helpful."
Oliver later joined the British Army. Some years afterward, he
published an autobiography, entitled Cocksparrow, which
included some of his memories of the last voyage of the Lusitania.
Oliver Bernard died in London on 15 April 1939.
Bernard's drawings for The London Illustrated News can be seen
in its entirety on pages 46-7 of R. M. S. Lusitania:
Triumph of the Edwardian Age, by Eric Sauder and Ken
Marschall.
Contributors:
Michael Poirier
Judith Tavares
References:
Ballard, Dr. Robert D. with Spencer Dunmore. Exploring
the Lusitania. Warner Books, Inc., 1995.
Hickey, Des and Gus Smith. Seven Days
to Disaster. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1981.
Hoehling, A. A. and Mary Hoehling. The Last Voyage of the Lusitania.
Madison Books, 1956.
Preston, Diana. Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy.
Berkeley Books, 2002.
Ramsay, David. Lusitania: Saga and
Myth. W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.
Sauder, Eric and Ken Marschall with Bill Sauder. R. M. S.
Lusitania: Triumph of the Edwardian Age. Waterfront
Publications, 1993.
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