Mr.
DENIS DUNCAN HAROLD OWEN BOULTON, Jr., Saloon Class Passenger
[No Picture Provided]
Harold Boulton, 23, had been on a visit to the United States after a
medical discharge from the British Army in 1912. Boulton had been
working for the American Creosote Company in Chicago, Illinois, United
States, but was traveling on the Lusitania in May 1915 hoping
that the British Army would allow him to reenlist. An old Oxford
friend of his, Lt. Frederick Lassetter
and Lassetter's mother Elisabeth were
also onboard.
During the voyage, Boulton had hoped that he would be able to dance
with Rita Jolivet or Josephine Brandell.
On the morning of 7 May, Boulton had noticed that ship was traveling
unusually slow and asked a steward if the fog was the reason for the
ship's reduced speed.
"It's not only the fog, sir," the steward told him, "We're saving coal
and keeping reserve steam up so that if we spot a submarine we can
muster enough speed to get us out of danger."
In the early afternoon, Boulton sat down in the verandah café
with Commander J. Foster Stackhouse
for a cup of coffee. Stackhouse was "busy explaining to me how
the Lusitania could never be torpedoed, that the watches had
been doubled, and the people were looking out, and they'd see the
periscope of the submarine a mile away . . .. And in the middle
of his trying to prove to me that the Lusitania could not be
torpedoed," Stackhouse was interrupted by "two almost simultaneous
explosions."
Water and debris crashed onto the glass roof and the two men ran
outside.
Boulton ran down to his stateroom to fetch a lifebelt. The
Lassetters had a nearby suite and he knocked on their door, but there
was no reply. Boulton proceeded to his stateroom and pressed the
light switch. The power had gone out. Through the darkness
he searched for his lifebelt that should have been on its shelf, but
soon realized that "somebody had taken
it in the very short time." Rushing out of his room, Boulton
found
himself walking with one foot on the floor and the other on the wall to
maintain
his balance. He saw a steward at the end of the corridor passing
out
lifebelts and Boulton took one and strapped it on. He was
starting
up the grand staircase when the ship lurched and sent him tumbling down
the
stairs, landing by the feet of a "very attractive woman" and her
daughter.
Embarrased, Boulton got up and asked politely, "Is there anything
I
can do to help?"
"No, thank you," the woman said disdainfully, "There is nothing
you can do. The Captain says the ship cannot sink. We have
no
intention of becoming alarmed."
Climbing the stairs, Boulton noticed that the elevators had jammed
halfway between floors and the passengers inside were screaming and
struggling to open the gates. Boulton thought, "They are trapped
like rats."
Harold Boulton met up with Frederick Lassetter and Elisabeth on deck.
Boulton and the young Lieutenant helped Elisabeth into a portside
boat. They were congratulating themselves that the boat was about
to
be lowered when either Captain Turner or Staff Captain Anderson
shouted, "Don't lower the boats. Don't lower the boats. The
ship can't sink. Will the gentlemen kindly assist me in getting
the women and children out of the boats and off the upper deck?"
Lassetter and Boulton did as they were told and helped Elisabeth out of
the boat. Boulton glanced forward and was shocked to see "the
bow just beginning to submerge." He then turned to Lassetter and
said gravely, "This ship is going to sink" -- "the only thing to do is
to
jump."
Boulton instructed a nervous Elisabeth to remove her skirt.
Harold, Elisabeth, and Frederick, in that order, held hands and
jumped about ninety feet into the ocean. As the sea enclosed the Lusitania,
Boulton used his hand to shield his head from the wave of debris
radiating from the site of where the ship once was.
Frederick and Elisabeth bobbed up next to each other in the swirling
water and held onto some flotsam. Harold Boulton was not far
away,
floating on "a square box about 4 feet 6 inches." This box may
have
been a box used to store lifebelts on deck. Lassetter and Boulton
managed to get Elisabeth onto the box even though she was knocked over
by
the waves a number of times. The men put Elisabeth in the center
and
linked arms to hold her up.
Boulton would later claim that he saw the U-boat surface, but what he
might have seen was another ship in the distance. Boulton also
found
Dorothy Braithwaite in the water
and she died holding his hand.
The three rode the waves on their box for three hours before being
picked up by the "Greek" Katrina, actually the SS Westborough
in disguise. The Katrina arrived in Queenstown around
midnight. As Boulton disembarked, he downed six whiskeys and a
soda that a soldier had held out to him on a tray even though he did
not often drink. He was sure the whiskey saved his life.
Contributors:
Paul Latimer
Michael Poirier
References:
Hickey, Des and Gus Smith. Seven Days to Disaster.
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1981.
The New York Times, Tuesday, 11 May 1915, page 2
Preston, Diana. Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy.
Berkley Books, 2002.
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