image credit: Michael Poirier/National Archives
Frank Holman, 30, was a third-class waiter aboard Lusitania on the ship’s last voyage. Holman survived the Lusitania sinking.
Holman was born in Dawlish, England, United Kingdom on 1 November 1884.
Holman was carrying a pocket watch when a torpedo struck the Lusitania just south of Ireland on 7 May 1915. The watch stopped at 2:29 pm, when the ship sank from underneath Holman, and he landed in the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Holman was in the water for five hours before he was rescued. When he was in the water, he found a young boy and Holman swam to him and placed the boy on Holman’s back, with the boy’s arms clasped around Holman’s neck. Unfortunately, the boy died while they were still waiting for rescue, and Holman had to release the boy’s body.
Holman’s daughter, Barbara Wiffen, stated that Holman never spoke about his experience of the Lusitania sinking. She believes that the trauma of the disaster “stayed with him for the rest of his life. When I was a child, I use to hear him shouting in his sleep.”
Barbara had her father’s watch appraised on the television show Antiques Roadshow in March 2012. Antique expert Hillary Kay appraised the watch to be no than £1,000 in monetary value, even though Barbara herself has insisted that she would not part with the watch due to its sentimental value.
Contributors:
Michael Poirier, USA
Barbara Wiffen (daughter of Frank Holman), UK
References:
Gergis, David. “Frozen in time: The watch that stopped when the Lusitania sank 97 years ago” Daily Mail. Web. Accessed 7 September 2013. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2110103/Lusitania-1915-shipwreck-Watch-auction.html>.
Rankin, Ben. “When time stood still: Watch that stopped when Lusitania sank surfaces on Antiques Roadshow.” Mirror. Web. Accessed 7 September 2013. <http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lusitana-artefact-causes-a-stir-on-bbcs-751191>.
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