Collin R. Skocik

One fellow I'd really like to meet is a much-maligned individual by the name of Joseph Bruce Ismay. But I will never meet him because he's dead. He was born, lived, and died in the early twentieth century. Indeed he was already fifty by 1912 and was about to retire. His fateful voyage aboard the luxury liner Titanic was supposed to be the crowning achievement of his career as president of the White Star Line, which he had inherited from his venerable -- though ruthless and unkind -- father, Thomas Henry Ismay. If there is anyone in this world who does not know what happened to the Titanic, the quick recap is late at night on April 14, 1912, on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in less than three hours. 1,517 people went down with the ship, 705 escaped in the pitiful complement of only twenty lifeboats. Bruce Ismay, in a moment of weakness, stepped into one of the last lifeboats and survived to face the recrimination of the world, as well as his own festering sense of guilt. He lived the remainder of his life as a recluse, and those who met him were forbidden by his wife to mention the Titanic.

I can understand the outrage of the world that Ismay survived. I imagine the masses of worried family members rushing to the White Star offices as incomplete and inaccurate preliminary lists of survivors trickled in, as the whole world was caught up in this awesome tragedy -- and then to find out that, excuse me, ISMAY saved his own skin? Frankly, though, I can't blame the man, even though I can't necessarily fault those who villified him. Yes, I probably would have been caught in the outrage myself had I been alive at the time. But I have repeatedly put myself in his position: imagine yourself standing on a deck of a sinking ship. You know the ship is about to sink, it's well down by the bow, the forecastle deck is already under water, and the ship might go under at any time. In front of you is the last lifeboat, it's half full, and it's beginning to lower away. Damn right I'd jump into the boat whether I'm the president of the company or a penniless Norwegian immigrant.

Some people get all the breaks in life. On the surface Ismay seems to have been one of them. But if you look a little deeper, he wasn't so fortunate. His father was cruel to him. One can only imagine his psychological scars from trying to live up to the image set for him before his birth. The Titanic was as much a business necessity as it was a symbol of Bruce Ismay's need to live up to and surpass his father. And then its loss was the final death knell of his inadequacy. In that context, I don't want to hate him. Pity is a shameful and insulting emotion, but I guess that's what I feel for Ismay. Even if forbidden to mention the Titanic, I'd want to meet him if only to congratulate him on his other accomplishments; the Olympic was quite a ship, and the White Star under his directorship built the biggest and loveliest ships that ever sailed. Today's cruise ships are bigger, but the opulence and elegance of the White Star and Cunard heyday is gone. And though this might not please Bruce considering the context, I think he is remembered today more than his father is.