This is debatable. Please try researching things beyond tabloid fodder and TV documentaries.
I don't appreciate the condescending crap from someone who has know idea what he's talking about (regarding me). So next time try asking a person to whom you're responding what the basis is for their statement instead of making yet more embarrassing and moronic assertions.
Now, I know a lot about the subject -- no expert, but reasonably well versed in many things pertaining to Titanic -- and I am quite aware that the statement you took such umbrage to is "debatable". And if you took any care with the language you would realize that "debatable" is not synonymous with "false".
There was indeed one witness, William Carter, at the British Board of Trade hearings who stated that Ismay had previously helped evacuate the ship (not disputed by anyone) and that he eventually got into the lifeboat (Collapsible C) only because there was a vacancy and no one else was around to take it. Lord Mersey, the Chairman of the British "inquiry" -- if one chooses to label what was essentially a whitewash of White Star and, not incidentally, the Board of Trade itself, as an "inquiry" in any legitimate sense of the term -- took pains to include in the Board's report that had Ismay not taken advantage of the situation the effect of his not securing a place in the boat would have resulted in nothing more than adding an additional name -- his own -- to the death roster.
Since no one can know what happened aboard the Titanic other than those who were present, we can only use the information imparted to the two hearings on the sinking (the BBT and U.S. Senate), evaluate it as best we can and make a reasonable conclusion...or, perhaps, in the absence of definitive proof, alternate conclusions.
It is not unreasonable to believe that the statements made by Carter, who along with Ismay boarded Collapsible C, were to a great degree self-serving, since the actions of Carter himself were suspect. (If I recall, his wife divorced him the following year because of the incident.) Now it may well be, as Carter and Ismay claimed, that there was no one else immediately at hand to take the open places in the lifeboat. The pragmatic thing in that case would indeed be to take the spots themselves. On the other hand, Captain Smith's explicit order was the normal maritime one of "women and children first". Without question, therefore, Ismay (and Carter) at the very least violated that order. One can argue that going down with the ship would have served no purpose, but did that give the two men the right to ignore the procedure by which the Titanic was supposed to be evacuated? Their actions were a normal human reaction and I don't criticize them for that, but the fact remains that both men did indeed "make sure" they got into a lifeboat.
In fact, that phrase, to which you take such exception, is perfectly accurate: Ismay
did make sure he got into a boat. It was a conscious, deliberate decision on his part. It's you who imparts something sinister to those words. One can defend Ismay's actions or attack them, but the inescapable fact is that he did
make sure he got into the lifeboat. He saw his chance and made sure he took it. Even if his actions elsewhere were nothing but unselfishly heroic (which is also debatable), he took advantage of his situation to save his own life by boarding the collapsible. The rest can be interpreted any way one wishes, according to the evidence as one perceives it.
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