He who is about to drown, never dies, says a wise Greek proverb. That is, it is impossible for man to escape from his fate. Our ancient ancestors believed the same:"It is impossible to escape destiny". Our destiny is not made by someone else or imposed on us, as we make it according to our habits, our character. The man who overturned fate and destiny is none other than Titanic's heater William Clarke
In a previous article we mentioned the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914 which is Canada's biggest maritime tragedy with over a thousand dead. Dense fog played a key role in the accident. Of particular interest is the fact that one of the survivors was William Clarke, a heater in the boiler room who immediately climbed a special ladder leading directly from the boiler room to the deck where he helped to lower one of the boats. This man had the amazing advantage, two years before, of having survived a similar experience as a heater on the "Titanic"...!
This man flirted with death almost all his life. A few days after the wreck the Northern Daily Mail interviewed the then 43-year-old heater and we will bring you a part of it.
Clark had an insatiable thirst for adventure as a child. He listened for many years to the thunder of great guns on the warships of the British fleet, was wounded by Boer snipers in South Africa, remained for 18 months seriously ill in a military hospital. and escaped almost certain death on the Titanic and was hurled from the torn deck of the Empress of Ireland when she sank into the dark waters of the St. Lawrence
In his interview in June 1914, Clark stated that:"I will go down to sea again when I am ready and as soon as I catch another ship!"
"I found Clark at his house in Bootle yesterday. Let me describe him to you. In appearance he is a typical Irishman, with dark hair and large blue eyes. There is a look of fearless honesty in those blue eyes of his, and when you speak to him you have the impression of a calm, quiet man, calculated to keep his head and act cool even in moments of greatest excitement and danger A full dark mustache hides the lines of his mouth Ythere is an air of calm courage about of him and you feel instinctively that this is a man you could rely on in any emergency involving danger" the journalist reports.
He is about 43 years old and single. When I saw him he was still wearing the clothes cut in the American style, which he had been supplied with after the disaster of the empress, in which he lost everything he had with him. Clark was born in Greenore, County Louth, about 43 years ago. What he did as a lad I do not know, but a love of wandering, combined with a passionate longing for the sea, asserted itself early in life, and before twenty years he left his native land and came to Liverpool to seek his fortune. . As one can imagine, it found its way to the docks. Great ships beckoned him, and the restless tides of the Mersey sang an eternal song of invitation, drawing him to stormy seas and strange lands. But he loved the sea not only for its own sake, it was the adventure, the excitement and the change of a life that beckoned him with a persistent pull that could not be denied, and he soon found himself aboard a British warship. Clark's restless temperament soon led to a change in his life's course, as he soon tired of the limitations of a modern warship and soon decided to resign.
He gave up and escaped, but the lure of the sea still held him, and he went as a heater on a merchant steamer. Many ocean voyages followed and eventually Clark found himself on a ship in Durban harbor when South Africa was seething with the turmoil that culminated in war. The thirst for adventure and excitement was a challenge for him. There would be battles and men were needed. He abandoned his ship, surrendered to the naval authorities as a deserter, and at the height of war fever volunteered for the front.
He went to the military riding school in Pietermaritzburg and learned to ride like a cowboy. He then joined the cavalry of Brabant, and immediately passed into the war in Lord Methuen's army. He had many exciting adventures, During the war at Blackfontein, Clark was wounded. but here again he escaped death. The bullet that wounded him hit a piece of wood he was holding and one of the fragments hit his hand and only opened a cut along his wrist. Clark's time had not come. The hardships of the campaign, however, did not pass him at all. Towards the end of the war he was stricken with a great illness, and for eighteen months he was in the hospital between life and death. But he later recovered his good physical condition and was discharged from the hospital in good condition.
After this story he again went into shipping, and finally went on board the Titanic and helped to keep her engine fires on this first and last voyage, the awful end of which remains one of the most terrible incidents in our history. Clark got down to the ship when the mighty iceberg split open his side. How he got away he doesn't know. He was caught in the eddy of the waters as the vessel went down - dragged to the depths of the ocean. This awful experience did not cure him of his longing for the sea and he continued to serve in the warehouse of various shipping lines, among them the Empress of Britain, the sister ship in which he again had a miraculous escape from death.
TITANIC AND EMPEROR
It was his first trip to the Empress of Ireland. When the crash came and the bottom of the boat filled with water, his thoughts immediately turned to his terrible experience on the Titanic. The scenes on the Titanic were the worst, he said, because there was more time to realize the full horror of the situation. To the empress, death came more quickly. Clark was on duty in the ship's bilge when the collision occurred. The water came in, driving the heaters higher and higher into the ship, who like rats try to escape the water rising in a well. His lifeboat station was No. 5, and he somehow got there, but he doesn't remember how he launched himself. His mind is blank about some of those awful moments he spent on the ship's decks. They had to crawl on their hands and knees up the sloping hull to clear the boat, and then their best chance of escape was to dive into the water in the hope that they could climb aboard. Clark drifted several times before he got into the boat, and then, he said, they were able to pull about sixty men into it.
And so this man who faced death many times came home to Liverpool. Despite everything she's been through, she's still fine, though she complains that sometimes she can't sleep because she thinks about the terrible experiences she just went through. He is grateful for his good fortune and realizes how close he has come to death.
According to historical reports Clark continued his career in the Navy, but there are no other bibliographical references. After the wreck divers worked to recover bodies, mail and over $1 million worth of silver bullion. Then the wreck was forgotten for 50 years. Later private diving expeditions from 1964 onwards were involved in the recovery of thousands more items, including teak boards, signs, hundreds of intact champagne and wine bottles, and the bottle that announced the meals. Some are on display in the museum. Surprisingly, these expeditions were banned only in 1999, when the Quebec Ministry of Culture designated the wreck as a historical and archaeological property.
THE LUCK OF THE CAPTAINS
During the First World War, the rescued Captains Kendall and Andersen were torpedoed but both survived. Andersen was still at the helm of the Storstad, Kendall at the British Royal Navy's Calgarian. In one letter Kendall recounted his fate:"Well, you notice the Calgarian blew up... She was hit by at least four torpedoes, so imagine the explosion and the people blowing up in the sky... Well, I finally got saved along with 150 others from another boat. Now comes the fun! Half an hour after the blast, the ship that saved us sank. However, I managed to get to a lifeboat and save myself again"
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