Chuck Lightoller, We Hardly Knew Ye

Sometimes you come across a character from history that inspires you to tell others about...am I the only person to which that happens? Can't be...

Today's installment is Charles Lightoller. Born in Lancanshire, England in 1874 (3/30 to be exact), his mother died soon after his birth and his father abandoned him for New Zealand. Not wanting an iron working life, at 13 he started an apprenticeship on a sailing vessel. On his first voyage the ship was hit by a storm and needed repairs, and had to make port at Rio--which was undergoing a revolution and a small-pox outbreak.

Later, another ship Lightoller was on grounded outside an uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean (they were rescued and taken to Australia), and after moving up to steamers from sailing vessels, he contracted a batch of malaria so bad he nearly died.

Eventually he got a job with White Star Line company of luxury ships as a Mate, and was stationed on the Titanic. He, actually, was the senior surviving crewmen. His story of survival is ridiculous: he was one of the two men loading the lifeboats, and after they were gone, he leapt for for it and was sucked under into one of the steam release chimney-looking towers. From there he was blown free by a release of steam from somewhere deep within the bowels of the ship, and made it to the surface.

He saw one of the collapsible life boats upside down and frenzied men trying to balance on top of it, and made his way to it. Climbing aboard, he eventually convinced the other men to stand up and shift their weight in unison to balance the thing against the waves. For three hours they stood like that, balancing like on top of a surfboard, in the frigid blackness. Standing. Some couldn't stand it, and eventually, by exhaustion fell out and never seen again.

He served the UK in World War I, being awarded an honor for sinking a menacing U-Boat (submarine). How did he sink the sub? He rammed it.

After retiring from the Navy, he returned with his own ship to assist in the Miracle of Dunkirk during WWII, a maneuver where French soldiers were rescued from the beach at Dunkirk, France.

So, if you're keeping score, Chuck here survived parental abandonment, Brazilian revolution, small pox, a grounded ship, malaria, being on board the Titanic, standing up on an overturned lifeboat for three hours, WWI and WWII, any guesses what finally felled him?

Lightoller was finally done in by the Great London Smog of 1952. Smog. The weather was particularly cold in London, and because of the economy, the nice coal needed to be exported (for more money) leaving only the sulfur rich coal for domestic use, which made the air quality so bad that a lifelong pipe smoker like Charles Lightoller couldn't survive.

Death by smog. If that's not an anti-smoking commercial, I don't know what is.