Incredible Photos and Handwritten Notes Describe Grim Discovery of Titanic’s Last Lifeboat

The three photos were taken on May 13, 1912, almost a month after Titanic’s sinking, and show crewmen from RMS Oceanic attempting to recover one of the doomed liner’s lifeboats. Inside the lifeboat, thought to be the last to leave the sinking ship, were the decomposing bodies of three Titanic passengers.

One photo shows a boat from Oceanic being lowered, another shows the boat approaching the drifting lifeboat. A third picture shows Oceanic crewmen on the Titanic lifeboat.

Titanic struck an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. ship's time on April 14 1912 and sank just over two hours later with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.

A handwritten account of the lifeboat recovery by an unidentified Oceanic passenger describes the gruesome discovery of three corpses. One corpse was wearing a dinner jacket and the bodies of two Titanic firemen were wedged under the lifeboat’s seats, it explained, adding that one corpse’s arms came off in the hands of the Oceanic’s boarding officer. A woman’s ring was also found on the lifeboat, according to the note.

A number of Titanic passengers made it to the lifeboat, known as ‘Collapsible A’ when it washed off the ship’s deck, partly submerged, but not all survived. The bodies found by Oceanic were left on the lifeboat when Collapsible A’s survivors were picked by another lifeboat.

The corpse in the dinner jacket was identified as Titanic first class passenger Thomson Beattie. The wedding ring belonged to Swedish passenger Elin Gerda Lindell, who briefly reached Collapsible A, but later drowned, according to Encyclopedia Titanica. Her husband Edvard Bengtsson Lindell held Elin’s ring before he died on Collapsible A. His body was never recovered.

Crewmen from the RMS Oceanic on board the Titanic lifeboat spotted in the Atlantic.

A lifeboat from the passing liner, bottom right, is cast off to investigate the lifeboat from the doomed Titanic, marked with an 'X'.

The crew from the RMS Oceanic are lowered down before setting off for the drifting vessel.

The body of first class passenger Thomson Beattie, 37, who was dressed in his dinner jacket was among the three found on board the lifeboat.

This account penned by a passenger on board RMS Oceanic reveals the decomposed state the bodies were in when recovered.

A log from the RMS Oceanic, which recovered a lifeboat from the Titanic nearly a month after the tragic sinking.

(via Daily Mail)