Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘Sailor who sank the Titanic’ went on to be a hero..
Officer who took binocular box key won bravery medals
A SAILOR blamed for the sinking of the Titanic should actually be remembered as a hero because of his courage later.
David Blair was the ship’s original second officer but was replaced at the last minute and left the doomed ship at Southampton.
But, in his haste, he accidentally took with him the key to a cupboard in the crow’s nest where binoculars and a telescope were locked away.
After the April 1912 disaster, which claimed more than 1,500 lives, surviving crew members said it could have been averted if they had binoculars to spot the iceberg.
Blair became renowned for his unwitting part in the famous sinking.
But the merchant seaman’s medals, won for gallantry in the years following the Titanic, may change how history regards Davy Blair.
In 1913 Blair, as first officer on the SS Majestic, another White Star ocean liner, dived 40 feet overboard to help save a crew member from the freezing waters of the Atlantic.
The ship was 700 miles from New York when an engine room stoker “rendered temporarily insane by the heat of the stokehold had rushed on deck and in his frenzy thrown himself into the sea”.
DROWNING
Blair “without a moment’s hesitation” dived from “the dizzy elevation” to the man’s aid.
A report in the London Gazette at the time described how Blair had tried to reach the drowning man with a lifebuoy. “He did not succeed but, although weakened by the coldness of the sea, he managed to point out the whereabouts of the man to those in the boat, who rescued him and then picked up Mr Blair,” it read.
“There was a fog prevailing at the time and the water was very cold.”
He was awarded the Sea Gallantry Medal from King George V at Buckingham Palace in 1915 and a medal from the Royal Humane Society.
He won more bravery medals for serving with distinction in the Navy during the First World War. Nine medals including his OBE, a British Empire Medal, a Royal Naval Reserve Decoration and his Legion d’honneur – the highest French order of merit – went under the hammer last week.
Andrew Aldridge, of the Henry Aldridge & Son auction house in Devizes, Wilts, said Blair was in fact a “military hero”. He said: “It’s a bit of an unfair label that he has. Yes he had the binocular box key, however if they had wanted to access the binoculars, naturally there are ways and means to open a box and you don’t necessarily need a key. “So it’s a bit of an unfair label that he gained because he was a very worthy, well-decorated military hero.”
Davy, from Dundee, was appointed First Second
Officer on the Titanic having been involved in its early sea trials in Belfast. He was also aboard for Titanic’s voyage from Belfast to Southampton. But he was clearly saddened when he lost his place on the liner’s maiden voyage after White Star Line shuffled the crew.
He sent a postcard to his sister-inlaw, writing: “Am afraid I shall have to step out to make room for chief officer of the Olympic. This is a magnificent ship, I feel very disappointed I am not to make her first voyage… I hope eventually to get back to this ship.”
Nearly five days into her voyage, the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in about two-and-a-half hours. An official inquiry heard the crew’s inability to access the ship’s binoculars may have contributed to the disaster.
Mr Aldridge said: “There were a lot of his friends on that ship and a lot of them didn’t make it.”
The key was passed to Davy’s daughter Nancy when he died in 1955, aged 80. In 2007 it sold at auction for £90,000 and the proceeds were used to set up scholarships in Blair’s name.
I feel very disappointed I am not to make her first voyage. I hope to get back on this ship DAVY BLAIR’S POSTCARD AFTER LOSING PLACE ON THE TITANIC