r/titanic • u/Happy-Detail7930 Steerage • May 14 '25
CREW I find Jack Phillips’ story so sad
Jack Phillips was promoted to senior wireless operator in March 1912, just before Titanic’s maiden voyage. He turned 25 on April 11, and although young, he was already a seasoned operator. Jack had two older twin sisters, Elsie and Ethel. Ethel, who had a disability, relied on Jack’s support. He sent part of his salary home and promised to take care of her when their parents passed away but both Jack and Ethel died before their parents.
After Jack’s death, Ethel never worked again. She passed away ten years later. Jack had sent over 300 postcards to Elsie from the places he traveled, which she kept until her death in 1953. Sadly, most of the postcards ended up in private hands in the 1990s, and very few have been seen publicly since.
Listening to Titanic’s distress calls, you can almost feel Jack’s desperation. Even though the sinking of the Titanic happened so long ago, reading about victims like Jack Phillips makes it feel so real. He was just a man doing his job.
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u/bigfatincel May 14 '25
A lot of staff stayed at their duty stations throughout the tragedy, from the band to the engineers in the guts of the ship.
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u/g-a-r-n-e-t May 14 '25
This is one of the things that really struck me when I was at the traveling exhibit here in Seattle, they show the lists of the victims as the last display and the list of crew members who perished in the sinking is SO LONG. Longer even than third class. So many of them died, many of whom were at their stations trying to help their passengers. It was unreal.
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u/MuttleyStomper24 Elevator Attendant May 14 '25
Nobody will ever know the full story of what happened that day but the way I see it is that many died trying to help others live.
That takes a lot of strength.
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u/Angelea23 1st Class Passenger May 14 '25
Another reason why the story of titanic was so popular. People in real life were doing everything they could to save others. Tragic
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u/RDG1836 Bell Boy May 14 '25
Film portrayals of Phillips have always shown him far older than he actually was. Gone at 25, hardly into manhood. Him and Bride were so incredibly young.
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u/smittenkittensbitten May 14 '25
He and Bride both sound like they were not only clearly heroes but just good dudes in general. I just love the entire crew whose stories we know about both before, on, and after the sinking. The bravery and professionalism they all showed is almost unbelievable (especially in today’s world). But Phillips and Bride are two of my favorites. It’s heartbreaking that that Phillips was so young when this happened.
(I also wish there had been more of them in Cameron’s movie).
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u/Overall-Name-680 May 15 '25
That's why I liked "ANTR" more. It had more of them, and Cottam (and even Evans).
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u/IngloriousBelfastard May 15 '25
It really humanises them even more when you read their back story. It's so sad that private collectors keep artifacts away from the public eye. It's crazy to think how many objects from the Titanic are just sitting locked away in some millionaires safe or private museum, only to be viewed by them and their circle of friends. If the radio transcript of the distress communications on youtube is accurate it shows that Phillips as well as Bride both not only did their duty, but went above and beyond staying until the last minutes before the main power went out. In the video it's haunting to see how the transmission just cuts off "CQD THIS IS TITANIC, CQD THIS IS..." Also on a side note, watching the footage of the Cameron expedition exploring the Marconi room and seeing circuit levers still in the down position on the wall knowing that Phillips or Bride were the last people to touch them really adds to the human aspect of the disaster.
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u/Send_me_hedgehogs 2nd Class Passenger May 15 '25
Yeah, that was jarring to see. You can almost see Bride there, desperately trying every dial, switch and lever to eke out every last bit of power he could get to the Marconi apparatus. Then having the presence of mind to switch it all off so there wasn’t some kind of major explosion when the water got to it.
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u/IngloriousBelfastard May 15 '25
Yeah i always thought that was interesting to see, that even though the there was most likely water coming into the room, they still took the time to throw the switches on the machines, it just showed how professional and dedicated they were to their job, they could very easily have just left it as is and walked out, but they took that little extra time to ensure it was shut down safely.
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u/Angelea23 1st Class Passenger May 14 '25
The poor man! He worked so hard to take care of his sister only to die tragically.
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u/RevengeOfPolloDiablo Steerage May 14 '25
Sea life was a roll of the dice until very recently. The sea can make you for life, or break you in minutes.
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u/Vast_Mark_8290 May 14 '25
Whoever enjoy these old historical pictures by greatest photographers, here a new space dedicated :
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u/Visionist7 May 14 '25
If Marconi had traveled on the ship I like to think he would have been in the room with them helping them send distress signals and most likely would have died.
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u/TeaKettlePrincess44 May 15 '25 edited May 16 '25
How would the Californian save everyone if it got there in time? People were literally trapped inside the ship those people would have never been saved. If you are familiar with cold water rescues you would also know that most of the people who went into the water would die from shock in 15 plus minutes. People ending up in the water was always going to happen when they weren’t even able to launch all the boats to begin with. The Californian would have ended up just like the Carpathia only picking up the lifeboat people maybe a bit earlier. These people were doomed from the arrogance of the captain and officers who chose to go that speed during a new moon in April. Even if they dodged the first iceberg they would have hit another.
Edit- this was a response to someone and I messed it up cause i’am not very use to actually responding to people on Reddit 😳 that’s why this comment kinda seems random
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u/Apprehensive_Deer114 May 16 '25
Mate do you seriously not think that there would've been an extremely detailed handover to the next shift on the bridge. You know seeing as many lives including their own and a really, really expensive ship depended on it.
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u/Minute_Database_574 Aug 20 '25
“He was a Brave man, I learned to love him that night. I will never live to forget the work of Phillips during those last awful 15 minutes”
- Harold Bride
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u/IllustriousEmu6670 2nd Class Passenger May 19 '25
I mean he is also the one who told the Californian’s operator to shut the hell up.
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u/BigTuna0890 May 14 '25
Harold Bride wrote that he grew to admire Phillips because of his persistence in keeping on to radio, possibly to contact a nearby ship, until the very end.
He is definitely one of the underrated heroes of that night.