Actions during the sinking of RMS Titanic
Mount Temple set out on her usual voyage at 14:00 on 3 April 1912 from Antwerp bound for Saint John, New Brunswick. The steamer was under the command of captain James Henry Moore[33] and was carrying 1,466 passengers, mostly steerage, and a crew of 143. On the night of 14–15 April, Mount Temple's Marconi wireless operator, John Durrant, was about to sign off for the evening when at around 00:11 ship's time (22:25 New York Time) he picked up a distress signal from RMS Titanic, which was sinking after a collision with an iceberg.[34] The message contained an erroneous distress position of 41.73333°N, -50.4°W. Durrant had the message relayed to the bridge by a steward, and acknowledged receipt of the signal to Titanic's wireless operator, Jack Phillips. Phillips had difficulty hearing the call from Durrant, however, because of the racket of steam which was then 'blowing off' from Titanic's funnels. Durrant made sure not to jam the ongoing exchange between Titanic and other ships, which he assumed to be closer to the scene.[35][36] Ten minutes after the first distress call from Titanic was received (at 00:21 ship's time, 22:35 New York time), another message came in from Titanic with corrected distress coordinates: the position of 41.76667°N, -50.23333°W. This position was 13 mi west of where Titanic actually sank, as confirmed by the wreck's coordinates. (The center of Titanic's boiler field is located at 41.725°N, -49.94667°W)
When this message was received, Captain Moore was asleep. After being awakened, he assessed the situation carefully. He had standing orders to avoid icebergs, but after receiving the distress call he decided to mount a rescue operation. He immediately turned his ship around and steamed north-northeast at an estimated speed of 11+1/2 kn towards Titanic's last reported position of 41.76667°N, -50.23333°W. He consulted with his chief engineer, John Gillet, to try to coax even more speed out of the ageing vessel. Moore worked out his own rough position as 41.41667°N, -51.23333°W, about 61 nmi south and west from the now-established location of the wreck of the Titanic (41.725°N, -49.94667°W). Even at full speed, it would take around four hours to cover the distance between his ship and Titanic.[37]
Once underway, Moore had his off-duty crew awakened and briefed and ordered the 20 lifeboats aboard uncovered. He had ropes and ladders readied, lifebelts prepared and posted extra lookouts to aid avoiding the icebergs reported in the area.[38] Initial progress was good but after finding his ship coming upon a large ice field at around 03:00 on 15 April, the vessel slowed until becoming increasingly surrounded by pack ice. Around this time, Mount Temple encountered what was thought to be a schooner with just a single green light, which went unidentified and caused the ship to take evasive action.[37] This green light may have been a rocket or flare launched by either survivors of the Titanic or launched by RMS Carpathia speeding to the rescue. With the amount of ice becoming ever greater, Mount Temple heaved-to around 14 nmi short of Titanic's last reported position at around 03:25 and continued drifting through the ice field until the daybreak. She reached the last known position of Titanic around 04:30, and found herself in a heavily packed ice-field, but no trace of survivors or wreckage.[38] After about half an hour wait, Moore proceeded south-southeast looking for an opening to pass through the pack ice, but eventually reversed course back to north-northwest, shadowing the western edge of the ice pack.[38] Some time between 6:00 and 06:30 Carpathia, commanded by Captain Arthur Rostron, was sighted to the east of the vessel, and
Mount Temple sent a wireless request to Carpathia but received no answer. At around 08:30 Californian came along Carpathia as she was finishing picking up the last survivors.[40] At 08:31 Carpathia reported picking up 20 boats, and sent another message at 09:26 telling everyone there was no more need to stand by, following which, Moore gave the order to reverse course and continue the voyage to New Brunswick.[39] Once Mount Temple had docked at Saint John on 19 April, he was summoned to the American and later British inquests into the sinking.[41]
As soon as Mount Temple reached Canada, she became the center of controversy as two passengers, and allegedly some crew members, stated that the ship was close to Titanic but failed to come to her rescue as they saw her distress rockets and even watched her sinking.[42][43] These speculations were ignored by both the American and British inquiries, and none of Mount Temple's officers either testified or submitted affidavits in support of these claims. Captain Moore himself testified that no passenger could have witnessed an event such as rockets bursting over a ship since no passenger was on deck at 12 o'clock at night to be able to see it.[44] Over the years, attempts have been made to stir up further controversy over Mount Temple's role in the sinking of the Titanic, often in a thinly veiled attempt to deflect blame and responsibility from the Leyland liner Californian, which was probably closer to the scene of the tragedy, and whose officers reported seeing a number of rockets bursting over an unidentified ship they were watching.
The controversy surrounding Mount Temple was further stirred up in November 2020 by the PBS program Abandoning the Titanic, part of the Secrets of the Dead series.[45] Airing in some countries as Titanic: A Dead Reckoning, it was co-produced and co-written by journalist and Titanic author Senan Molony. The show repeated some old claims about Mount Temple and its role in the disaster, and made some new ones. Among these claims, it was said that Mount Temple was much closer to Titanic when the SOS was received, that Mount Temple approached to within 5 mi of Titanic when Captain Moore decided to retreat after encountering the ice field in an attempt to avoid risk to his own ship, and that Mount Temple matched the appearance of the "mystery ship" that was being observed from Titanic because of the distance between her four masts, as later observed by the commander of the raider which sank Mount Temple in World War I. The show concluded that Californians captain, Stanley Lord, was wrongly pilloried for failing to reach Titanic, when it was actually Mount Temples Master who abandoned the doomed liner's passengers and crew to their fate.
This hypothesis, however, is strongly contested by historians. In January 2021, a well-known team of Titanic historians and authors released a rebuttal paper entitled: 'Abandoning the Titanic', Abandoning Reality: The Truth About the SS Mount Temple.'[46] Although the new show attempts to discredit Captain Moore of Mount Temple and lays blame for "abandoning" Titanic and those aboard her to their fate, the historical record clearly proves otherwise. At a distance of 49.5 nmi from the famous distress coordinates of Titanic, and roughly 60 mi from the actual location of the disaster, Mount Temple was simply too far away to be seen from those aboard Titanic, and for those aboard Mount Temple to see Titanic or her distress rockets. Captain Moore and his crew made a desperate attempt to reach the stricken Titanic, but only reached the western side of the ice field that stood between her and the wreck site some 2 hours and 40 minutes after Titanic sank. There was no way that she could have reached Titanic in time to carry out a rescue; she did not 'abandon' Titanic.
Mount Temple Seamount, one of the Fogo Seamounts southeast of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic Ocean, is named after Mount Temple for her role in the sinking of the Titanic.[47]
