TITANIC THE HOMECOMING Tales From The Lapland Paul LEE Independently published - 2020

On April 28th, 1912, two weeks after the calamity of the Titanic, the majority of the surviving crew returned to England aboard the SS Lapland. For two days in New York, they had been largely been prevented from talking by the White Star Line; now, upon their arrival in Plymouth, the Board of Trade acted to isolate them even further until their statements for the forthcoming British Inquiry had been collected. The incarceration was only halted thanks to the efforts of the press, public and the shipping union who succeeded in forcing an embarrassing capitulation - and the crew were granted their long denied freedom. What of their stories? The depositions given in Plymouth have long since vanished, leaving just the testimony of those few who were called before the inquiries, plus fragments in the contemporary press and private correspondence of the day. For the most part, much of what the crew did that night is lost. For the first time, this book collates the "unknown" tales of the crew, and includes dozens of newspaper interviews, letters and written statements, many of which have not been seen for over 100 years.