never give an ass power

In April 1912 Cyril Evans was working as the telegraph operator on board the SS Californian on a voyage across the Atlantic. On the night of April 14, 1912, the Captain of the Californian, Stanley Lord, brought the ship to a halt as it had entered a wide ice field with many large icebergs. Lord came into the wireless operators room and ordered Evans to warn other ships in the area of the ice. Evans proceeded to do just that, sending out wireless warnings to other ships in the area that they were approaching ice.

In the wireless room aboard the Titanic, operators Jack Philips and Harold Bride were trying to get through a backlog of private messages they were to send from the ship to the United States, the destination of the Titanic on her maiden voyage. Philips received Evans’ ice warning message, but because the Californian was so close to the Titanic and Evans had his set turned to full power, he almost blew the headset off Philips head. An angry Philips told him to get off and Philips never passed along the ice warning to the bridge or the ship’s Captain. Evans felt he had done what he was ordered to do, switched off his radio set, and went to bed. A short time later the Titanic, heading at full steam west toward America, came upon the ice Evans had tried to warn them about, struck an iceberg and sank with the loss of over 1500 people.