RMS Olympic "Titanic" to turn when it sighted the iceberg. "Olympic", like "Titanic", did not carry enough lifeboats for everyone on board, and so was hurriedly equipped with additional, second-hand collapsible lifeboats following her return to Britain. Towards the end of April 1912, as she was about to sail from Southampton to New York, 284 of the ship's firemen went on strike, for fear that the ship's new collapsible lifeboats were not seaworthy. 100 non-union crew were hastily hired from Southampton as replacements, with more being hired from Liverpool. The 40 collapsible lifeboats were transferred from troopships and put on "Olympic", and
RMS Titanic in popular culture Archibald Gracie's "The Truth about the Titanic". Beesley started writing his book shortly after being rescued by the RMS "Carpathia" and supplemented it with interviews with fellow-survivors. It was published by Houghton Mifflin within only three weeks of the disaster. Gracie carried out extensive research and interviews, as well as attending the US Senate inquiry into the sinking. He died in December 1912, just before his book was published. "Titanic"s former Second Officer, Charles Lightoller, published an account of the sinking in his 1935 book "Titanic and Other Ships", which Eugene L. Rasor characterises as an apologia. Stewardess Violet Jessop