Name |
Lifeboat from Titanic |
Lifeboat to Carpathia |
Confidence Level |
Lulic,
Mr Nikola |
15? |
15? |
2.63 |
Minneapolis Morning Tribune, April 24, 1912: "Nicholas Lulich, an Austrian survivor of the Titanic, arrived here yesterday. Through an interpreter he said that he did not hear the band playing on the ship shortly before she sank as has been widely published, though he says he did hear the explosions. Lulich says he was in one of the last boats to leave the ship." Duluth Herald, April 24, 1912: "Nicholas Lulich owes his life to the fact that he rescued a baby from the water. When he came to the surface after jumping into the sea, Lulich discovered a baby who came to the surface near at hand. Grasping the infant, he held it above his head and swam toward one of the lifeboats. Struggling men all around were vainly calling to the people in the lifeboats to save them. The boats were crowded and the people in them feared to take more aboard. Women saw Lulich and the tiny burden and prevailed upon the men in one of the boats to save the child and its rescuer." Narodni Vestik, April 25, 1912: "Lulič owes his life to a really strange case. When the steamer sank, he jumped into the sea and swam to the lifeboats. While swimming, he grabbed a two-year-old child from the waves and held it on his head. Arriving at an almost overcrowded boat, he asked to be taken in, but the sailors resolutely refused. However, the merciful women insisted and Lulič and the child were lifted into the boat." Excerpts from a much later article on Mr Lulic, from the Duluth News Tribune, April 16, 2012. "Interesting details about the man, but still no evidence to support his certain presence in boat 15. The man from Croatia deserted from forced service in the Austrian army in 1902 and followed other Europeans to the mines of the Iron Range. Research and genealogy pages on Titanic survivors show little doubt that Lulic was on the ship and saved himself in Lifeboat 15. How he got into that boat, and what he did when he got back to the Midwest, leaves more than a little room for question. 'When the Titanic made its plunge, I, in company with those that had shipped with me, jumped from the topmost deck of the great liner. I swam a short distance and then discovered an infant that had just come into view, apparently. I grabbed it instantly and then began to swim with my free arm as fast as I could toward one of the lifeboats.' He said that when one of the women in lifeboat 15 saw he had a baby, the crew pulled the two in. In New York, shortly after the rescue ship Carpathia docked in New York with survivors, a reporter asked Jan Jalsevac about his rescue from the sinking ship and he added this about his companion Lulic: 'As to my friend Nikola Lulic, I have to say, that he was rescued by fetching the cap of a sailor, which he put on his head so he could make his way to a boat.' Perhaps Lulic simply felt he needed to make some heroics out of his surviving. It wasn't uncommon for men who survived to feel shame as stories about the "women and children first" policy in loading the lifeboats made headlines. His friend's account makes some sense, given that Lifeboat 15 was full of male crew members who might have made an attempt to save one of their own. There is no evidence of any babies being snatched out of the water, and all the children aboard No. 15 were accompanied by a parent and were put in aboard the Titanic. He told the newspaper that he dropped the baby off at a hospital and never saw it again. There are few accounts of Lulic's connection to the Titanic past those first few frenzied weeks of coverage." In an interview with the Virginia (Minnesota) Enterprise of April 26th (1912?) he says the child was turned over to a "Sister's Hospital" in New York. This implies that no parent survived. As we know there was no such child, it's safe to assume he made it up. Given no proof of the baby story, all we have to go on is the first account, that he was on one of the last boats to leave the ship. Also, Jan Jalsevac (Ivan Jalševac), mentioned in the above article, was likely in #15. |