Name |
Lifeboat from Titanic |
Lifeboat to Carpathia |
Confidence Level |
Whabee, Mrs Shawneene | 12
(8 votes) 14 (2 votes) 12 or C (1 vote) |
12
(8 votes) 14 (2 votes) 12 or C (1 vote) |
3.88 3.25 4.00 |
We have a 1937 account from Mrs. Whabee (also called Shawneene Abi-Saab or Shabini Georges) where she says:
“I saw Gerios Yousseff, one of my cousins.
He pushed me toward one of the lifeboats.
Sailors armed with revolvers drove the men
away from the boats shouting, ‘Women and
children first!’ They shot into the air to
frighten the men. Many passengers were
overcome with fright. Banoura [Ayoub] and I
were placed into the next to the last
lifeboat to be lowered from the ship. A
scared young man leaped over the side of the
liner and landed in the bottom of the
lifeboat. Women shielded him with their
night clothing so the sailors wouldn’t see
him. They would have shot him.”
The article further says: "At dawn, we saw the overturned empty boats. A short while later we were picked up by a German ship." Shawneene’s comment
about being in “the next to last lifeboat”
could of course apply to Collapsible C, as
would her comments about shots being fired [by
First Officer Murdoch] in order to control
unruly passengers. However, her comment could
apply equally well to boat #12, which
could be the “next to last” lifeboat
positioned on the ship’s aft port side and
where Fifth Officer Lowe fired shots at #14 to
control passengers in that location. The
reference to "overturned boats" could apply to
#12 or #4, which recovered the survivors on
Collapsible B. Shawneene’s statement
about women shielding the frightened young man
with their clothing is strikingly similar to
Daniel Buckley’s statement that a woman threw
her shawl over him in order to keep him from
being seen and thrown out of her lifeboat.
After our discussion, most of us felt Mrs. Whabee was most likely in #12, though we had a few votes for #14, and even one for #12 or Collapsible C. |