A photo of a Titanic lifeboat on which three decomposing bodies were discovered is among a trove of items from the disaster set to be auctioned off on Saturday.
The lifeboat, the last to be cast off from the ill-fated liner on her maiden voyage, was spotted by crewmen aboard the RMS Oceanic during the vessel’s May 13, 1912, sailing — about a month after the Titanic sank, the Daily Mail reported.
The bodies of first-class passenger Thomson Beattie, 37, clad in a dinner jacket, and two of the doomed ship’s firemen were found on board.
A handwritten note from an Oceanic passenger describes how his ship’s crew used binoculars to observe the bodies — one of which was so decomposed that an arm fell off during the recovery.
“I crossed the Atlantic one month after the Titanic catastrophe. We picked up one of the lifeboats with two unrecognizable corpses of a passenger in evening dress and two firemen,” the unidentified passenger wrote.
“The arms came off in the hands of the Oceanic boarding officer. The bodies were buried and a prayer service read. The lifeboat then hauled on to our deck.”
Other photographs up for auction show Oceanic sailors being lowered to a boat and preparing to row toward the Titanic lifeboat — identified as Collapsible Boat A — and its grisly remains.
The lifeboat had not been officially launched as the Titanic was sinking. A group of about 30 desperate passengers grabbed the boat at the last minute. Only 12 were rescued by another lifeboat, while most perished from exposure.
Among the passengers on the lifeboat was Edward Lindell, who died while holding his wife’s wedding ring. His body was missing, but the ring — bearing the inscription “Edward to Greta” — was found on the lifeboat.
The records, which had been held by a private collector, will be auctioned off by Henry Aldridge and Son of Devizes, Wiltshire.