[5][6] During World War II, in retirement, he voluntarily provided his personal yacht, the Sundowner, and sailed her as one of the "little ships" in the Dunkirk evacuation.

[9] At age 13, not wanting to end up with a factory job, Charles began a four-year apprenticeship on board the barque Primrose Hill.

[12] Another storm, on 13 November 1889 in the Indian Ocean, caused the ship to run aground on an uninhabited four-and-a-half-square-mile island now called Île Saint-Paul.

[15][20] In March 1911, while serving as first officer on the Oceanic, the ship's foremast was struck by lightning in a gale; Lightoller was standing on the bridge at the time, and narrowly avoided being seriously injured by falling splinters.

[24] Later, the missing key and resultant lack of binoculars for the lookouts in the crow's nest became a point of contention at the U.S. inquiry into the Titanic disaster.

[26] When the ship narrowly avoided hitting SS City of New York, Lightoller, who was then forward, thought a collision looked "inevitable".

As a result, Lightoller lowered lifeboats with empty seats if there were no women and children waiting to board, meaning to fill them to capacity once they had reached the water.

[2] Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Godfrey Peuchen has the distinction of being the only adult male passenger Lightoller allowed into the boats on the port side evacuation, due to his previous nautical experience and offer of assistance when there were no seamen available from the Titanic's own complement to help command one of the lowering lifeboats.

Under this misapprehension, Lightoller's plan was to fill the lifeboats from the waterline and sent 10 men to open the gangway doors in the ship's port so that passengers would have access.

Seeing crowds of people run away from the rising water, Lightoller realized it would be futile heading aft and dived overboard from the roof of the officers' quarters.

[42] Surfacing, Lightoller spotted the ship's crow's nest, now level with the water, and started to swim towards it as a place of safety before remembering that it was safer to stay away from the foundering vessel.

He was pinned against the grating for some time by the pressure of the incoming water, until a blast of hot air from the depths of the ship erupted out of the ventilator and blew him to the surface.

Then the Titanic's Number 1 (forward) funnel broke free and hit the water, washing the collapsible further away from the sinking ship; it killed several people and closely missed Lightoller.

[citation needed] After the sinking, Lightoller published a testimony in the Christian Science Journal crediting his faith in a divine power for his survival, concluding: "with God all things are possible".

[46] Lightoller blamed the accident on the seas being the calmest that night that he had ever seen in his life and on the floating icebergs giving no tell-tale early-warning signs of breaking white water at their bases.

He deftly defended his employer, the White Star Line, despite hints of excessive speed, a lack of binoculars in the crow's nest, and the plain recklessness of travelling through an ice field on a calm night when all other ships in the vicinity thought it wiser to heave to until morning.

Lightoller was also able to help channel public outcry over the incident into positive change, as many of his recommendations for avoiding such accidents in the future were adopted by maritime nations.

[5] Falcon was sunk on 1 April 1918 after a collision, in fog, with the trawler, John Fitzgerald, while both ships were acting as escorts to a convoy in the North Sea.

[54] In his 1933 memoirs, Kapitänleutnant Fürbringer accused the Captain and crew of Garry of war crimes; by both violating the Hague Convention of 1907 and repeating the Baralong incidents by opening fire on the unarmed survivors of UB-110 with revolvers and machine guns.

Lightoller explained, "In fact it was simply amazing that they should have had the infernal audacity to offer to surrender, in view of their ferocious and pitiless attacks on our merchant ships.

[4] Geoffrey Brooks, who translated into English and edited Werner Fürbringer's 1933 memoir for its 1999 publication by Pen & Sword Books, commented about the action, "Regarding the alleged British atrocity committed against survivors of UB-110, the normal procedure would have been to report the matter to the German legal military authorities at the earliest opportunity.

[60] A disillusioned Lightoller resigned shortly thereafter, taking such odd jobs as an innkeeper, a chicken farmer, and later property speculator, at which he and his wife had some success.

[64] In May 1940, Lightoller, together with his oldest son Roger and a young Sea Scout named Gerald Ashcroft, crossed the English Channel in Sundowner to aide in the Dunkirk evacuation.

[note 1] On the return journey, Lightoller evaded gunfire from enemy aircraft, using a technique described to him by his youngest son, Herbert, who had joined the RAF and been killed earlier in the war.

"[69][70] At the time of the evacuation, Lightoller's second son, Trevor, was a serving second lieutenant with the 3rd Division (Major-General Bernard Montgomery), which had retreated towards Dunkirk.

[74] After the Second World War, Lightoller managed a small boatyard in Twickenham, West London, called Richmond Slipways, which built motor launches for the river police.

While serving on the Majestic, Lightoller met Australian Iowa Sylvania Zillah Hawley-Wilson, known as "Sylvia", on her way home to Sydney after a stay in England.

Their youngest son Brian, an RAF pilot, was killed in action on 4 September 1939 in a bombing raid over Wilhelmshaven, Germany, on the first night of Britain's entry into the Second World War.

[68] Their eldest son, Roger, served in the Royal Navy and was killed in March 1945 during the Granville raid whilst commanding a Motor Torpedo Boat.

[77] Trevor joined the army and gained the rank of lieutenant colonel, serving under General Bernard Montgomery's command for the duration of the war.