This is hindsight, the people at the time didn’t know how truly cold the water was. They probably knew it was cold but not kill you in 15 minutes cold.
Furthermore, a lot of the lifeboats didn’t have many sailors or WSL crew members.
Even officer Lowe who was one of the titanic officers who wanted to go back. Waited a bit and only took experienced men from other lifeboats.
Dakkaboy123 t1_j5k11u1 wrote
Reply to comment by las61918 in TIL that Titanic crewman Herbert Pitman made an attempt to row his lifeboat over to rescue people in the water, but was overruled by the other occupants of the boat, who were worried about people swarming them and duly complied. Pitman said that this haunted him throughout his life. by ChadExtra
This is hindsight, the people at the time didn’t know how truly cold the water was. They probably knew it was cold but not kill you in 15 minutes cold.
Furthermore, a lot of the lifeboats didn’t have many sailors or WSL crew members.
Even officer Lowe who was one of the titanic officers who wanted to go back. Waited a bit and only took experienced men from other lifeboats.