Sir Bertram Fox Hayes DSO RD RNR (25 April 1864 – 15 May 1941) was a

sea captain A sea captain, ship's captain, captain, master, or shipmaster, is a high-grade licensed mariner who holds ultimate command and responsibility of a merchant vessel.Aragon and Messner, 2001, p.3. The captain is responsible for the safe and efficie ...

with the White Star Line.

Life and career

Bertram Hayes was born in Birkenhead in

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, but his family moved to Goole in Yorkshire when he was four years of age. He began his service in the Merchant Navy as a Junior Clerk at the age of 14 in the Goole Shipping Company. He went to sea in 1880 and gained his Master's Certificate in 1889 and his Extra Master's in 1897. In 1898 he joined the firm of Ismay, Imrie & Company (parent company of the White Star Line), sailing as Mate aboard the

Coptic Coptic may refer to: Afro-Asia * Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya * Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century * Coptic alphabet ...

. He was promoted to Master and commanded the SS ''

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'', and during the Boer War he took troops to South Africa, carrying 37,000 troops in three years, for which he was awarded the

Transport Medal The Transport Medal was a British campaign medal sanctioned on 8 November 1903 and awarded by the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty. It was awarded to masters and officers of merchant ships employed by the Transport Service to move troops to ei ...

. He also served on the White Star Line ships '' Teutonic'', '' Germanic'', '' Suevic'', '' Arabic'', the '' Laurentic'', in which he inaugurated the company's Canadian service in 1909, and the ''

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''. Hayes was called as a witness to the British Board of Trade inquiry held after the

Titanic disaster The sank in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean, four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. The largest ocean liner in service at the time, ''Titanic'' had an estimated 2,224 pe ...

, which he attended on 11 June 1912. In his testimony, Hayes was questioned mainly on the subject on routines regarding spotting ice. Hayes described the circumstances on the night of the sinking of the Titanic as "abnormal, which nobody had experienced before". During the First World War he was appointed Captain of the RMS ''Olympic'' when the ship was employed as a troop carrier across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. In 1917 he was awarded a

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for his services. On 12 May 1918, en route from New York to Southampton and while in the English Channel, the Olympic, sighted the U-boat

SM U-103 SM ''U-103'') and combined with the ''U'' for ''Unterseeboot'' would be translated as ''His Majesty's Submarine''., group=Note was an Imperial Germany Navy Type U 57 U-boat that was rammed and sunk by during the First World War. ''U-103'' was ...

. After opening fire, the Olympic turned to ram and sank the submarine. For this service, he was awarded the DSO. He was knighted in 1919 for "valuable services in connection with the transport of troops".The London Gazette Publication date:12 September 1919 Issue:31553 Page:11575
/ref> Between 1922 and 1924 he captained the RMS ''Majestic'', which was then the world's largest ship, and retired as Commodore of the White Star Line in 1924 when the company reinstated the rank. In 1925 he published his memoirs, ''Hull Down, Reminisces of Windjammers, Troops and Travellers'', in the book Fox-Hayes makes no mention of the ill-fated RMS Titanic even though he was with the White Star Line at the time of the sinking. He remained a bachelor and died on 15 May 1941 at his home in Liverpool.

References

www.angloboerwar.com
- www.encyclopedia-titanica.org

External links

Photograph of Sir Bertram Fox Hayes from the National Portrait Gallery.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hayes, Bertram Fox 1864 births 1941 deaths People from Birkenhead English sailors Steamship captains White Star Line Royal Naval Reserve personnel