Two Men Survived The Titanic Only To Be In A Face-Off Years Later

Apparently, Williams shouted, “Quick! Jump!” when he saw the smokestack going down. But his father wasn’t fast enough. The gigantic structure fell directly onto him, killing him instantly. Williams didn’t have time to mourn, though, because he had to swim desperately to the nearest lifeboat before the freezing waters swallowed him.

Elsewhere on the ship, another man was having a different but equally frightening experience. Karl Behr wasn’t in bed when the iceberg struck and instead faced the responsibility of waking the people with him. There was his fiancée, her mother and her stepfather, and they all needed to reach the lifeboats before the Titanic disappeared underwater.

In the early stages, the manning of lifeboats on board was apparently more of a precaution. No one really thought that the greatest ship in the world could be brought down by a large lump of ice. Williams and his dad had helped other people board and launch the boats while they stayed on deck. It was meant to be women and children first, which would have excluded them and Behr.

Among the owners of the Titanic was managing director J. Bruce Ismay, who was overseeing lifeboat number five. He was the one who said yes when one of the women on board asked if the men could join them. And it was he who launched the boat despite still having room for more passengers. Behr was an athletic man and he helped row them away, even as they saw the ship disappearing behind them.

Both Dick Williams and Karl Behr were Americans with more than one thing in common, but they had different reasons for being on that ship. The Titanic was meant to be traveling from Southampton in southern England to New York City. And the story of how the two men got there is almost as interesting as what happened afterwards.

Williams had actually been born in Geneva, Switzerland, but his American credentials can’t be in doubt. His Philadelphia-born father was, in fact, a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin. For her part, Williams’ mother was living in Philadelphia in 1912. The former, though, grew up multilingual and attended a private European boarding school.

Karl Behr had been born in 1885, which made him six years older than Williams. The former’s place of birth was New York City and he also had a prestigious education, with a degree from Yale following his time at the elite Lawrenceville School. This culminated in Behr becoming a lawyer when he was accepted to the Bar in 1910.

For his part, Williams was traveling to America to attend Harvard, where he intended to study history and geology. His father Charles came with him, and both men were there as first class passengers. Naturally, that meant they had access to the most comfortable areas of the Titanic.

Behr and his family were first class passengers as well, but they had somewhat different reasons for their journey. For him it was all about love. He was apparently in pursuit of a lady called Helen Newsom, who Behr was hoping to make his wife. The latter’s mother was less enthusiastic and had spirited the then-19-year-old away to Europe to try and get her away from him!

These were the days when it was pretty much required that a man seek permission from his beloved’s father before he tried to marry her. Newsom’s stepfather was also unimpressed at the then-25-year-old man and his interest in a younger woman. And this lack of approval meant that the suitors had to be clever.

“A business trip” would have been Behr’s response if you’d asked him what he was doing in Europe. Yet this was all a ruse that would allow him to get closer to Newsom, whom he had met when she’d gone to school with his sister. It's believed that the woman sent him a telegram once she reached Berlin and told him that the Titanic would be her route home. And naturally, it didn’t take him long to buy a ticket to join her.

First class on the Titanic was designed to be a luxurious experience. After all, the more than 300 passengers in this category included American millionaires and British aristocrats. Their expectations would be far higher than the many lower-class individuals who would have to sleep right next to the rattling engines.

In the first class section there were cafes, restaurants and the biggest dining room ever to be built on a ship, the BBC notes. There, you could admire the ornate carvings on the panels and furniture, which were made of expensive woods like mahogany, oak and sycamore. Not only that: a live orchestra would fill the room with music while you savored your food!

Other facilities included a smoking space, a reading and writing room, squash courts, a gym and even a swimming pool. Many people enjoyed playing chess, backgammon and shuffleboard among other games. Then, when the passengers were finally ready to rest, they could retire to one of the luxurious suites which featured their own bathrooms and walk-in closets.

If there’s any doubt about the standing of Williams and his father, then you should look no further than their evening meal! The men ate with the captain himself before returning to their comfortable beds. Things became less pleasant after being awoken by the iceberg, though. Soon after waking up, they apparently drew the ire of a steward after smashing down a door to free a trapped passenger.

Another steward banned them from the bar because it wasn’t opening time, though they wanted to wait and drink. Williams’ dad had an empty flask which he decided to pass to his son. Somehow, the latter managed to keep it safe through his escape and later passed it to his own children and grandchildren, who reportedly still carry it today.

Encyclopedia Titanica notes that Williams and his father paced a large portion of the ship during those long hours between the collision and final sinking. Their beds had been on C-Deck, but they viewed a display of maps on A-Deck before finding their way to the so-called Boat Deck. At one point, the men even took refuge in the slightly warmer gym where they could sit on the exercise bikes.

Meanwhile, Behr had no idea of the controversy that would result from Ismay’s half empty lifeboat and its failure to prioritize women and children. According to the Newark Evening News, he would say later that “we supposed there were plenty of lifeboats for all the passengers.” Though Ismay would earn the title “Coward of the Titanic” because of how quickly he fled.

Behr was in his lifeboat and relatively safe, but Williams still had to get off the Titanic and subsequently plunged into the freezing waters. There, he joined around 30 others clinging to what would have been a collapsible lifeboat if they’d had a chance to put it together. Tragically, The Independent notes that only 11 survived long enough to be rescued.

Being taken onto the rescue ship RMS Carpathia wasn’t the end of Williams’ troubles, though. He’d been out in the cold and wet for hours, and his legs were purple with hypothermia. One doctor was worried that the limbs might need amputating in order to avoid gangrene. Though as per History.com, Williams refused point blank and responded, “I’m going to need these legs.”

If you needed any more evidence of Williams’ physical and mental strength, then you just need to look at how he challenged that doctor. The man knew that doing nothing could lead to him losing his legs, so he kept moving. Every two hours Williams apparently paced the deck again to ensure that the blood kept pumping. He would experience vascular problems for the rest of his life, but he still had two functioning lower limbs.

It was the Carpathia that would also rescue Behr and his family. He didn’t have Williams’ injuries and could take the time to organize some formal recognition for the heroic captain and crew. A committee of seven survivors including him and Molly Brown would gather together to award Captain Rostron a silver cup, while the 320 crew members each received their own medal.

The Carpathia was also where Williams and Behr would meet for the first time. It was the beginning of a long friendship where they shared more than their experiences of the Titanic. They had something else in common that would draw them together again in very different circumstances, and it all started with Behr’s kindness to Williams.

Williams hadn’t just been traveling to America to study, and his plans for Harvard weren’t confined to books. His father Charles was a founding member of the International Tennis Federation, and Williams had been handling a racket since childhood. Yale star Behr had previously been a finalist at both Wimbledon and the Davis Cup. And in 1914 Williams and Behr actually ended up playing on the same Davis Cup team.

Williams was back on the court just months after having been told he might become an amputee. Mary Browne joined him that August to play mixed doubles at the U.S. National Championships. This competition is now known as the U.S. Open, which is one of the four biggest annual events in tennis.

In 1913 Williams would expand his range to the singles tournament and achieve an impressive second place with his dynamic style. And the following year he was the winner! By the time Williams graduated Harvard in 1916 he had won multiple titles. And the Titanic survivor would be US Champion again before his progression was interrupted by WWI.

Those few years between the sinking of the Titanic and World War I were good ones for Williams. In 1912 alone his mixed doubles title was accompanied by the Pennsylvania state championship and victory in the national clay court tournament. It was also when he reunited with Behr for their first on-court battle.

The two survivors faced each other in Massachusetts across the immaculate grass of the Longwood Cricket Club. And to say it went down well would be an understatement! The Boston Globe noted that “if one of the 1,500 spectators went away dissatisfied, he was indeed hard to please.” Clearly, it was a very special match.

It probably wasn’t a surprise to see Williams surge to a 6-0 victory in the first set and a slightly trickier 9-7 in the second. He was, after all, the rising star with intense physical power. Though Behr countered athleticism with strategy and tailored his third-set performance to meet Williams’ attack. As a result, the former took it 6-2.

Now it was a real contest with Behr continuing to claw his way into the game. The 6-1 in the fourth and 6-4 in the fifth ensured his victory. It was a win to savor considering Williams was en route to dominating his age. Behr was in the 1914 U.S. Championships as well, but it was his opponent who knocked him out in the quarter finals. This time he won in straight sets – there was no dramatic fight back.

When World War I came Williams would be awarded for his gallantry, but Behr was about to enter a hard time. It may have been the former who suffered the greatest physical damage from his experiences on the Titanic, but for Behr it had left a long-lasting mental scar. For several years his survivor’s guilt had been building to an unbearable pain.

First Behr faced accusations of cowardice because of his place on J. Bruce Ismay’s lifeboat. Then he confronted press speculation about his relationship with Helen Sanford, who he finally married in March of 1913. Their official engagement became public eight months after the Titanic. Though it made a better story if they’d met and proposed on the ship, and so that was what the papers often reported. Apparently, the delayed announcement had been to try and avoid headlines.

Williams won the Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur and the Croix de Guerre during WWI, but Behr wasn’t even allowed to serve. You see, he was of German ancestry, and that threw a cloud over his attempts to enlist. Though Behr did everything he could to support the war effort – from working with Theodore Roosevelt to helping orchestrate New York’s Citizen Preparedness Parade in 1916.

By 1917 Behr’s mental and physical health had deteriorated further. He was committed to a sanatorium – but luckily not for long. The Titanic survivor did manage to serve just a little at the end of the war, though. And when the fighting was over both he and Williams were able to return to their lives with some success.

Behr’s tennis career may have passed its prime, but he still had plenty to keep him occupied. The veteran became a successful businessman and financier who would live until the age of 64. His marriage was also a triumph with four children to show for it. Even the man’s tennis career left a lasting legacy, not just for his relationship with Williams but because he helped move the future U.S. Open from Rhode Island to New York.

Williams on the other hand still had plenty of playing to do. He won a men’s doubles title at Wimbledon in 1920 and reached the final again four years later. That was also the year he triumphed in the mixed doubles to obtain an Olympic gold. The Olympics wouldn’t actually host a mixed doubles tennis event again until 2012 – meaning Williams actually retained his crown for a magnificent 88 years.

Williams hadn’t finished paralleling Behr yet, though. Like his friend, he would also have success in the world of finance. He worked as an investment banker in his parent’s city and for two decades was president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Williams was 77 when he passed away in 1968 of emphysema.

Both men had their sporting achievements acknowledged when they were inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame. For Williams this came in 1957, while Behr’s came the following decade. The latter had actually been dead for five years when he finally received his due in 1969. They’re also both much remembered and celebrated by their grandchildren, who recall things like Williams using his Wimbledon trophy to serve Christmas dinner.

Books have been written about the extraordinary lives these two men experienced and the strange circumstances that brought them together. This is despite the quiet humility that prevented them discussing events themselves. From their near-death experiences on the last night of the Titanic to their brilliant tennis careers, both Behr and Williams fully deserve all their recognition. Still, other survivors with fascinating stories have gone largely unnoticed by historians.

Two toddlers arrived unaccompanied on the deck of the Carpathia, along with the other 700 survivors of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. When the authorities tried to determine who the boys belonged to, every bit of information they uncovered revealed an even stranger tale. The Titanic Orphans survived a sinking ship — and that wasn't even the darkest moment of their childhood.

A three-year-old boy opened his eyes to the bright daylight of the morning. He stirred and looked around. First, he registered the rocking of the boat beneath him, then the memories of the previous hours fluttered back. 

The next thing he knew, he and his little brother were tossed into a burlap bag and carried onto another big ship. However, this one hadn’t looked familiar like the one he had been on with his dad.

There wasn't much time to linger on that, though. As the boy remembered, “I thought it was extremely incorrect to be in a burlap bag!” Only a three-year-old would have such a reaction hours after surviving the sinking of the Titanic.

No family members were awaiting the boys in arrival New York, though because they spoke French, it was suspected their relatives were overseas. In the meantime, fellow French-speaking first-class passenger Margaret Hays volunteered to care for the boys temporarily. 

Newspapers published a photo of the boys that circulated rapidly. The response was overwhelming. For many families searching for answers, the boys were a final glimmer of hope that their loved ones had survived the Titanic.

Iowa resident Frank Lefebvre went all the way to New York in hopes that the “Titanic Orphans” were two of his children. Ultimately, his arrival only to confirmed the terrible truth: His wife and four children had died on the ship.

None of the people searching for their loved ones stateside proved to know the little boys. Finally, though, word reached a mother named Marcelle Caretto in France who was frantic over her missing sons, so she boarded a ship to New York at once.

On May 16th, 1912, Marcelle hugged her sons at long last. It was a tremendous relief to find them alive, considering the circumstances of their departure. The boys vanished as a result of a kidnapping.

The boy’s real names were Michel Jr and Edmond Navratil. They lived in Nice, France, with their mother and spent the weekends with their father, Michel Navratil. Leading up the Titanic voyage, the kids had spent the Easter holiday with him.

Navratil took the extra time to flee with his sons as an act of revenge against his ex-wife. He'd purchased three 2nd class tickets on the Titanic and escaped with the boys to Monte Carlo, then onto England.

When the holiday ended, and her children and ex-husband were nowhere to be found, Caretto was devastated. Within a few days, Navratil, Michel, and Edmond successfully boarded the ship under false names at Southampton.

There's some discrepancy over which fake identities Navratil originally invented for his sons. Some photos are marked Louis and Lola, but there's also mention of a Momon, Loto, and the rather amusing, Lump. All three used the fake surname Hoffman.

Little Michel was completely unaware of his father's ruse. He was preoccupied with the grand ship, “One morning, my father, my brother, and I were eating eggs in the second-class dining room. The sea was stunning. My feeling was one of a total and utter well-being.”

The magical quality of the ship quickly deteriorated on the night of April 14th. Michel could sense the shift in the tone of the adults around him. Michel remembered his father gently waking him and his brother and tenderly bundling them in layers.

“When I think of it now, I am very moved. They knew they were going to die,” Michel recalled. Navratil joined the rest of the panicked passengers on the deck of the ship with his sons, looking for an opportunity to save them.

In a desperate final act, Navratil managed to secure his son’s seats together on the very last lifeboat, Collapsible D. Those final moments with his father deeply impacted Michel Jr., just shy of four years old, so that he never forgot his parting words.

“When your mother comes for you, as she surely will, tell her that I loved her dearly and still do. Tell her I expected her to follow us so that we might all live happily together in the peace and freedom of the New World.”

Through a toddler's lens, the historical tragedy sounds even more surreal. While Navratil's traumatizing final moments unfolded, his sons drifted away in the lifeboat, being fed biscuits by strangers. Michel remembered sitting near a little girl and her dog.

While Michel’s recountings of his time on the Titanic are a mixture of curious bemusement, there’s no doubt the disaster left a profound and serious impact on both his and Edmond’s lives. 

The younger of the boys, Edmond, went on to serve in WWII, but passed away young at 43 years old. Michel pursued academics, where he became and doctor and professor of philosophy. Later in life, Michel participated in several Titanic survivor reunions and memorial events. 

As for Mr. Navratri, his body was recovered, but given the false name Hoffman on his ticket, he was misidentified and assumed to be Jewish. That resulted in his burial with the Jewish victims in Baron de Hirsch Cemetery, Halifax in Nova Scotia.