Resort plaque will commemorate heroic officer who died on Titanic

James Paul Moody was the sixth and youngest officer on the Titanic, which sank on April 15, 1912, in the North Atlantic. The 24-year-old was on watch when the Titanic struck an iceberg at 11.40 pm on April 14.

He answered the bridge phone from the lookout and uttered the fateful words to the first officer “Iceberg right ahead”.

It took two hours and 40 minutes for the liner to sink and throughout the whole of that time, witnesses said James Moody worked selflessly to get as many passengers as possible into lifeboats. The Titanic famously only had enough boats for about one third of those aboard.

He is said to have filled three lifeboats during the evacuation, but refused to go in one himself.

As a junior officer he should have manned one of the lifeboats, however, he deferred to the more senior fifth officer Lowe, and then went to help on the port side where his fate was sealed.

He was last seen by second officer Charles Lightoller trying to launch a collapsible boat at about 2.20am.

Historians say he sacrificed his own life so others might have had a chance of survival, and he was the only junior officer to lose his life.

The plaque will be unveiled by his niece, Mary Conlan, on April 14 at 17 Granville Road, Scarborough, where he was born in 1887.

The Friends of HMS Conway, in co-operation with the residents of 17 Granville Road and the Moody family, have arranged with the Scarborough Civic Society to have the plaque erected.