At 02:00 Capt. Smith returned to the wireless station for the last time to tell the young operators that they had done their duty. Yet Phillips and Bride heroically continued sending messages until their spark gap transmitter finally gave out. Phillips was eventually able to swim toward and reach the upturned Lifeboat B. Yet he never boarded the small boast. First Officer Charles Lightoller later recalled, “I think it must have been the final and terrible anxiety that tipped the beam with Phillips, for he suddenly slipped down in the water, and though we held his head up, he never recovered. I insisted on taking him into the lifeboat with us, hoping there still might be life, but it was too late.”
Phillips was one of over 1,500 victims who perished in the disaster. His body was never recovered.
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