It has been a hundred years since the Titanic; “The ship that could not sink” sank in the Atlantic Ocean on its maiden voyage to New York. The story is now the stuff of legend, but among its countless human interest stories is that of two young tennis players who survived the ordeal and went on to become champions. Some excerpts from the stories written about their lives are quoted below:
Richard Norris Williams and Karl Behr were hardly the most celebrated members of Titanic’s manifest when she left Southampton on April 12, 1912. Not when the passengers for her maiden voyage included such titans of American industry as John Jacob Astor IV, Benjamin Guggenheim and George Widener. For also in his company in first class was one Charles Duane Williams, distant descendant of Benjamin Franklin and father to Richard, known as Dick, a highly promising junior tennis talent.
The family had relocated to Geneva once Charles became ill, and the teenage Dick has been said to prefigure Roger Federer by virtue of his domination of the Swiss circuit and the effortless elegance of his play. He and his father had booked on Titanic so that he could compete in the American summer tournaments before enrolling at Harvard in the autumn. It was on the train taking him to Cherbourg that Williams had been shocked to catch sight of Behr, a successful lawyer and confidant of Teddy Roosevelt, not to mention a member of the US Davis Cup team.
So accomplished was Behr on a tennis court that he reached the Wimbledon doubles final in 1907. He was on a European tour in an attempt to court his future wife. He had a diamond ring with which he intended to propose to her while on the crossing. Williams invested his time on Titanic’s squash courts, a blissful escape brutally truncated when, at 11.40pm on April 14, an iceberg ripped a gash in the hull. At first he was placated – despite the ghastly sound beneath – by the words of his father, who sought to reassure him that if the ship had been punctured, she could float for up to 15 hours: more than sufficient time for a rescue mission.
He secured a place in one of the lifeboats only when J Bruce Ismay, managing director of White Star Lines, allegedly told him that men were needed to help the women and children with the rowing. For Williams, the escape was more desperate. He and his father had tried to retain warmth by riding stationary bikes in the exercise room, but decided to abandon ship once they saw the letters of the ship’s name on the bow slip below the water line.
As they spoke on deck, one of Titanic’s huge smokestacks crashed down, killing Charles instantly. In that second, Dick dived into the freezing Atlantic. “I was not under water very long,” he wrote to a fellow survivor, having saved his life by clinging to a collapsible raft. He would watch as Titanic’s stern flopped into the icy depths at 2.45am, finally encountering Behr aboard Carpathia on the harrowing onward passage to New York.
While Behr helped survivors – Williams later said that his fellow tennis player had shown him great kindness – Williams walked up and down the deck in what proved a successful attempt to restore circulation to his aching limbs. “I’m going to need those legs,” he reportedly told the doctor, who had feared gangrene. A doctor, who examined his painful legs, said they had been so damaged by the cold that amputation might be necessary.
Six weeks later Williams played in – and won – a tennis tournament. Even more remarkably, Williams and Behr met on court for the first time later that year and again two years later at the US Nationals, the tournament that became the US Open. Williams, one of the finest players of his era, went on to win the Davis Cup five times, the US Nationals twice and the Wimbledon doubles. Both men were inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Three months later they would meet once more. This time it was in a fourth-round match of the Longwood Bowl in Boston, with Behr prevailing in five sets. Neither, most extraordinarily of all, would utter a word about the ties that bound them. Although they first spoke on the Carpathia, Williams had recognised Behr on the train both had taken to Cherbourg, where they boarded the Titanic. Behr was a leading American player who in 1907 had partnered Beals Wright in the Wimbledon doubles final and the Davis Cup final against Australasia. On both occasions they lost to Norman Brookes and Tony Wilding.
Sport remained an important part of both men’s lives. Behr won their first meeting in 1912 – a marathon five-set match at the Longwood Bowl which was Williams’ first defeat on American soil – but the result was reversed in the quarter-finals of the US Nationals two years later. Having beaten Behr in the quarter-finals in 1914, Williams went on to take the title for the first time. He won it again two years later, played in five winning Davis Cup teams (he also captained the side), partnered Chuck Garland to the Wimbledon doubles title in 1920 and was a losing finalist in the Wimbledon doubles of 1924, the year he won the Olympic mixed doubles title.
The story of Richard Norris Williams II and Karl Howell Behr, who became friends, remained untold for decades, but the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic has once again brought it into the limelight.
Today the two men are remembered with great affection by their families. Lydia Griffin, Williams’ granddaughter, knew him well. He died in 1968, aged 77. Sanford was born six months after Behr’s death in 1949 at the age of 64, but remembers her grandmother and spent 10 years researching her book, much of which is based on a 185-page memoir written by her grandfather.
