The image of the lighted ship sliding under the waves, while the band carried on regardless, captured the public’s imagination. - Steve Turner

“If any glory at all attaches to the awful tragedy of the sea about which the world is still talking, it circles round the heads of these heroic bandsmen who played the mighty vessel to its doom

In the last moments of the great ship’s doom, when all was plainly lost, when braver and hardier men might almost have been excused for doing practically anything to save themselves, they stood responsive to their conductor’s baton and played a recessional tune.

Wallace Hartley: “I’ve always felt that, when men are called to face death suddenly, music is are more effective in cheering them on than all the firearms in creation.”