GEORGE Symons from Weymouth was a lookout on board the ill-fated White Star liner Titanic but was off-duty and asleep in his bunk when the ship hit the iceberg.

As everyone rushed about in the chaos Symons raced on deck and helped to load passengers on the lifeboats.

He eventually was told to take control of Lifeboat Number 1 and rowed it to safety. He was in the lifeboat for several hours awaiting rescue and when help came it came in the most welcome, if unlikely, source – his own brother.

His surviving niece, Dawn Gould, from Weymouth said: “As the ship went down he was put in charge of Lifeboat Number 1 which he helped to row away from Titanic.”

George was in the lifeboat for many hours until the Carpathia, one of several ships to answer the Titanic’s call for help, arrived at the scene.

Dawn said: “George was amazed to find that one of the Carpathia’s crew helping to rescue him was his brother, Jack.”

At the United States Senate Inquiry into the sinking George Symons was questioned about the tragedy. He told the inquiry that he had been working at sea for eight and a half years as a “sailor man”.

Responding to questions from Senator Perkins about where he was when the ship struck the iceberg, he said:

“I was on the watch below at the time. I was asleep at the time the Titanic was struck. It was only a slight jar; a grinding noise. I came on deck and I saw the ice, and then I dressed myself and waited.”

He added that when he came on deck there was ice on the forecastle of the Titanic. He was then ordered up to the lifeboats by the boatswain. He said:

“I went to number three first. From there we unstripped the covers right down through. I helped lower number three. From there I was sent down to number five.”

He helped lower that lifeboat and eventually took control on number one lifeboat with around 20 people on board and guided it to safety.

He said that he returned after the ship had sunk but found no trace of survivors.

“We came back after the ship was gone, and we saw nothing.”

Asked if he made any effort to rescue those in the water following the sinking he said:

“We came back; but when we came back we did not see anybody nor hear anybody. After we rowed around, we rowed around and picked up with another boat, and both stuck together; one boat with a lot of people. They did not want any assistance, as the women were pulling. I asked if they wanted any assistance, and they would not take it. They said they could pull through.”

The amazing Titanic rescue link-up between George and Jack was reversed a few years later when the Carpathia was torpedoed by the German submarine U55 on July 17, 1918, off the east coast of Ireland.

Before that it seemed that fate was destined to bring the brothers together again and there could be few worse places for the siblings to accidentally run across each other than Gallipoli.

This hellish First World War confrontation between the Allies and Turkey left hundreds of thousands dead – but not George and Jack, who somehow ran into each other ashore and then incredibly stumbled across their other brother, Bob, who had been seriously wounded there in action with the Marines.

Dawn said: “The family always thought that it was a miraculous coincidence for all three of them to meet in the middle of war.”

Then came the Carpathia rescue.

Dawn said: “The Carpathia sank and Jack managed to get off only to find his brother George was one of the crew of the ship which picked him up.”