Records show that five Mail Clerks joined the vessel at Southampton on 9th April, 1912. There were three American clerks, William Logan Gwinn, John Starr March, and Oscar Scott Woody, and two British clerks, John Richard Jago Smith and James Bertram Williamson. Like the members of Titanic's famous band, they were not actually employed by the White Star Line, but representatives of the New York and Southampton branches of the sea Post Office.

They all worked in a well-equipped sorting office located forward on the starboard side of G-Deck, complemented by a mail storage area directly below on the Orlop Deck. This sorting office was also provided with a secure compartment for storing the 200 or so registered mail sacks.

3,364 bags of mail had been loaded aboard Titanic, 1,758 at Southampton, 1,412 at Cherbourg, and 194 at Queenstown, and this equated to approximately 400,000 individual letters, all to be sorted before arrival at New York. On top of this, there were the numerous letters and postcards dispatched from Titanic's own passengers too.

The Head Postmaster approached White Star Line on the 13th April, complaining about the men’s quarters, too late to affect the men aboard the Titanic. However, the men on Olympic were moved, although this was more to do with them being trapped in the event of an emergency, in the light of Titanic's sinking.

Shortly before the collision, the five men were all helping American Mail Clerk Oscar Woody to celebrate his 44th birthday, which fell the next day, April 15th.

After the collision, the five Mail Clerks all worked ceaselessly to try to keep the mail sacks out of the steadily rising water. At first, they were engaged in recovering mail sacks from the mail storage area on the Orlop Deck, and taking them up to the relative safety of the sorting office on G-Deck. This proved to be in vain, as the water was not long in arriving on G-Deck, so, rather than try to save all of the mail, they began to move all of the registered mail.

All of the Mail Clerks were lost in the sinking, and only two of the men's bodies were recovered, those of William March, body number 225, and Oscar Woody, body number 167. Woody was buried at sea because of the poor state of his corpse.

Experts have concluded that because the mail was moved to save it from the rising water, it was placed in unsecure locations. As the ship finally went down it could have floated anywhere, and the gushing water pressure could have moved the bags for long distances. Had the mail remained in the relatively secure post room, it may well have survived intact.

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