Shots and Hymn Mingle—Titanic Settled Slowly—Best Traditions Upheld by Passengers and Crew—Boiler Explosions Tore Ship Apart—Anguish in the Boats—Survivors Carried to Carpathia—Not Enough Provision Against Accident.
Shots and Hymn Mingle—Titanic Settled Slowly—Best Traditions Upheld by Passengers and Crew—Boiler Explosions Tore Ship Apart—Anguish in the Boats—Survivors Carried to Carpathia—Not Enough Provision Against Accident.
Outside of great naval battles no tragedy of the sea ever claimed so many victims as did the loss of the Titanic. The pitiful part of it is that all on board the Titanic might have been saved had there been a sufficient number of lifeboats aboard to accommodate the passengers and crew.
Only sixteen lifeboats were launched, one of these, a collapsible boat, the last to be launched, was overturned, but was used as a raft and served to save the lives of many men and women.
Many women went down with the ship—steerage women, unable to get to the upper decks where the boats were launched; maids, who were overlooked in the confusion; cabin passengers, who refused to desert their husbands, or who reached the decks after the last of the lifeboats was gone and the ship was settling for her final plunge to the bottom of the Atlantic.
Confidence in the ability of the Titanic to remain afloat led many of the passengers to death. The theory that the great ship was unsinkable remained with hundreds who had entrusted themselves to the gigantic hulk long after the officers knew that the vessel could not long remain above the surface.
That so many of the men passengers and members of the crew were saved, while such a large majority of females drowned was due to the fact that the women had not appeared about the lifeboats in sufficient numbers to fill them when they first were launched. Dozens of male survivors assert they were forced into the first boats lowered against their will by officerswho insisted that the boats should go overboard filled to their capacity.
From a rather calm, well ordered sort of leaving of passengers over the side when the disaster was young the departure of survivors became a riot as the last boats were lowered and it was apparent that the Titanic would sink.
Steerage passengers fought their way to the upper decks and struggled with brutal ferocity against cabin passengers who were aimlessly trying to save themselves. Officers of the ship shot down men who sought to jump into already overcrowded boats. The sound of the pistol shots mingled with the strains of “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” played by the ship’s orchestra as the Titanic took her final plunge.
Murdock, the first officer, who was on the bridge in charge of the Titanic when she struck the iceberg, shot himself when convinced the vessel was doomed. The report that Captain Smith shot himself is contradicted by survivors, who say they saw him swept from the ship as she went down.
The Titanic settled into the sea gently. The greater part of her bulk was under water when she slipped beneath the waves. No trace of suction was felt by those in lifeboats only a few hundred yards away.
Colonel John Jacob Astor died a hero and went down with the ship. Had he leaped into the water as she made her final plunge, he might have been picked up by one of the lifeboats, but he remained on the deck and was swept under by the drawing power of the great bulk, bound for the bottom.
All the officers who died and most of the members of the crew upheld the traditions of heroism held sacred by seamen. They did their duty to the end and died with their ship. Not a man in the engine room was saved; not one of them was seen on deck after the collision. They remained at their posts, far down in the depths of the stricken vessel, until the waves closed over what was at once their pride and their burial casket.
A boiler explosion tore the Titanic apart shortly before she sank. This occurred when the sea water, which had been working its way through the forward compartments, invaded the fireroom. After the explosion the Titanic hung on the surface, upheld only by the water-tight compartments, which had not been touched by the collision.
Although the officers of the Titanic had been warned of the proximity of ice, she was steaming at the rate of twenty-three knots an hour when she met her end. The lookouts in the crow’s nest saw an iceberg ahead and telephoned the bridge. The vessel swung slightly in response to her rudder, and the submerged part of the iceberg tore out her plates along the starboard quarters below the water.
Water rushed into several of the compartments. The ship listed to starboard. Captain Smith hurried to the bridge. It was thought the ship would float, until a shudder, that vibrated throughout the great frame, told that a compartment wall had given away. Then a definite order was given to man the lifeboats, and stewards were sent to instruct passengers to put on life preservers.
So thoroughly grounded was the belief of the cabin passengers that the Titanic was unsinkable that few of them took the accident seriously. Women in evening dress walked out of the magnificent saloons and joked about the situation. Passengers protested against getting into the lifeboats, although the ship was then sinking by the head.
Mr. and Mrs. H. J. Allison and their little daughter remained on the ship and were lost, after the infant son of the Allison family had been placed in a lifeboat in charge of a nurse.
Isidor Straus and his wife did not appear on deck until an order had been issued that only women and children should be allowed in the lifeboats. Mrs. Straus clung to her husband and refused to leave him. They died in each other’s arms.
Those who escaped in the first lifeboats were disposed tolook on their experience as a lark. The sailors manning the oars pulled away from the Titanic. The sound of music floated over the starlit waves. The lights of the Titanic were burning.
Like simultaneous photographs of the same tragedy etched on the brains of 745 persons, survivors of the Titanic tell of their experiences and what they saw in those pitifully few hours between the great ship’s impact on the iceberg and the appalling moment when she disappeared.
As the survivors came, half fainting, half hysterical, down the Carpathia’s gang plank, they began to relate these narratives. Many of these were disjointed, fragmentary—a picture here, a frightful flash of recollection there, some bordered on hallucination, some were more connected as one of those who are now beginning to realize the horror through which they came. A few strangely enough, are calm and lucid. But every one thrills with some part of the awful truth as its narrator saw it.
Each tale is like another view of the same many-sided shield. Sometimes they seem to contradict each other, but that is because those who witness such scenes see them as individuals. There is not a survivor but has something new and startling and dramatic to tell.
Taken altogether their accounts are a composite picture of 700 separate experiences.
The shock of the collision had barely jarred the ship. One man who was directing letters in his cabin kept on with his work until he felt a sudden shift in the position of the ship and rushed to the deck in time to leap into a lifeboat. Some of the passengers had returned to their berths.
Nothing occurred to indicate to the passengers aboard the Titanic or moving away from the ship in lifeboats that the vessel would not remain afloat until help should arrive, until the boilers exploded. Then the end was apparent to all.
Men with life-preservers strapped about their waists, jumped overboard by scores and some were picked up by boats which had not got far from the ship.
As the last three lifeboats were launched the restriction as to women and children was removed. It was a free-for-all then on the deck, where unskilled men, principally stewards, were trying to get the cumbersome boats overboard. Nearly all those who took part in that struggle for life are dead. Those who survived are not anxious to talk about it.
Just before the Titanic disappeared from view men and women leaped from the stern. As the portion of vessel remaining above water swung up to an almost perpendicular position hundreds on the upper decks were thrown into the sea and were pulled down in the vortex. The biggest, most thrilling moments of the wreck were those last moments when the air-tight compartments in the after part of the Titanic were supporting the balance of the ship.
None are alive to tell the tale of that short period. Toward 2 o’clock on Monday morning a green light aboard one of the lifeboats kept the fleet of craft carrying the survivors together. Through the hours until dawn the men in charge of the boats hovered about that green light. Occasionally bodies of men slipped by the lifeboats. A few men, more dead than alive, were pulled aboard the boats, that were now overcrowded.
The weather became bitterly cold and the survivors suffered physical pain as well as mental anguish. Benumbed by the extent of the catastrophe most of the women sat motionless in their places. The Carpathia appeared soon after dawn. Not until the big Cunarder was close by did the realization of what had happened reach the women survivors.
Many of them became temporarily insane. It was necessary to use force to place them in swings in which they were hoisted to the Carpathia’s decks. The officers of the Carpathia knowing the Titanic had gone down, were prepared for an emergency. Passengers on the Cunarder gave their cabins tothe Titanic sufferers. The captain surrendered his room for hospital purposes. Stewardesses were compelled to cut the clothing from some of the women who had jumped into the water and been picked up by the lifeboats.
Among the survivors picked up by the Carpathia were several babies. These little ones were tossed overboard by their parents and rescued by the boats. The identity of these orphans may never be determined. When the list of persons aboard the Carpathia was checked up it was found that among the survivors were thirty women who had been widowed by the disaster.
Nearly all these women, bereft of their life partners, were reassured by the hope that those who had been left behind had been picked up by another vessel until they reached New York. For some reason the impression prevailed on the Carpathia that the Californian had picked up a number of survivors floating in the sea upheld by life-preservers.
As against the thirty widows stands the record of every married man who was saved. Each of these men saved his wife also. No wife was left on the Titanic by a husband who had reached a lifeboat.
Narratives of the various survivors, assembled in a consecutive narrative, makes one of the most thrilling tales of modern life. It is a narrative filled with heroism unparalleled—bravery and heroism performed by American business men. They were men of millions who had everything to live for and yet, in that crisis at sea, they worked coolly, steadfastly to save women and children. Then they went down with the White Star liner Titanic, the greatest ship afloat.
When the Carpathia came into port carrying the more than 700 survivors of the disaster, the curtain, which had hidden the story of the tragedy since the first word of it was flashed to a startled world, was drawn aside. Here is the real tale of the sinking of the Titanic.
The Titanic was athrob with the joy of life on Sunday night,when without warning, the great liner was jammed against a partly submerged iceberg. The blow, which was a glancing one, did not cause much of a jar and there were some on board who did not know that an accident had happened until later. The liner struck the berg on the starboard side amidships.
Only Captain E. J. Smith, the commander, realized that there might be grave danger, and even he did not regard the collision as fatal. Going to the wireless cabin in which Phillips, the operator, was in conversation with Cape Race on traffic matters, he gave orders to the wireless man to hold himself in readiness to flash out a distress signal.
At the time there was a great throng in the main saloon, where the ship’s orchestra was giving a concert. Despite the bitterly cold weather, some of the passengers were taking advantage of the bright moonlight to stroll upon the decks. Survivors, who were upon the starboard side, said that the ice mountain which the vessel struck was at least 150 feet high where exposed.
At the time the ship was steaming ahead under nearly a full head of steam, at about twenty-one knots. If she had been going slowly the disaster probably would never have happened.
Acting under orders from Captain Smith, the ship’s officers passed among the passengers, reassuring them as the rumor that the ship had struck spread.
“Keep cool; there is no danger,” was the message which, repeated over and over, gradually became monotonous. The warning was hardly necessary for none, save the highest officers of the ship, who were in Captain Smith’s confidence, knew the real gravity of the situation.
Captain Smith immediately went below and began an examination. This showed that quick action was necessary. Within fifteen minutes of his first warning the captain again entered the wireless cabin and told Phillips to flash the distress signal.
“Send the international call for help, so they will understand.” Captain Smith said.
Bride, the assistant operator, who had been asleep, was standing at Phillips’ side.
Some of the passengers who had been sleeping were aroused and left their berths. Many hastened on deck to get a glimpse of the berg, but, so swiftly was it moving in the gulf stream current, that, within twenty minutes after the vessel struck it, the ice mountain had disappeared from view. At 11.50 P. M., fifteen minutes after the collision, the first intimation of impending danger was given. Officers passed among the passengers warning them to put on life belts. The tarpaulins were cast off, the lifeboats and the life rafts and the davit guys loosened so that the boats could be swiftly swung over the side.
Members of the crew also donned life preservers; but, with studied forethought, Captain Smith ordered the principal officers not to don their belts. They were told, however, to be ready to do so in an emergency.
The ship soon had begun to list. The wireless masts were sputtering a blue streak of sparks. Phillips at his key pounded out one “S. O. S.” call after another. He alternated between the “S. O. S.” and the “C. Q. D.” so that there might be no chance of the signal being misunderstood.
The first ship to respond to the Titanic was the Frankfurt; the second was the Carpathia. Phillips told the Carpathia’s wireless man that the accident was serious and that the White Star liner was sinking by the head.
“We are putting about and coming to your aid,” was the reply flashed by the Cunarder.
About 12.15 o’clock the officers began warning the women to get into the boats. Even at this time no one realized that there was any danger. Many of the women refused to get into the boats and had to be placed in them forcibly by the crew.
Colonel and Mrs. John Jacob Astor were walking upon the deck. They were approached by Captain H. D. Steffason, of the Swedish Embassy, at Washington. Captain Steffason advised Mrs. Astor to leave the ship. She demurred, saying there was no danger. Finally Colonel Astor said:
“Yes, my dear, it is better for you to go; I will follow in another boat after all the women have been taken off.”
They kissed and parted. It was a beautiful parting.
Mrs. Washington Dodge, of San Francisco, wife of another prominent passenger, was asleep in her stateroom. She was aroused by her husband, who urged her to get in a boat. So certain were both that the measures were only precautionary and not necessary that they did not even kiss each other good-bye. Mr. Dodge embarked in another boat.
These incidents are given because they are typical. They show how little the passengers knew that they were standing at the brink of death.
The riven plates under the water increased the gap, allowing more and more water to pour into the hold. The steel frame had been buckled by the impact of the collision and water was rushing into the supposedly water-tight compartments around the doors. The dynamo supplying the ship’s searchlight and the wireless outfit were put out of commission.
Officers hurried hither and thither, reporting to Captain Smith. This master mariner, hero of the White Star Line, knew that he was doomed to death by all the traditions of the sea, but did not flinch. He was the coolest man on board. As lifeboat after lifeboat was filled and swung over the side it pulled off some distance and stood by.
When the officers began to load the women of the steerage into the boats trouble started. Men refused to be separated from the wives. Families clamored to get into life boats together. The ship’s officers had a hard time subduing some of the steerage passengers. The survivors say that some of the men of the steerage were shot by the ship’s officers.
As the officers were loading the women of the first cabin list into the boat they came upon Mrs. Isador Straus, the elderlywife of the noted philanthropist. She started to get into a boat, but held back, waiting for her husband to follow. Mr. Straus tenderly took her in his arms, bade her farewell and explained that he must abide by the inexorable rule of the sea, which says women and children must be saved first.
“If you do not go I don’t go,” exclaimed the devoted wife. She clung to her husband’s arm, and, despite his efforts and the efforts of officers to persuade her to get into one of the boats, she refused. The devoted couple went to death together.
While the vessel was going down the call for help was picked up and acknowledged by the White Star liners Olympic and Baltic. They turned their heads toward the Titanic, but were too far away to render aid.
The band, which had been playing incessantly in the main saloon, moved out to the open deck and the strains of music rose above the shouts of the officers and the cries of the passengers. By 1 o’clock even those who knew nothing of seamanship began to realize by the angle at which the giant liner careened that she was in grave danger. By this time more than half of the life boats had been sent away and they formed a ring in the darkness about the great vessel.
Excitement began to run high. Major A. W. Butt, U. S. A., military aide to President Taft; William T. Stead, the famous journalist; Colonel Aster, and others of the passengers volunteered their services to Captain Smith. They helped the officers hold back other male passengers who by this time had become thoroughly frightened.
As one of the lifeboats was being swung over the ship’s side, a frantic mother who had been separated from her eight-year-old boy, cried out hysterically. Colonel Astor was standing by the boat, assisting the officers. The little boy, in fright and despair, stretched out his arms appealingly to his mother, but the officer in command of the boat said that it would not be safe for another to enter.
Colonel Astor, seeing a girl’s hat lying upon the deck, stealthily placed it upon the boy’s head. Lifting up the child, he called out: “Surely you will not leave a little girl behind.” The ruse worked and the child was taken on board.
Up in the wireless room, Bride had placed a life preserver upon his companion, Phillips, while Phillips sat at his key. Upon returning from Captain Smith’s cabin with a message, Bride saw a grimy stoker of gigantic proportions bending over Phillips removing the life belt. Phillips would not abandon his key for an instant to fight off the stoker. Bride is a little man (he was subsequently saved) but plucky. Drawing his revolver he shot down the intruder and the wireless work went on as though nothing had happened.
J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the International Mercantile Marine Company, owners of the White Star Line, was sitting in the cafe chatting to some friends when the liner ran upon the berg. He was the first one informed by Captain Smith. Ismay rushed to the deck to look at the berg.
“The ship cannot sink,” was the reply which he gave, with smiling assurance, to all inquirers.
Nevertheless, there are survivors who say that Ismay was one of the passengers of the lifeboats which put off. They saw him enter the boat.
By 1.30 o’clock the great vessel, which only a short time before had been the marvel of the twentieth century, was a water-logged hulk. Panic was steadily growing. The word had been passed around that the ship was doomed. The night continued calm. The sea was smooth. The moon was brilliant in the sky.
Into one of the last of the lifeboats that were launched two Chinamen, employed in the galley, had hidden themselves. They were stretched in the bottom of the boat, face downward, and made no sound. So excited were the women that they did not notice the presence of the Chinese until the boat had pulled offfrom the Titanic. Then the officer in charge drew his revolver and shot both to death. The bodies were tumbled overboard.
The weather was very cold and the sea was filled with floating ice. All were warned before getting into the boats to dress as warmly as possible. By the time the boats were filled the water had entered the engine-room and the ship was drifting helplessly. About 2 o’clock Captain Smith, who had been standing upon the bridge with a megaphone to his mouth, again went to the wireless cabin.
“Men,” he said to Phillips and Bride, with a break in his voice, “you have done your full duty. You can do no more. Abandon your cabin, for it is now every man for himself.”
Bride left the cabin, but Phillips still clung to his key. He perished. The saving of Bride, the second wireless man, was only one of a series of thrilling escapes. Wearing a life belt, Bride went upon deck. He saw a dozen men passengers tugging at a collapsible boat trying to work it to the edge of the deck.
The wireless man went to their assistance and they had got it nearly to the point from which they could swing it over, when a wave rolled over the deck. Bride, who had hold of an oar lock, was swept overboard with the boat. The next thing he knew he was struggling in the water beneath the boat.
The icy water struck a chill through him. He realized that unless he got from beneath the boat he would drown. Diving deeply, he came up on the outside of the gunwale and grasped it. On every hand was wreckage of all kinds and struggling men who had been washed overboard by the submerging comber. Bride clung to the craft until he saw another boat near by. Exerting all his strength, he swam to this boat and was pulled in it more dead than alive.
By this time all the boats and life rafts had been taken from the ship. The boats were ringed about the ship from 150 feet to 1,000 yards distant. Their occupants could see the lights burning on the vessel which had settled low in the water.
Suddenly as they looked great billows of live sparks rose up through the four funnels. These were followed by billowing clouds of smoke and steam. The rush of water had reached the boiler rooms and the boilers had exploded. After this the great vessel sank more rapidly and within less than twenty minutes had plunged to her grave, two miles beneath the surface.
In the meantime, however, those upon the sinking ship, who knew that they had only a few hours at most to live, lived up to the most splendid example of Anglo-Saxon courage. As the ship sank lower those on board climbed higher, prolonging life to the last minute. Frenzied search was made of every part of the decks by those who hoped that the sailors had overlooked a life raft or small boat which might be used. Their search was vain.
Colonel Astor, Major Butt, C. M. Hays, W. M. Clark and other friends stood together. Astor and Butt were strong swimmers. When the water reached the ship’s rail, Butt and Astor jumped and began swimming rapidly away. There was little suction despite the bulk of the foundering craft.
There was a dreadful cry as the ship disappeared from view. Instantly the water was filled with hundreds of struggling men. The spot just above the grave of the liner was strewn with wreckage. Some tried to climb upon the ice cakes. But the cold air and the cold water soon numbed the fingers of the men in the water. Even the most powerful of the refugees soon gave out. Exhausted by their effort and numb from exposure they dropped one by one.
There are survivors, however, among them Dr. Henry J. Frauenthal, of this city, who said that they heard cries from the water for two hours after the Titanic sank. Amidst the acres and acres of wreckage hundreds of dead bodies floated. Many of them were among the first cabin passengers, still dressed in their evening clothes which they had worn when the ship struck the iceberg.
Managing Director Accused—Stoker Makes Direct Charge—Supported by Many Survivors—Tells about It—“Please Don’t Knock”—Demanded Food—Brave Lot of Women—First Officer Shot Himself.
Managing Director Accused—Stoker Makes Direct Charge—Supported by Many Survivors—Tells about It—“Please Don’t Knock”—Demanded Food—Brave Lot of Women—First Officer Shot Himself.
One man stands out in a most unenviable light amid the narratives of heroism and suffering attending the great Titanic sea tragedy. This man is J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, who, according to accounts of survivors, made himself the exception to the rule of the sea, “Women first,” in the struggle for life.
Some of these survivors say he jumped into the first life boat, others that he got into the third or fourth. However that may be, he is among the comparatively few men saved, and the manner of his escape aroused the wrath and criticism of many.
A woman with a baby was pushed to the side of the third boat, says one survivor. Ismay got out; he then climbed into the fourth boat. “I will man this boat,” he said, and there was no one who said him nay.
“Mr. Ismay was in the first lifeboat that left the Titanic,” declared William Jones, an eighteen-year-old stoker, who was called to man one of the lifeboats. Jones comes from Southampton, England, and this was his first ocean voyage. He left the Carpathia tottering. “There were three firemen in each boat,” he said. “I don’t know how many were killed in the boiler explosion which occurred after the last lifeboat had put off. I saw four boats, filled with first cabin passengers, sink. In the boat I was in, two women died from exposure. We were picked up about 8 o’clock.”
Mrs. Lucien P. Smith, of Huntingdon, W. Va., daughter of Representative James Hughes, West Virginia, was in the third boat that was launched, and in that boat was Mrs. John Jacob Astor. “My niece saw Mr. Ismay leaving the boat. He was attended by several of the crew and every assistance was given him to get into the boat,” says Mrs. Smith. “And when the Carpathia finally came along and rescued the shipwrecked passengers, some of the crew of the Carpathia, together with men of the Titanic, actually carried Mr. Ismay to spacious rooms that had been set aside for him. As soon as Mr. Ismay had been placed in this stateroom a sign was placed on the door: “Please don’t knock.”
According to Mrs. W. J. Cardeza, of Philadelphia, who gave her narrative after she had arrived at the Ritz-Carlton with T. D. M. Cardeza, J. Bruce Ismay was not only safely seated in a lifeboat before it was filled, but he also selected the crew that rowed the boat. According to Mrs. Cardeza, Mr. Ismay knew that Mr. Cardeza was an expert oarsman and he beckoned him into the boat. Mr. Cardeza manned an oar until Mr. Ismay’s boat was picked up about two hours later.
The White Star Line, through Ismay, disclaimed responsibility, saying that it was “an act of God.” Ismay defended his action in taking to the lifeboat. He said that he took the last boat that left the ship. “Were there any women and children left on the Titanic when you entered the boat?” he was asked. The reply was, “I am sure I cannot say.”
J. Bruce Ismay described to a reporter how the catastrophe occurred. “I was asleep in my cabin,” said Mr. Ismay, “when the crash came. It woke me instantly. I experienced a sensation as if the big liner were sliding up on something.
“We struck a glancing blow, not head on, as some persons have supposed. The iceberg, so great was the force of the blow, tore the ship’s plates half way back, I think, although I cannot say definitely. There was absolutely no disorder.
“I left in the last boat. I did not see the Titanic sink. I cannot remember how far away the lifeboat in which I was had been rowed from the ship when she sank.”
Mr. Ismay began his interview by reading a prepared statement, to this effect:
“In the presence and under the shadow of so overwhelming a tragedy I am overcome with feelings too deep for words. The White Star Line will do everything humanly possible to alleviate the sufferings of the survivors and the relatives of those who were lost.
“The Titanic was the last word in ship building. Every British regulation had been complied with and her masters, officers and crew were the most experienced and skillful in the British service.
“I am informed that a committee of the United States Senate has been appointed to investigate the accident. I heartily welcome a most complete and exhaustive inquiry as the company has absolutely nothing to conceal and any aid that my associates or myself, our ship builders or navigators can render will be at the service of both the United States and the British Governments.”
“How soon did she sink after she struck?” Mr. Ismay was asked. “Let me see, it was two hours and twenty-five minutes, I think. Yes, that is right.”
“In other words, there would have been ample time to have taken everybody off if there had been enough lifeboats?” he was asked. “I do not want to talk about that now,” was the reply.
“Did you go off in the first boat?” some one asked. “What do you mean?”
“Were you in the first boat that left the ship?” “No,” he replied, slowly and firmly, “I was not. I was in the last boat. It was one of the forward boats.”
“Did the captain tell you to get in the boat?” “No.”
“What was the captain doing when you last saw him?” “He was standing on the bridge.”
“It is not true that he committed suicide?” “No. I heard nothing of it.”
Mr. Ismay was asked to explain the delay in the sending of the news of the wreck from the Carpathia. He said:
“I can’t say anything about that now except that I sent the first telegram announcing what had happened to Mr. Franklin about 11 o’clock on the morning that we were picked up. I am told that that telegram did not reach its destination here until yesterday.”
In response to requests for more details Mr. Ismay said: “I must refuse to say more until to-morrow, when I appear before the Congressional Committee.”
“For God’s sake, get me something to eat. I’m starved. I don’t care what it costs or what it is. Bring it to me.”
This was the first statement made by Ismay, a few minutes after he was landed on board the Carpathia. It is vouched for by an officer of the Carpathia. This officer gave one of the most complete accounts of what happened aboard the Carpathia from the time she received the Titanic’s appeal for assistance until she landed the survivors at the Cunard line pier.
“Mr. Ismay reached the Carpathia in about the tenth lifeboat,” said the officer. “I didn’t know who he was, but afterward I heard the others of the crew discussing his desire to get something to eat the minute he put his foot on deck. The steward who waited on him, McGuire, from London, says Mr. Ismay came dashing into the dining room, and, throwing himself in a chair, said, ‘Hurry, for God’s sake, and get me something to eat; I’m starved. I don’t care what it costs or what it is; bring it to me.’
“McGuire brought Mr. Ismay a load of stuff, and when he had finished it he handed McGuire a two-dollar bill. ‘Your money is no good on this ship.’ McGuire told him. ‘Take it,’ insisted Mr. Ismay, shoving the bill in McGuire’s hand. ‘I am well able to afford it. I will see to it that the boys of the Carpathia are well rewarded for this night’s work.’ This promise started McGuire making inquires as to the identity of the man he had waited on. Then we learned that he was Mr. Ismay. I did not see Mr. Ismay after the first few hours. He must have kept to his cabin.
“The Carpathia received her first appeal from the Titanic about midnight, According to an officer of the Titanic, that vessel struck the iceberg at twenty minutes to 12 o’clock and went down for keeps at nineteen minutes after 2 o’clock. I turned in on Sunday night a few minutes after 12 o’clock. I hadn’t closed my eyes before a friend of the chief steward told me that Captain Rostron had ordered the chief steward to get out 3,000 blankets and to make preparations to care for that many extra persons. I jumped into my clothes and was informed of the Titanic. By that time the Carpathia was going at full speed in the direction of the Titanic.
“The entire crew of the Carpathia was assembled on deck and were told of what had happened. The chief steward, Harry Hughes, told them what was expected of them.
“‘Every man to his post and let him do his full duty like a true Englishman,’ he said. ‘If the situation calls for it, let us add another glorious page to British history.’
“After that every man saluted and went to his post. There was no confusion. Everything was in readiness for the reception of the survivors before 2 o’clock. Only one or two of the passengers were on deck, one of them, Mr. Beachler, having been awakened by a friend, and the other because of inability to sleep. Many of the Carpathia’s passengers slept all through the morning up to 10 o’clock, and had no idea of what was going on.
“We reached the scene of the collision about 4 o’clock. All was black and still but the mountain of ice just ahead told the story. A flare from one of the lifeboats some distance away wasthe first sign of life. We answered with a rocket, and then there was nothing to do but wait for daylight.
“The first lifeboat reached the Carpathia about half-past 5 o’clock in the morning, and the last of the sixteen boats was unloaded before 9 o’clock. Some of the lifeboats were only half filled, the first one having but two men and eleven women, when it had accommodations for at least forty. There were few men in the boats. The women were the gamest lot I have ever seen. Some of the men and women were in evening clothes, and others among those saved had nothing on but night clothes and raincoats.
“As soon as they were landed on the Carpathia many of the women became hysterical, but on the whole they behaved splendid. Men and women appeared to be stunned all day Monday, the full force of the disaster not reaching them until Tuesday night. After being wrapped up in blankets and given brandy and hot coffee, their first thoughts were for their husbands and those at home. Most of them imagined that their husbands had been picked up by other vessels and then began flooding the wireless rooms with messages. We knew that those who were not on board the Carpathia had gone down to death, and this belief was confirmed Monday afternoon when we received a wire from Mr. Marconi himself asking why no news had been sent.
“We knew that if any other vessel could by any chance have picked them up it would have communicated with land. After a while, when the survivors failed to get any answer to their queries, they grew so restless that Captain Rostron posted a notice that all private messages had been sent and that the wireless had not been used to give information to the press, as had been charged. Little by little it began to dawn on the women on board, and most of them guessed the worst before they reached here. I saw Mrs. John Jacob Astor when she was taken from the lifeboat. She was calm and collected. She kept to her stateroom all the time, leaving it only to attend a meeting of the survivors on Tuesday afternoon.”
J. R. Moody was a quartermaster on the bridge beside First Officer Murdock when the Titanic struck the berg. “There is no way of telling the approach of the berg, and, besides, I do not intend to go into that now,” said Moody. “We struck, and we paid dearly for it, and that is all there is to that now. We were running between twenty-two and twenty-three knots an hour. It seemed incredible that much damage had been done at first, we struck so lightly. There was a little jar. Almost immediately, though, Captain Smith rushed to the bridge and took charge. Afterward I saw Murdock, standing on the first deck. I saw him raise his arm and shoot himself. He dropped where he stood.
[The image is unavailable.]WIRELESS TELEGRAPHIC APPARATUS.
WIRELESS TELEGRAPHIC APPARATUS.
WIRELESS TELEGRAPHIC APPARATUS.
“As far as Mr. Bruce Ismay goes, he was in the second boat that left the Titanic. The first boat swamped. I am sure of that, and Mr. Ismay was bundled into the second boat, regardless of his protests, to take charge of it in place of First Officer Murdock, who had shot himself.
“When the Titanic started to sink Captain Smith was on thebridge. I saw him. The first lurch brought the bridge almost under water, and the captain was washed off. He clambered back, and must have been there another ten minutes. When the bridge sank slowly down and he was washed off for the second time, a boat tried to make back to him, but he waved for it to keep back. The last anybody saw of him he was fighting his way back to the Titanic. He drowned fighting to reach her.”
“J. Bruce Ismay never showed himself once during the whole voyage and on the voyage on the Carpathia. We never saw him from the time the vessel took up the survivors until we reached the dock. Personally I do not think that Captain Smith was responsible for the high rate of speed at which the Titanic was traveling when the ship foundered. I kept a record during the voyage. From noon of Saturday to noon of Sunday the Titanic traveled 546 knots. I believe they were trying to break records. When the crash came the boat was traveling at top speed.”
This was the statement which Henry E. Stengel gave early today at his residence, 1075 Broad st., Newark, N. J. Shaken with the horrors of the wreck and the nerve-racking voyage on the rescue ship Carpathia, Mr. Stengel spoke in stern terms of the recklessness which made the accident so appalling. Although it was near to midnight when he and his wife reached Newark, there were a hundred friends waiting to receive them, all of whom hung breathlessly on the recital of the perils which the two escaped.
Mr. Stengel and his wife had one of the most remarkable reunions of any persons on the ship. The two did not escape in the same boat. Mrs. Stengel being in the first launched, while her husband was in the very last boat from the starboard side. Mrs. Stengel looked many years older than when she left the other side a few weeks ago, and was even more emphatic than her husband in criticism of the shortcomings of the White Star officials.
“There was absolutely no water in our boat. We would havedied of thirst if rescue had not been near at hand,” she said. “I understand it was the way in all the other lifeboats, few of which even had lanterns. I have heard that a couple of them were provided with bread at the last moment, but our boat was absolutely without any food.”
Mrs. Stengel was worn by the constant strain which had been pressing upon her in the last five days. “This has been such a terrible worry that I feel as though I could never sleep again,” she said. “Oh, it was horrible, horrible. Sometimes I think that I would have been better dead than to have so much to remember. You see when the crash first came no one realized the awful seriousness of the situation. It was a loud, grinding crash and it shook the boat like a leaf, but we had all become so filled with the idea that the Titanic was a creation greater than the seas that no one was terror-stricken. Some of the women screamed and children cried, but they told us it was all right and that nothing serious could happen.
“I was just preparing for sleep when the crash came, and throwing on some clothes, I rushed on deck with my husband. In a short time we were told that the women would be sent in the boats. I did not want to leave my husband, but he laughed and told me that the boating was only temporary. There was very little confusion when we put off and the men in the first and second cabins were absolutely calm. Mr. Stengel kissed me and told me not to worry, that he would come in a later boat, unless it was decided to bring us back on the ship.
“For some reason no attention was paid to the men who were put in our boat. One of them was an undersized Chinaman and the other was an Oriental of some kind. When the lifeboat struck the water they crawled up in the bottom and began to moan and cry. They refused to take their places at the oars and first class women passengers had to man many of the rowlocks. Still none of us thought that the great Titanic would sink. We rowed two hundred yards away, as they had told us,watching the great ship. Then the lights began to go out and then came a terrible crash like dynamite.
“I heard a woman in the bow scream and then came three more terrific explosions. The boat gave a sudden lurch and then we saw the men jumping from the decks. Some of us prayed and I heard women curse, but the most terrible thing was the conduct of the Chinaman and the Oriental. They threw themselves about the boat in absolute fits and almost upset the boat. They were a menace during the whole night and in the morning when the light began to come in the east and when the women were exhausted from trying to man the oars, the two of them found some cigarettes and lay in the bottom of the boat and smoked while we tried to work the oars.”
There is no survivor better qualified to tell of the last incidents aboard the vessel than Mr. Stengel is. He was one of the last three men to leave the boat. He is a man of scientific turn of mind and is in possession of some valuable data concerning the wreck.
“As my wife has told you, there was but little disorder on board after the crash,” he said. “I realized the seriousness of the situation immediately, because I saw Captain Smith come out of the cabin. He was closely followed by Mr. and Mrs. George Widener, of Philadelphia.
“‘What is the outlook?’ I heard Mr. Widener inquire. ‘It is extremely serious, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Please keep cool and do what you can to help us.’”
Deck stewards rushed through the corridors rapping frantically on the doors of the occupied cabins. All were told that the danger was imminent. Some heeded and grasping the first clothing they could find, they rushed on deck. Others refused to come out. They would not believe there was danger.
On deck the boat crews were all at their posts. The big lifeboats had been shoved around ready to be put over the side. Women and children were picked up bodily and thrown intothem. The rule of the sea, women and children first, was being enforced.