Shipwrecks -- North Atlantic Ocean; Titanic (Steamship)
Senator Newlands suggested that the telegrams, some signed by the name
of Mr. Sammis and some with the name of Marconi, directing Cottam to
"keep his mouth shut" and hold out for four figures on his story, was
sent only as the Carpathia was entering New York harbor, when there
was no longer need for sending official or private messages from the
rescuing ship. There had been an impression before, he said, that the
messages had been sent to Cottam when the ship was far at sea, when they
might have meant that he was to hold back messages relieving the anxiety
of those on shore.
SAW DISTRESS ROCKETS
Ernest Gill, a donkey engineman on the steamship Californian, was the
first witness on April 26th. He said that Captain Stanley Lord, of the
Californian, refused later to go to the aid of the Titanic, the rockets
from which could be plainly seen. He says the captain was apprised of
these signals, but made no effort to get up steam and go to the rescue.
The Californian was drifting with the floe. So indignant did he become,
said Gill, that he endeavored to recruit a committee of protest from
among the crew, but the men failed him.
Captain Lord entered a sweeping denial of Gill's accusations and read
from the Californian's log to support his contention. Cyril Evans, the
Californian's wireless operator, however, told of hearing much talk
among the crew, who were critical of the captain's course. Gill, he
said, told him he expected to get $500 for his story when the ship
reached Boston.
Evans told of having warned the Titanic only a brief time before the
great vessel crashed into the berg that the sea was crowded with ice.
The Titanic's operators, he said, at the time were working with the
wireless station at Cape Race, and they told him to "shut up" and keep
out. Within a half hour the pride of the sea was crumpled and sinking.
Members of the committee who examined individually the British
sailors and stewards of the Titanic's crew prepared a report of their
investigations for the full committee. This testimony was ordered to be
incorporated in the record of the hearings.
Most of this testimony was but a repetition of experiences similar to
the many already related by those who got away in the life-boats.
On April 27th Captain James H. Moore, of the steamship Mount Temple, who
hurried to the Titanic in response to wireless calls for help, told of
the great stretch of field ice which held him off. Within his view
from the bridge he discerned, he said, a strange steamship, probably
a "tramp," and a schooner which was making her way out of the ice. The
lights of this schooner, he thought, probably were those seen by the
anxious survivors of the Titanic and which they were frantically trying
to reach.
WOMEN AT HEARING WEEP
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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