Sinking of the "Titanic" : $b most appalling ocean horror; with graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves ...Mowbray, Jay Henry
History
Sinking of the "Titanic" : $b most appalling ocean horror; with graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves ...
Mowbray, Jay Henry
Shipwrecks -- North Atlantic Ocean -- History -- 20th century; Titanic (Steamship)
According to Richard Norris Williams, Jr., his father, C. Duane
Williams, was killed, not drowned, in the Titanic wreck.
The son, who, with his father, was on his way to visit Richard Norris
Williams, his uncle, 8124 St. Martin’s lane, Chestnut Hill, Pa., says
his father was crushed to death by a falling funnel.
His account of the tragedy was given through Mrs. Alexander Williams,
daughter-in-law of Richard Norris Williams.
“Richard told us,” she said, “that he and his father had been watching
the Titanic’s lifeboats lowered and filled with women. The water was up
to their waists and the ship was about at her last.
“Suddenly one of the great funnels fell. Richard sprang aside, trying
to drag his father after him. But Mr. Williams was caught under the
funnel. A moment later the funnel was swept overboard, and the decks
were cleared of water. Mr. Williams, the father, had disappeared.
SWAM THROUGH THE ICE.
“Richard sprang overboard and swam through the ice to a life raft.
He was pulled aboard. There were five other men there and one woman.
Occasionally they were swept off into the sea, even the woman, but they
always managed to climb back. Finally those on the raft were picked up
by a Titanic lifeboat, and later were saved by the Carpathia.”
Young Mr. Williams said he didn’t see J. Bruce Ismay, managing director
of the White Star Line, after the iceberg was struck. He didn’t know
the Wideners or other Philadelphians aboard when he saw them.
Young Mr. Williams and his father were on their way here from Geneva,
Switzerland. The young man was met at the pier in New York when the
Carpathia docked by G. Heide Norris, a cousin. Together they went to
the Waldorf-Astoria, where they remained for a few days.
The Rev. P. M. A. Hoque, a Catholic priest of St. Cesaire, Canada, who
was a passenger on the Carpathia, told of finding the boats containing
the survivors. He said:
“Every woman and child, as if by instinct, put the loops around their
bodies and drew them taut. Some of the women climbed the ladders. To
others chairs were lowered and in these they were lowered and in these
they were lifted aboard.
“Not a word was spoken by any one of the rescued or the rescuers.
Everybody was too be-numbed by horror to speak. It was a time for
action and not words.
“Not a tear dimmed the eyes of one of the hundreds we got on deck. The
women were less excited than the men. Apparently they all had drained
their tear ducts dry, for every eye was red and swollen.”
One of the most interesting accounts of the Titanic disaster which has
come to light is in a letter written on board the Carpathia by Dr.
Alice Leeder, of New York, one of the survivors, after she had been
transferred to the Carpathia in a lifeboat.
The letter is a personal communication addressed to Mrs. Sarah Babcock,
2033 Walnut st., Philadelphia. By the wavering of the handwriting one
can readily realize the state of mind in which it was written.
DR. LEEDER’S LETTER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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