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)
When wireless telegraphy was discovered I thought that great wrecks
would be impossible, but the fate of the Titanic has shown us
differently. We must rely upon lifeboats and life preservers. I think
every person should learn how to put on a life preserver when he goes
on board a vessel. He can not learn when the ship starts to sink. My
husband said that nearly all could have been saved from La Bourgogne if
they had put on life belts and kept cool.
Adrien Lacasse was greeted as a returning hero. On his trip through
Canada to this city, he was besieged by people who wanted to see him
and shake hands with him. He pulled down the shade of the window in his
car to avoid notoriety. The crowds shook hands with an American woman,
who sat behind him, believing that she was Mrs. Lacasse.
Mothers named their babies after him, and from all corners of the earth
came letters of praise. He was a hero because he kept cool, and was the
only man who did. The heroes of the Titanic can not be counted. They
all kept their heads, so far as is known, but their only reward was the
knowledge that they had not been cowards in the face of death.
Standing in a circle in the engine room of the Titanic as she went
down, with hands clasping those of their comrades and all praying, the
gallant thirty-three engine men of the wounded vessel met their death.
The tragic story of their bravery in the face of what they must have
known was certain death was told by Thomas Hardy, chief steward of the
Titanic, as he left for England, a passenger on board the Red Star Line
steamship Lapland.
SCENE THAT HARDY WITNESSED.
His voice breaking with emotion, Hardy told the story of the scene that
he and other stewards witnessed from the galleries overlooking the
engine room.
“When the order that every man should take his post, as the vessel was
sinking, was sent through the Titanic,” said Hardy, “there were eleven
men on duty in the hold.
“The twenty others, without the least hesitancy, came hurrying to their
posts beside the engines and dynamos. They must have known as well as
Captain Smith that the Titanic was going down, for when they arrived in
the engine room the water was rising over the floor. There was nothing
for them to do but to keep the dynamos running.
“Not one of them moved to quit their posts and not one would have dared
to, even they had been willing, in the face of the stern men who had
chosen to die there. Yet they could be of no use, for the Titanic was
going down then.
“The water was rising about them when I looked down from a gallery. I
saw the little circle of Chief Engineer Bell and sixteen of his men
standing there in the water with their lips moving in prayer. I pray
that I may never see the like of it again; it was real heroism.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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