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)
“I saw the Titanic sink,” she said. “I saw her blow up. Our little boat
was a mile away when the end came, but the night was clear and the ship
loomed up plainly, even at that distance. As our boat put off I saw
Mr. and Mrs. Astor standing on the deck. As we pulled away they waved
their hands and smiled at us. We were in the open boat about four hours
before we were picked up.”
E. W. Beans, a second-cabin passenger, was picked up after swimming in
the icy water for twenty minutes. He, too, jumped into the sea after
the boats were lowered.
“I heard a shot fired,” said Beans, “just before I jumped. Afterward I
was told a steerage passenger had been shot while trying to leap into a
lifeboat filled with women and children.”
How the wireless operator on the Carpathia, by putting in an extra ten
minutes on duty, was a means of saving 745 lives was told by Dr. J. F.
Kemp, the Carpathia’s physician.
“Our wireless operator,” said Dr. Kemp, “was about to retire Sunday
night when he said, jokingly: ‘I guess I’ll wait just ten minutes, then
turn in.’
“It was in the next ten minutes that the Titanic’s call for help came.
Had the wireless man not waited, there would have been no survivors.”
“The iceberg that sank the Titanic looked to be as big as the Rock of
Gibraltar,” said Thomas Brown, one of the stewards of the Carpathia,
in describing what he saw when the crew of his ship picked up the
survivors from the Titanic. Brown left the Carpathia a few minutes
after she was docked and he gave a vivid description of the work of the
rescue.
“There were 2,341 persons aboard the Titanic, counting officers and
crew,” said the steward. “Seven hundred and ten persons were saved; so
the list of those who drowned numbers 1,631 persons.
A CLEAR S. O. S. SIGNAL.
“I had turned in for the night when Main, our wireless operator, caught
the ‘S. O. S.’ signal of distress. He told me it was the clearest
signal of any sort he ever received. The minute he got the message he
hastened to Captain Rostrom and said, ‘Captain, the Titanic is sinking;
she struck an iceberg.’ Captain Rostrom did not believe it. ‘Here it
comes again, Captain,’ said the operator.
“That was all the captain needed to get our crew into action: he
sounded the bell for the watchman, and sent him to order all hands on
deck.
“I doubt if any passengers on the Carpathia knew of the tragedy until
Jones, the first mate, sounded the emergency gong after the watchman
had summoned the crew.
“A few minutes after we got the signal for help we were ready for
action. The ‘S. O. S.’ reached us shortly after midnight. We were then
56 miles away from the Titanic. Our engineer turned about and put
on full speed, and we reached the Titanic about 3.30 o’clock Monday
morning.
“While the Carpathia was speeding toward the doomed ship Captain
Rostrom summoned the higher officers together, and said he would hold
every man responsible for the work assigned to him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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