Sinking of the "Titanic" : $b most appalling ocean horror; with graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves ... — John Shaqi
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)
The survivors in the lifeboats saw the lights on the stricken vessel
glimmer to the last, heard her band playing and saw the doomed hundreds
on her deck and heard their groans and cries when the vessel sank.
Accounts vary as to the extent of the disorder on board.
Not only was the Titanic tearing through the April night to her doom
with every ounce of steam crowded on, but she was under orders from the
general officers of the line to make all the speed of which she was
capable.
This was the statement made by J. H. Moody, a quartermaster of the
vessel and helmsman on the night of the disaster. He said the ship was
making 21 knots an hour, and the officers were striving to live up to
the orders to smash the records.
“It was close to midnight,” said Moody, “and I was on the bridge with
the second officer, who was in command. Suddenly he shouted ‘Port your
helm!’ I did so, but it was too late. We struck the submerged portion
of the berg.”
“Of the many accounts given by the passengers most of them agreed that
the shock when the Titanic struck the iceberg, although ripping her
great sides like a giant can opener, did not greatly jar the entire
vessel, for the blow was a glancing one along her side. The accounts
also agree substantially that when the passengers were taken off on the
lifeboats there was no serious panic and that many wished ‘to remain on
board the Titanic, believing her to be unsinkable.’”
EXPERIENCES OF PASSENGERS IN LIFE-BOATS.
The most distressing stories are those giving the experiences of the
passengers in lifeboats. These tell not only of their own suffering,
but give the harrowing details of how they saw the great hulk of the
Titanic stand on end, stern uppermost for many minutes before plunging
to the bottom. As this spectacle was witnessed by the groups of
survivors in the boats, they plainly saw many of those whom they had
just left behind leaping from the decks into the water.
J. Bruce Ismay, president of the International Mercantile Marine,
owners of the White Star Line, who was among the seventy odd men
saved; P. A. S. Franklin, vice president of the White Star Line, and
United States Senator William Alden Smith, chairman of the Senate
Investigating Committee, held a conference aboard the Carpathia soon
after the passengers had come ashore.
After nearly an hour, Senator Smith came out of the cabin and said he
had no authority to subpena witnesses at this time, but would begin
an investigation into the cause of the loss of the Titanic at the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel the next day. He announced that Mr. Ismay had
consented to appear at the hearing, and that Mr. Franklin and the four
surviving officers of the Titanic would appear for examination by the
Senate committee. He said the course the investigation would follow
would be determined after the preliminary hearing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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