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)
“Captain Smith, I think, sacrificed safety in a treacherous ice field
for speed. He was trying to make 570 miles for the day, I heard. The
captain, who had stood waist deep on the deck of the Titanic as she
sank, jumped as the ship went down, but he was drowned. All of the men
had bravely faced their doom for the women and children.
“The ship settled slowly, the lights going out deck after deck as
the water reached them. The final plunge, however, was sudden and
accompanied by explosions, the effect of which was a horrible sight.
Victims standing on the upper deck toward the stern were hurled into
the air and fell into the treacherous ice-covered sea. Some were
rescued, but most of them perished. I cannot help recalling again that
Mr. Widener and Mr. Thayer and Colonel Astor died manfully.
TWO DISTINCT SHOCKS.
“The ice pack which we encountered,” explained Mrs. Candee, “was
fifty-six miles long, I have since heard. When we collided with the
mountainous mass it was nearly midnight Sunday. There were two distinct
shocks, each shaking the ship violently, but fear did not spread
among the passengers immediately. They seemed not to realize what
had happened, but the captain and other officers did not endeavor to
minimize the danger.
“The first thing I recall was one of the crew appearing with pieces
of ice in his hands. He said he had gathered them from the bow of the
boat. Some of the passengers were inclined to believe he was joking.
But soon the situation dawned on all of us. The lifeboats were ordered
lowered and manned and the word went around that women and children
were to be taken off first. The men stood back as we descended to
the frail craft or assisted us to disembark. I now recall that huge
Woolner Bjomstrom was among the heroic men.”
“The Philadelphia women behaved heroically.”
This was the way Mrs. Walter B. Stephenson, of Haverford, a survivor of
the wreck of the fated Titanic, began her brief but graphic account of
the disaster at her home in Haverford, which she reached on the special
train that brought Mrs. John B. Thayer and others over from New York.
Worn by hours of terrible uncertainty on the frail lifeboats in the
open sea, almost distracted by the ordeal of waiting for news of those
left behind on the big liner, Mrs. Stephenson bore herself as did the
women whom she described heroically indeed.
She told how John B. Thayer, Jr., fell overboard when the boats were
launched, and how he was saved from the death that his father met, by
the crew of the lifeboat. She described tersely, to linger sadly as she
finished with the words, “But we never saw Mr. Thayer, Sr., at all.”
OCCUPANTS OF THE SAME BOAT.
Mrs. Thayer, Mrs. J. Boulton Earnshaw, of Mt. Airy, and Mrs. George D.
Widener were occupants of the same boat that carried Mrs. Stephenson to
safety, and, like Mrs. Stephenson, they witnessed the final plunge of
the Titanic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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