THE TRUTH
ABOUT THE TITANIC
BY
COLONEL ARCHIBALD GRACIE
AUTHOR OF
THE TRUTH ABOUT CHICKAMAUGA
SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
1913
_Copyright 1913 by_
_Mitchell Kennerley_
_Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company_
_East Twenty-fourth Street_
_New York_
[Illustration: COLONEL ARCHIBALD GRACIE]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Last Day Aboard Ship 1
II. Struck By an Iceberg 14
III. The Foundering of the “Titanic” 51
IV. Struggling in the Water for Life 64
V. All Night on Bottom of Half-Submerged Upturned Boat 87
VI. The Port Side: Women and Children First 114
VII. Starboard Side: Women First, But Men When There
Were No Women 225
Concluding Note 325
ILLUSTRATIONS
Colonel Archibald Gracie _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
The _Titanic_ 2
The Promenade Deck of the _Titanic_ 12
Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus 24
First-Class Smoking Room 28
Bedroom of Parlor Suite 40
Suite Bedroom 40
James Clinch Smith 48
Boilers of the _Titanic_ arranged in Messrs. Harland
& Wolff’s Works 52
Thomas Andrews, Jr., Designer of the _Titanic_ 58
Joseph Bell, Chief Engineer 58
The Last Photograph of the _Titanic’s_ Commander and
Three Officers 60
Passengers of the _Olympic_ awaiting Events 104
The Overturned Engelhardt Boat B 110
The _Titanic_ narrowly Escapes Collision at Southampton 134
Fifth Officer Lowe Towing the Canvas Collapsible 158
The Canvas Collapsible 158
Captain Rostron of the S. S. _Carpathia_ 180
Photographed from the _Carpathia_ 242
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE “TITANIC”
CHAPTER I
THE LAST DAY ABOARD SHIP
“There is that Leviathan.”--Ps. 104:26.
AS the sole survivor of all the men passengers of the _Titanic_
stationed during the loading of six or more lifeboats with women and
children on the port side of the ship, forward on the glass-sheltered
Deck A, and later on the Boat Deck above, it is my duty to bear
testimony to the heroism on the part of all concerned. First, to my
men companions who calmly stood by until the lifeboats had departed
loaded with women and the available complement of crew, and who,
fifteen to twenty minutes later, sank with the ship, conscious of
giving up their lives to save the weak and the helpless.
Second, to Second Officer Lightoller and his ship’s crew, who did
their duty as if similar occurrences were matters of daily routine;
and thirdly, to the women, who showed no signs of fear or panic
whatsoever under conditions more appalling than were ever recorded
before in the history of disasters at sea.
I think those of my readers who are accustomed to tales of thrilling
adventure will be glad to learn first-hand of the heroism displayed on
the _Titanic_ by those to whom it is my privilege and sad duty to pay
this tribute. I will confine the details of my narrative for the most
part to what I personally saw, and did, and heard during that
never-to-be-forgotten maiden trip of the _Titanic_, which ended with
shipwreck and her foundering about 2.22 a. m., Monday, April 15, 1912,
after striking an iceberg “in or near latitude 41 degrees, 46 minutes
N., longitude 50 degrees, 14 minutes W., North Atlantic Ocean,”
whereby the loss of 1490 lives ensued.
On Sunday morning, April 14th, this marvellous ship, the perfection of
all vessels hitherto conceived by the brain of man, had, for three and
one-half days, proceeded on her way from Southampton to New York over
a sea of glass, so level it appeared, without encountering a ripple
brought on the surface of the water by a storm.
[Illustration: THE TITANIC
(Photographed in Southampton Water the day she sailed)]
The Captain had each day improved upon the previous day’s speed,
and prophesied that, with continued fair weather, we should make an
early arrival record for this maiden trip. But his reckoning never
took into consideration that Protean monster of the Northern seas
which, even before this, had been so fatal to the navigator’s
calculations and so formidable a weapon of destruction.
Our explorers have pierced to the furthest north and south of the
icebergs’ retreat, but the knowledge of their habitat, insuring our
great ocean liners in their successful efforts to elude them, has not
reached the detail of time and place where they become detached and
obstruct their path.
In the twenty-four hours’ run ending the 14th, according to the posted
reckoning, the ship had covered 546 miles, and we were told that the
next twenty-four hours would see even a better record made.
Towards evening the report, which I heard, was spread that wireless
messages from passing steamers had been received advising the officers
of our ship of the presence of icebergs and ice-floes. The increasing
cold and the necessity of being more warmly clad when appearing on
deck were outward and visible signs in corroboration of these
warnings. But despite them all no diminution of speed was indicated
and the engines kept up their steady running.
Not for fifty years, the old sailors tell us, had so great a mass of
ice and icebergs at this time of the year been seen so far south.
The pleasure and comfort which all of us enjoyed upon this floating
palace, with its extraordinary provisions for such purposes, seemed an
ominous feature to many of us, including myself, who felt it almost
too good to last without some terrible retribution inflicted by the
hand of an angry omnipotence. Our sentiment in this respect was voiced
by one of the most able and distinguished of our fellow passengers,
Mr. Charles M. Hays, President of the Canadian Grand Trunk Railroad.
Engaged as he then was in studying and providing the hotel equipment
along the line of new extensions to his own great railroad system, the
consideration of the subject and of the magnificence of the
_Titanic’s_ accommodations was thus brought home to him. This was the
prophetic utterance with which, alas, he sealed his fate a few hours
thereafter: “The White Star, the Cunard and the Hamburg-American
lines,” said he, “are now devoting their attention to a struggle for
supremacy in obtaining the most luxurious appointments for their
ships, but the time will soon come when the greatest and most
appalling of all disasters at sea will be the result.”
In the various trips which I have made across the Atlantic, it has
been my custom aboard ship, whenever the weather permitted, to take as
much exercise every day as might be needful to put myself in prime
physical condition, but on board the _Titanic_, during the first days
of the voyage, from Wednesday to Saturday, I had departed from this,
my usual self-imposed regimen, for during this interval I had devoted
my time to social enjoyment and to the reading of books taken from the
ship’s well-supplied library. I enjoyed myself as if I were in a
summer palace on the seashore, surrounded with every comfort--there
was nothing to indicate or suggest that we were on the stormy Atlantic
Ocean. The motion of the ship and the noise of its machinery were
scarcely discernible on deck or in the saloons, either day or night.
But when Sunday morning came, I considered it high time to begin my
customary exercises, and determined for the rest of the voyage to
patronize the squash racquet court, the gymnasium, the swimming pool,
etc. I was up early before breakfast and met the professional racquet
player in a half hour’s warming up, preparatory for a swim in the
six-foot deep tank of salt water, heated to a refreshing temperature.
In no swimming bath had I ever enjoyed such pleasure before. How
curtailed that enjoyment would have been had the presentiment come to
me telling how near it was to being my last plunge, and that before
dawn of another day I would be swimming for my life in mid-ocean,
under water and on the surface, in a temperature of 28 degrees
Fahrenheit!
Impressed on my memory as if it were but yesterday, my mind pictures
the personal appearance and recalls the conversation which I had with
each of these employees of the ship. The racquet professional, F.
Wright, was a clean-cut, typical young Englishman, similar to hundreds
I have seen and with whom I have played, in bygone years, my favorite
game of cricket, which has done more than any other sport for my
physical development. I have not seen his name mentioned in any
account of the disaster, and therefore take this opportunity of
speaking of him, for I am perhaps the only survivor able to relate
anything about his last days on earth.
Hundreds of letters have been written to us survivors, many containing
photographs for identification of some lost loved one, whom perchance
we may have seen or talked to before he met his fate. To these
numerous inquiries I have been able to reply satisfactorily only in
rare instances. The next and last time I saw Wright was on the
stairway of Deck C within three-quarters of an hour after the
collision. I was going to my cabin when I met him on the stairs going
up. “Hadn’t we better cancel that appointment for to-morrow morning?”
I said rather jocosely to him. “Yes,” he replied, but did not stop to
tell what he then must have known of the conditions in the racquet
court on G Deck, which, according to other witnesses, had at that time
become flooded. His voice was calm, without enthusiasm, and perhaps
his face was a little whiter than usual.
To the swimming pool attendant I also made promise to be on hand
earlier the next morning, but I never saw him again.
One of the characters of the ship, best known to us all, was the
gymnasium instructor, T. W. McCawley. He, also, expected me to make my
first appearance for real good exercise on the morrow, but alas, he,
too, was swallowed up by the sea. How well we survivors all remember
this sturdy little man in white flannels and with his broad English
accent! With what tireless enthusiasm he showed us the many mechanical
devices under his charge and urged us to take advantage of the
opportunity of using them, going through the motions of bicycle
racing, rowing, boxing, camel and horseback riding, etc.
Such was my morning’s preparation for the unforeseen physical
exertions I was compelled to put forth for dear life at midnight, a
few hours later. Could any better training for the terrible ordeal
have been planned?
The exercise and the swim gave me an appetite for a hearty breakfast.
Then followed the church service in the dining saloon, and I remember
how much I was impressed with the “Prayer for those at Sea,” also the
words of the hymn, which we sang, No. 418 of the Hymnal. About a
fortnight later, when I next heard it sung, I was in the little church
at Smithtown, Long Island, attending the memorial service in honor of
my old friend and fellow member of the Union Club, James Clinch Smith.
To his sister, who sat next to me in the pew, I called attention to
the fact that it was the last hymn we sang on this Sunday morning on
board the _Titanic_. She was much affected, and gave the reason for
its selection for the memorial service to her brother because it was
known as Jim’s favorite hymn, being the first piece set to music ever
played by him as a child and for which he was rewarded with a promised
prize, donated by his father.
What a remarkable coincidence that at the first and last ship’s
service on board the _Titanic_, the hymn we sang began with these
impressive lines:
O God our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast
And our eternal home.
One day was so like another that it is difficult to differentiate in
our description all the details of this last day’s incidents aboard
ship.
The book that I finished and returned to the ship’s library was Mary
Johnston’s “Old Dominion.” While peacefully reading the tales of
adventure and accounts of extraordinary escapes therein, how little I
thought that in the next few hours I should be a witness and a party
to a scene to which this book could furnish no counterpart, and that
my own preservation from a watery grave would afford a remarkable
illustration of how ofttimes “truth is stranger than fiction.”
During this day I saw much of Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus. In fact,
from the very beginning to the end of our trip on the _Titanic_, we
had been together several times each day. I was with them on the deck
the day we left Southampton and witnessed that ominous accident to the
American liner, _New York_, lying at her pier, when the displacement
of water by the movement of our gigantic ship caused a suction which
pulled the smaller ship from her moorings and nearly caused a
collision. At the time of this, Mr. Straus was telling me that it
seemed only a few years back that he had taken passage on this same
ship, the _New York_, on her maiden trip and when she was spoken of as
the “last word in shipbuilding.” He then called the attention of his
wife and myself to the progress that had since been made, by
comparison of the two ships then lying side by side. During our daily
talks thereafter, he related much of special interest concerning
incidents in his remarkable career, beginning with his early manhood
in Georgia when, with the Confederate Government Commissioners, as an
agent for the purchase of supplies, he ran the blockade of Europe. His
friendship with President Cleveland, and how the latter had honored
him, were among the topics of daily conversation that interested me
most.
On this Sunday, our last day aboard ship, he finished the reading of a
book I had loaned him, in which he expressed intense interest. This
book was “The Truth About Chickamauga,” of which I am the author, and
it was to gain a much-needed rest after seven years of work thereon,
and in order to get it off my mind, that I had taken this trip across
the ocean and back. As a counter-irritant, my experience was a dose
which was highly efficacious.
I recall how Mr. and Mrs. Straus were particularly happy about noon
time on this same day in anticipation of communicating by wireless
telegraphy with their son and his wife on their way to Europe on board
the passing ship _Amerika_. Some time before six o’clock, full of
contentment, they told me of the message of greeting received in
reply. This last good-bye to their loved ones must have been a
consoling thought when the end came a few hours thereafter.
That night after dinner, with my table companions, Messrs. James Clinch
Smith and Edward A. Kent, according to usual custom, we adjourned to
the palm room, with many others, for the usual coffee at individual
tables where we listened to the always delightful music of the
_Titanic’s_ band. On these occasions, full dress was always en règle;
and it was a subject both of observation and admiration, that there
were so many beautiful women--then especially in evidence--aboard the
ship.
I invariably circulated around during these delightful evenings,
chatting with those I knew, and with those whose acquaintance I had
made during the voyage. I might specify names and particularize
subjects of conversation, but the details, while interesting to those
concerned, might not be so to all my readers. The recollections of
those with whom I was thus closely associated in this disaster,
including those who suffered the death from which I escaped and those
who survived with me, will be a treasured memory and bond of union
until my dying day. From the palm room, the men of my coterie would
always go to the smoking room, and almost every evening join in
conversation with some of the well-known men whom we met there,
including within my own recollections Major Archie Butt, President
Taft’s Military Aid, discussing politics; Clarence Moore, of
Washington, D. C., relating his venturesome trip some years ago
through the West Virginia woods and mountains, helping a newspaper
reporter in obtaining an interview with the outlaw, Captain Anse
Hatfield; Frank D. Millet, the well-known artist, planning a journey
west; Arthur Ryerson and others.
During these evenings I also conversed with Mr. John B. Thayer, Second
Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and with Mr. George D.
Widener, a son of the Philadelphia street-car magnate, Mr. P. A. B.
Widener.
My stay in the smoking-room on this particular evening for the first
time was short, and I retired early with my cabin steward Cullen’s
promise to awaken me betimes next morning to get ready for the
engagements I had made before breakfast for the game of racquets,
work in the gymnasium and the swim that was to follow.
[Illustration: THE PROMENADE DECK OF THE TITANIC
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood, New York_]
I cannot regard it as a mere coincidence that on this particular
Sunday night I was thus prompted to retire early for nearly three
hours of invigorating sleep, whereas an accident occurring at midnight
of any of the four preceding days would have found me mentally and
physically tired. That I was thus strengthened for the terrible
ordeal, better even than had I been forewarned of it, I regard on the
contrary as the first provision for my safety (answering the constant
prayers of those at home), made by the guardian angel to whose care I
was entrusted during the series of miraculous escapes presently to be
recorded.