THE FOUNDERING OF THE “TITANIC”
“There is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.”--Jeremiah
49:23.
BEFORE I resume the story of my personal escape it is pertinent that I
should, at this juncture, discuss certain points wherein the
statements of survivors are strangely at variance.
_First:_ Was there an explosion of the ship’s boilers?
I am of opinion that there was none, because I should have been
conscious of it. When aboard ship I should have heard it and felt it,
but I did not. As my senses were on the lookout for every danger, I
cannot conceive it possible that an explosion occurred without my
being made aware of it. When I went down holding on to the ship and
was under water, I heard no sound indicating anything of the sort, and
when I came to the surface there was no ship in sight. Furthermore,
there was no perceptible wave which such a disturbance would have
created.
The two ranking surviving officers of the _Titanic_, viz., Second
Officer Lightoller and Third Officer Pitman, with whom I had a
discussion on this and other points in almost daily conversation in my
cabin on the _Carpathia_, agreed with me that there was no explosion
of the boilers. The second officer and myself had various similar
experiences, and, as will be noticed in the course of this narrative,
we were very near together during all the perils of that awful night.
The only material difference worth noting was the manner in which each
parted company with the ship, and finally reached the bottom-up
Engelhardt boat on top of which we made our escape. According to his
testimony before the Senate Committee, he stood on the roof of the
officers’ quarters in front of the first funnel, facing forward, and
as the ship dived, he dived also, while I held on to the iron railing
on the same roof, near the second funnel, as has been described, and
as the ship sank I was pulled down with it. The distance between us on
the ship was then about fifteen yards.
[Illustration: BOILERS OF THE TITANIC ARRANGED IN MESSRS.
HARLAND & WOLFF’S WORKS]
There are so many newspaper and other published reports citing the
statements of certain survivors as authority for this story of an
explosion of the boilers that the reading world generally has been
made to believe it. Among the names of passengers whose alleged
statements (I have received letters repudiating some of these
interviews) are thus given credence, I have read those of Miss
Cornelia Andrews, of Hudson, N. Y.; Mrs. W. E. Carter, of
Philadelphia, Pa.; Mr. John Pillsbury Snyder, of Minneapolis, Minn.;
Miss Minahan, of Fond du Lac, Wis., and Lady Duff Gordon, of England,
all of whom, according to the newspaper reports, describe their
position in the lifeboats around the ship and how they heard, or saw,
the “ship blow up,” or “the boilers explode” with one or two
explosions just before the ship sank out of their sight. On the other
hand, Mr. Hugh Woolner told me on the _Carpathia_ that from his
position in the lifeboat, which he claims was the nearest one to the
_Titanic_ when she sank some seventy-five yards away, there was a
terrific noise on the ship, as she slanted towards the head before the
final plunge, which sounded like the crashing of millions of dishes of
crockery. Woolner and I when on board the _Carpathia_, as presently
described, had our cabin together, where we were visited by Officers
Lightoller and Pitman. This was one of the points we discussed
together, and the conclusion was at once reached as to the cause of
this tremendous crash. Since then, Lightoller has been subjected to
rigid examination before this country’s and England’s Investigating
Committees, and has been a party to discussions with experts,
including the designers and builders of the _Titanic_. His conclusion
expressed on the _Carpathia_ is now strengthened, and he says that
there was no explosion of the boilers and that the great noise which
was mistaken for it was due to “the boilers leaving their beds” on E
Deck when the ship was aslant and, with their great weight, sliding
along the deck, crushing and tearing through the doomed vessel forward
toward the bow. Third Officer Pitman also gave his testimony on this,
as well as the next point considered. Before the Senate Committee he
said: “Then she turned right on end and made a big plunge forward. The
_Titanic_ did not break asunder. I heard reports like big guns in the
distance. I assumed the great bulkheads had gone to pieces.”
Cabin-steward Samuel Rule said: “I think the noise we heard was that
of the boilers and engines breaking away from their seatings and
falling down through the forward bulkhead. At the time it occurred,
the ship was standing nearly upright in the water.”
The peculiar way in which the _Titanic_ is described as hesitating and
assuming a vertical position before her final dive to the depths below
can be accounted for only on this hypothesis of the sliding of the
boilers from their beds. A second cabin passenger, Mr. Lawrence
Beesley, a Cambridge University man, has written an excellent book
about the _Titanic_ disaster, dwelling especially upon the lessons to
be learned from it. His account given to the newspapers also contains
the most graphic description from the viewpoint of those in the
lifeboats, telling how the great ship looked before her final plunge.
He “was a mile or two miles away,” he writes, “when the oarsmen lay on
their oars and all in the lifeboat were motionless as we watched the
ship in absolute silence--save some who would not look and buried
their heads on each others’ shoulders.... As we gazed awe-struck, she
tilted slightly up, revolving apparently about a centre of gravity
just astern of amidships until she attained a vertical upright
position, and there she remained--motionless! As she swung up, her
lights, which had shown without a flicker all night, went out
suddenly, then came on again for a single flash and then went out
altogether; and as they did so there came a noise which many people,
wrongly, I think, have described as an explosion. It has always seemed
to me that it was nothing but the engines and machinery coming loose
from their place and bearings and falling through the compartments,
smashing everything in their way. It was partly a roar, partly a
groan, partly a rattle and partly a smash, and it was not a sudden
roar as an explosion would be; it went on successively for some
seconds, possibly fifteen or twenty, as the heavy machinery dropped
down to the bottom (now the bows) of the ship; I suppose it fell
through the end and sank first before the ship. (For evidence of
shattered timbers, see Hagan’s testimony, page 85.) But it was a noise
no one had heard before and no one wishes to hear again. It was
stupefying, stupendous, as it came to us along the water. It was as if
all the heavy things one could think of had been thrown downstairs
from the top of a house, smashing each other, and the stairs and
everything in the way.
“Several apparently authentic accounts have been given in which
definite stories of explosions have been related--in some cases even
with wreckage blown up and the ship broken in two; but I think such
accounts will not stand close analysis. In the first place, the fires
had been withdrawn and the steam allowed to escape some time before
she sank, and the possibility from explosion from this cause seems
very remote.”
_Second:_ Did the ship break in two?
I was on the _Carpathia_ when I first heard any one make reference to
this point. The seventeen-year-old son of Mr. John B. Thayer, “Jack”
Thayer, Jr., and his young friend from Philadelphia, R. N. Williams,
Jr., the tennis expert, in describing their experiences to me were
positive that they saw the ship split in two. This was from their
position in the water on the starboard quarter. “Jack” Thayer gave
this same description to an artist, who reproduced it in an
illustration in the New York _Herald_, which many of us have seen.
Some of the passengers, whose names I have just mentioned, are also
cited by the newspapers as authority for the statements that the ship
“broke in two,” that she “buckled amidships,” that she “was literally
torn to pieces,” etc. On the other hand, there is much testimony
available which is at variance with this much-advertised sensational
newspaper account. Summing up its investigation of this point the
Senate Committee’s Report reads: “There have been many conflicting
statements as to whether the ship broke in two, but the preponderance
of evidence is to the effect that she assumed an almost end-on
position and sank intact.” This was as Lightoller testified before the
Committee, that the _Titanic’s_ decks were “absolutely intact” when
she went down. On this point, too, Beesley is in accord, from his
viewpoint in the lifeboat some distance away out of danger, whence,
more composedly than others, he could see the last of the ill-fated
ship as the men lay on their oars watching until she disappeared. “No
phenomenon,” he continues, “like that pictured in some American and
English papers occurred--that of the ship breaking in two, and the
two ends being raised above the surface. When the noise was over, the
_Titanic_ was still upright like a column; we could see her now only
as the stern and some 150 feet of her stood outlined against the
star-specked sky, looming black in the darkness, and in this position
she continued for some minutes--I think as much as five minutes--but
it may have been less. Then, as sinking back a little at the stern, I
thought she slid slowly forwards through the water and dived
slantingly down.”
[Illustration: THOMAS ANDREWS, Jr.
(Designer of the Titanic and Managing Director of Messrs.
Harland & Wolff, Ltd.)]
[Illustration: JOSEPH BELL
(Chief Engineer)]
From my personal viewpoint I also know that the _Titanic’s_ decks were
intact at the time she sank, and when I sank with her, there was over
seven-sixteenths of the ship already under water, and there was no
indication then of any impending break of the deck or ship. I recently
visited the sister ship of the _Titanic_, viz., the _Olympic_, at her
dock in New York harbor. This was for the purpose of still further
familiarizing myself with the corresponding localities which were the
scene of my personal experiences on the _Titanic_, and which are
referred to in this narrative. The only difference in the deck plan of
the sister ship which I noted, and which the courteous officers of the
_Olympic_ mentioned, is that the latter ship’s Deck A is not
glass-enclosed like the _Titanic’s_; but one of the principal points
of discovery that I made during my investigation concerns this
matter of the alleged breaking in two of this magnificent ship. The
White Star Line officers pointed out to me what they called the ship’s
“forward expansion joint,” and they claimed the _Titanic_ was so
constructed that she must have split in two at this point, if she did
so at all. I was interested in observing that this “expansion joint”
was less than twelve feet forward from that point on the Boat Deck
whence I jumped, as described (to the iron railing on the roof of the
officers’ quarters). It is indicated by a black streak of
leather-covering running transversely across the deck and then up the
vertical white wall of the officers’ house. This “joint” extends,
however, only through the Boat Deck and Decks A and B, which are
superimposed on Deck C. If there was any splitting in two, it seems to
me also that this superstructure, weakly joined, would have been the
part to split; but it certainly did not. It was only a few seconds
before the time of the alleged break that I stepped across this
dividing line of the two sections and went down with the after section
about twelve feet from this “expansion joint.”
One explanation which I offer of what must be a delusion on the part
of the advocates of the “break-in-two” theory is that when the
forward funnel fell, as hereafter described, it may have looked as if
the ship itself was splitting in two, particularly to the young men
who are cited as authority.
_Third:_ Did either the Captain or the First Officer shoot himself?
Notwithstanding all the current rumors and newspaper statements
answering this question affirmatively, I have been unable to find any
passenger or member of the crew cited as authority for the statement
that either Captain Smith or First Officer Murdoch did anything of the
sort. On the contrary, so far as relates to Captain Smith, there are
several witnesses, including Harold S. Bride, the junior Marconi
operator, who saw him at the last on the bridge of his ship, and
later, when sinking and struggling in the water. Neither can I
discover any authentic testimony about First Officer Murdoch’s
shooting himself. On the contrary, I find fully sufficient evidence
that he did not. He was a brave and efficient officer and no
sufficient motive for self-destruction can be advanced. He performed
his full duty under difficult circumstances, and was entitled to
praise and honor. During the last fifteen minutes before the ship
sank, I was located at that quarter forward on the Boat Deck,
starboard side, where Murdoch was in command and where the crew under
him were engaged in the vain attempt of launching the Engelhardt
boat. The report of a pistol shot during this interval ringing in my
ears within a few feet of me would certainly have attracted my
attention, and later, when I moved astern, the distance between us was
not so great as to prevent my hearing it. The “big wave” or “giant
wave,” described by Harold Bride, swept away Murdoch and the crew from
the Boat Deck first before it struck me, and when I rose with it to
the roof of the officers’ house, Bride’s reported testimony fits in
with mine so far as relates to time, place, and circumstance, and I
quote his words as follows: “About ten minutes before the ship sank,
Captain Smith gave word for every man to look to his own safety. I
sprang to aid the men struggling to launch the life raft (Engelhardt
boat), and we had succeeded in getting it to the edge of the ship when
a giant wave carried it away.” Lightoller also told me on board the
_Carpathia_ that he saw Murdoch when he was engulfed by the water and
that if before this a pistol had been fired within the short distance
that separated them, he also is confident that he would have heard it.
[Illustration: THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH OF THE TITANIC’S COMMANDER
AND THREE OFFICERS
(Reading from left to right:--Captain E. J. Smith, Dr. W. F.
O’Loughlin, First Officer W. M. Murdoch, and Purser H. W.
McElroy)]
_Fourth:_ On which side did the ship list?
The testimony on this point, which at first blush appears conflicting,
proves on investigation not at all so, but just what was to be
expected from the mechanical construction of the ship. We find the
most authoritative testimony in evidence that the _Titanic_ listed on
the starboard side, and again, on equally authoritative testimony,
that she listed on the port side. Quartermaster Hitchens, who was at
the wheel when the iceberg struck the ship, testified on this point
before the Senate Committee as follows: “The Captain came back to the
wheel house and looked at the commutator (clinometer) in front of the
compass, which is a little instrument like a clock to tell you how the
ship is listing.” The ship had a list of five degrees to the starboard
about five or ten minutes after the impact. Mr. Karl Behr, the
well-known tennis player, interviewed by the New York _Tribune_ is
quoted as saying: “We had just retired when the collision came. I
pulled on my clothes and went down the deck to the Beckwith cabin and,
after I had roused them, I noted that the ship listed to the
starboard, and that was the first thing that made me think that we
were in for serious trouble.” On the other hand, the first time I
noticed this list was, as already described in my narrative, when I
met Clinch Smith in the companionway and we saw a slight list to port,
which gave us the first warning of how serious the accident was. The
next and last time, as has also been described, was when Second
Officer Lightoller ordered all passengers to the starboard side
because of the very palpable list to port, when the great ship
suddenly appeared to be about to topple over. Lightoller also
corroborates the statement as to this list on the port side. Other
witnesses might be quoted, some of whom testify to the starboard list,
and others to the one to port. The conclusion, therefore, is reached
that the _Titanic_ listed at one time to starboard and at another time
to port. This is as it should be because of the transverse water-tight
compartments which made the water, immediately after the compact, rush
from the starboard quarter to the port, and then back again, keeping
the ship balancing on her keel until she finally sank. If she had been
constructed otherwise, with longitudinal compartments only, it is
evident that after the impact on the starboard side, the _Titanic_
would have listed only to the starboard side, and after a very much
shorter interval would have careened over on that quarter, and a much
smaller proportion of lives would have been saved.