Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters Part 47

{ill.u.s.t. caption = THE EFFECTS OF STRIKING AN ICEBERG

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DISTRESS ROCKETS FIRED

"After that I was on the bridge most of the time sending out distress signals, trying to attract the attention of boats ahead," he said. "I sent up distress rockets until I left the ship, to try to attract the attention of a ship directly ahead. I had seen her lights. She seemed to be meeting us and was not far away. She got close enough, so she seemed to me, to read our Morse electric signals."

"Suppose you had a powerful search light on the t.i.tanic, could you not have thrown a beam on the vessel and have compelled her attention?"

"We might."

H. J. Pitman, the third officer of the ship, was the first witness on April 23d. By a series of searching questions Senator Fletcher brought out the fact that when the collision occurred the t.i.tanic was going at the greatest speed attained during the trip, even though the ship was entering the Grand Banks and had been advised of the presence of ice.

Frederick Fleet, a sailor and lookout man on the t.i.tanic, followed Pitman on the stand. Fleet said he had had five or six years' experience at sea and was lookout on the Oceanic prior to going on the t.i.tanic. He was in the crow's nest at the time of the collision.

Fleet stated that he had kept a sharp lookout for ice, and testified to seeing the iceberg and signaling the bridge.

Fleet acknowledged that if he had been aided in his observations by a good gla.s.s he probably could have spied the berg into which the ship crashed in time to have warned the bridge to avoid it. Major Arthur Peuchen, of Toronto, a pa.s.senger who followed Fleet on the stand, also testified to the much greater sweep of vision afforded by binoculars and, as a yachtsman, said he believed the presence of the iceberg might have been detected in time to escape the collision had the lookout men been so equipped.

HAD ASKED FOR BINOCULARS

It was made to appear that the blame for being without gla.s.ses did not rest with the lookout men. Fleet said they had asked for them at Southampton and were told there were none for them. One gla.s.s, in a pinch, would have served in the crow's nest.

The testimony before the committee on April 24th showed that the big steamship was on the verge of a field of ice twenty or thirty miles long, if she had not actually entered it, when the accident occurred.

The committee tried to discover whether it would add to human safety if the ships were fitted with search lights so that at night objects could be seen at a greater distance. The testimony so far along this line had been conflicting. Some of the witnesses thought it would be no harm to try it, but they were all skeptical as to its value, as an iceberg would not be especially distinguishable because its bulk is mostly below the surface.

One of the witnesses said that much dependence is not placed upon the lookout, and that those lookouts who used binoculars constantly found them detrimental.

Harold G. Lowe, fifth officer of the t.i.tanic, told the committee his part in the struggle of the survivors for life following the catastrophe. The details of this struggle have have already been told in a previous chapter.

AUTHORIZED TO SELL STORY

In great detail Guglielmo Marconi, on April 25th, explained the operations of his system and told how he had authorized Operator Bride of the t.i.tanic, and Operator Cottam, of the Carpathia, to sell their stories of the disaster after they came ash.o.r.e.

In allowing the operator's to sell their stories, said Mr. Marconi, there was no question of suppressing or monopolizing the news. He had done everything he could, he said, to have the country informed as quickly as possible of the details of the disaster. That was why he was particularly glad for the narratives of such important witnesses as the operators to receive publication, regardless of the papers that published them.

He repeated the testimony of Cottam that every effort had been made to get legitimate dispatches ash.o.r.e. The cruiser Chester, he said, had been answered as fully as possible, though it was not known at the time that its queries came from the President of the United States. The Salem, he said, had never got in touch with the Carpathia operator.

Senator Newlands suggested that the telegrams, some signed by the name of Mr. Sammis and some with the name of Marconi, directing Cottam to "keep his mouth shut" and hold out for four figures on his story, was sent only as the Carpathia was entering New York harbor, when there was no longer need for sending official or private messages from the rescuing ship. There had been an impression before, he said, that the messages had been sent to Cottam when the ship was far at sea, when they might have meant that he was to hold back messages relieving the anxiety of those on sh.o.r.e.

SAW DISTRESS ROCKETS

Ernest Gill, a donkey engineman on the steamship Californian, was the first witness on April 26th. He said that Captain Stanley Lord, of the Californian, refused later to go to the aid of the t.i.tanic, the rockets from which could be plainly seen. He says the captain was apprised of these signals, but made no effort to get up steam and go to the rescue.

The Californian was drifting with the floe. So indignant did he become, said Gill, that he endeavored to recruit a committee of protest from among the crew, but the men failed him.

Captain Lord entered a sweeping denial of Gill's accusations and read from the Californian's log to support his contention. Cyril Evans, the Californian's wireless operator, however, told of hearing much talk among the crew, who were critical of the captain's course. Gill, he said, told him he expected to get $500 for his story when the ship reached Boston.

Evans told of having warned the t.i.tanic only a brief time before the great vessel crashed into the berg that the sea was crowded with ice.

The t.i.tanic's operators, he said, at the time were working with the wireless station at Cape Race, and they told him to "shut up" and keep out. Within a half hour the pride of the sea was crumpled and sinking.

Members of the committee who examined individually the British sailors and stewards of the t.i.tanic's crew prepared a report of their investigations for the full committee. This testimony was ordered to be incorporated in the record of the hearings.

Most of this testimony was but a repet.i.tion of experiences similar to the many already related by those who got away in the life-boats.

On April 27th Captain James H. Moore, of the steamship Mount Temple, who hurried to the t.i.tanic in response to wireless calls for help, told of the great stretch of field ice which held him off. Within his view from the bridge he discerned, he said, a strange steamship, probably a "tramp," and a schooner which was making her way out of the ice. The lights of this schooner, he thought, probably were those seen by the anxious survivors of the t.i.tanic and which they were frantically trying to reach.

WOMEN AT HEARING WEEP

Steward Crawford also related a thrilling story in regard to loading the life-boats with women first. He told of several instances that came under his observation of women throwing their arms around their husbands and crying out that they would not leave the ship without them. The pathetic recital caused several women at the hearing to weep, and all within earshot of the steward's story were thrilled.

ANDREWS WAS BRAVE

Stories that Mr. Andrews, the designer of the ship, had tried to disguise the extent of danger were absolutely denied by Henry Samuel Etches, his bedroom steward, who told the committee how Mr. Andrews urged women back to their cabins to dress more warmly and to put on life-belts.

The steward, whose duty it was to serve Major b.u.t.t and his party, told how he did not see the Major at dinner the evening of the disaster as he was dining with a private party in the restaurant. William Burke, a first cla.s.s steward, told of serving dinner at 7.15 o'clock to Mr. and Mrs. Straus, and later Mrs. Straus' refusal to leave her husband was again told to the committee. A bedroom steward told of a quiet conversation with Benjamin Guggenheim, Senator Guggenheim's brother, after the accident and shortly before the t.i.tanic settled in the plunge that was to be his death.

On April 29th Marconi produced copies of several messages which pa.s.sed between the Marconi office and the Carpathia in an effort to get definite information of the wreck and the survivors.

Marconi and F. M. Sammis, chief engineer of the American Marconi Company, both acknowledged that a mistake had been made in sending messages to Bride and Cottam on board the Carpathia not to give out any news until they had seen Marconi and Sammis.

The senatorial committee investigating the t.i.tanic disaster has served several good purposes. It has officially established the fact that all nations are censurable for insufficient, antiquated safety regulations on ocean vessels, and it has emphasized the imperative necessity for united action among all maritime countries to revise these laws and adapt them to changed conditions.

The committee reported its findings as follows:

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

No particular person is named as being responsible, though attention is called to the fact that on the day of the disaster three distinct warnings of ice were sent to Captain Smith. J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, is not held responsible for the ship's high speed. In fact, he is barely mentioned in the report.

Ice positions, so definitely reported to the t.i.tanic just preceding the accident, located ice on both sides of the lane in which she was traveling. No discussion took place among the officers, no conference was called to consider these warnings, no heed was given to them. The speed was not relaxed, the lookout was not increased.

The supposedly water-tight compartments of the t.i.tanic were not water-tight, because of the non-water-tight condition of the decks where the transverse bulkheads ended.

The steamship Californian, controlled by the same concern as the t.i.tanic, was nearer the sinking steamship than the nineteen miles reported by her captain, and her officers and crew saw the distress signals of the t.i.tanic and failed to respond to them in accordance with the dictates of humanity, international usage and the requirements of law. Had a.s.sistance been promptly proffered the Californian might have had the proud distinction of rescuing the lives of the pa.s.sengers and crew of the t.i.tanic.

The mysterious lights on an unknown ship, seen by the pa.s.sengers on the t.i.tanic, undoubtedly were on the Californian, less than nineteen miles away.

Eight ships, all equipped with wireless, were in the vicinity of the t.i.tanic, the Olympic farthest away--512 miles.

The full capacity of the t.i.tanic's life-boats was not utilized, because, while only 705 persons were saved, the ship's boats could have carried 1176.