Voices from the Titanic (61 page)

‘Did you go back?' – ‘Yes, I put a lifebelt on to Mr Guggenheim. I then went on deck, and assisted launching lifeboat No. 7. Mr Pitman and Mr Ismay helped keeping the falls clear. This was on the boat deck. Mr Ismay called out for the men to form a lane so as to let the ladies through. Mr Murdoch also kept calling for ladies, saying, “Are there any other ladies here?” Before this boat was lowered I assisted in loading boat No. 5. A woman came along before it was got off, and Mr Ismay called to her to get in. “I am only a stewardess, sir,” she said. Mr Ismay said: “That makes no difference. You are a woman. Take your place.” And she came away with us. Mr Murdoch ordered me into boat No. 5. He came to me after the women were in, and said, “Are you the steward regularly assigned to this boat?” I said, “Yes, sir; No. 5 is my boat.” “All right,” said Mr Murdoch, “get in.” As it was about to be lowered Mr Pitman, who was in charge, called out to ask if there was a sailor in the boat. I shouted back there was not, and he called Seaman Oliver, who was ordered in. Then Mr Murdoch shook Mr Pitman's hand, and said, “Goodbye, old man; good luck.” Just then a man and woman were standing beside the boat. She had her arms around his neck, and was crying. I heard her say, “I can't leave without you. I can't leave without you.” I turned my head away, and next moment I saw the woman with the man sitting behind her in the boat. Just then a voice said, “Throw out that man,” but we were already being lowered away, and the man remained. I don't know his name. I never heard it. He was a stoutish man, an American. When the boat hit the water we pulled away about 100 yards from the
Titanic
until she started to go down, when we rowed away a quarter of a mile. When she went down I saw a crowd of people on her afterdeck. Mr Pitman wanted to go back to help those in the water, and gave orders to do so. The women pleaded with him not to, asking him why they should risk their lives in a hopeless effort.'

(
Ulster Echo
, 29 April 1912)

Mr Sammis, the chief engineer of the Marconi Company, was called. He resented bitterly the imputation that he had been the means of suppressing news from the
Carpathia
, which, he said, had resulted in his neighbours pointing the finger of scorn at him. He said that he told the
Carpathia
's operators to hold their personal stories for sale in order to get a reward for them. He did not send the messages direct, but telephoned to Davidson, in charge of a wireless station, and instructed him to tell the ‘boys' that an arrangement had been made to care for them. He thought it would ‘brace' them up. He carried out the plan, and went to the Strand Hotel to meet Operator Cottam, but failed to get in touch with him. The operators each got $750 for their stories.

Senator Smith: ‘Did you get any part of that?' – ‘Absolutely not; and no other official of the company received anything.' He acknowledged that a mistake had been made in the manner in which the stories had been ‘placed', saying: ‘I think it would have been better to have placed them with the Associated Press. They would then have had general circulation.'

Continuing, he said Bride and Cottam should not be blamed for not sending news from the ship. ‘If there is any blame, it should fall upon the captain of the
Carpathia
. The captain of a ship is censor of all wireless messages sent from it. The operators are there to send and receive. They send nothing that the captain does not pass on.'

Mr Sammis said further that the American operators on board the ship receive $45 a month, and English operators £4.

Senator Smith: ‘Do you not believe that it would have been more creditable to yourself and your company if you rewarded such heroism as was shown by Bride rather than seal their lips and arrange a pittance for them from private means?' – ‘We were all doing the best we could.'

‘I dislike to press these questions, but I want to bring out all the facts, in order to end the practice, which is vicious, and which shall be stopped.' Witness said he was in complete accord with Mr Marconi, who frowned upon the custom, but the abolition of the practice would have to be effected with great care, in order to save the feelings of the operators.

Mr Bride, the surviving operator of the
Titanic
, was then recalled. He gave evidence at New York the day after the
Carpathia
arrived there. He was first asked how much he received for the story of his experiences on the wreck from a New York newspaper. He said that he got $1,000.

Senator Smith: ‘When did you last see Captain Smith?' – ‘When he went overboard from the bridge. About three minutes before I left the ship myself.'

‘Did he have on a life preserver?' – ‘I don't know. He had none on when we were working in the cabin just before the ship sank.'

‘You mentioned that your mate, Operator Phillips, and yourself put on life preservers about ten minutes before the boat sank?' – ‘Yes, about that.'

‘Had everyone else gone when you jumped into the water?' – ‘There were several people on deck. I don't know who; some sailors. When the collapsible fell into the water it fell over me. I swam out and grabbed it. We then got away about 150 feet from the side of the
Titanic
just before she sank.'

‘Did you not say before that you saw the captain after you got into the water?' – ‘No. The captain left from the bridge before Phillips and I did. After the captain told us that we could go we stayed on the boat for a time. Phillips sent another C.Q.D. after that. I don't think he got an answer. If he did he did not tell me.'

‘Did you see Phillips after?' – ‘I saw him walking down the deck aft as I was helping to get on the collapsible boat.'

‘Then you never saw him again?' – ‘No. He died later, before he got to the
Carpathia
, in a lifeboat.'

‘At what hour did the
Californian
try to get you?' – ‘About five o'clock.'

‘You did not answer for about half an hour because you were busy with your accounts?' – ‘It was about twenty minutes, I think. I picked up the
Californian
's ice warning while it was being sent to the
Baltic
.'

‘Can you recollect the message?' – ‘It was to the effect that the
Californian
had just passed three large icebergs, and it gave the ship's latitude and longitude. I took the message to the bridge, and gave it to the officer in charge. I don't remember who the officer was, but it was not the captain. No other warnings of ice, so far as I know, were received that day or night.'

Senator Smith: ‘What about the
Frankfurt
's answer to the
Titanic
's C.Q.D.?' – ‘Phillips told me to write in the log replies as he wrote them. The reply from the
Frankfurt
was first. It was “O.K. Will stand by.” That was to our C.Q.D. and position.'

‘Did the
Frankfurt
call you later?' – ‘Yes, she asked what was the matter. The
Frankfurt
was not heard from again. The next response came from the
Carpathia
. I never got the
Frankfurt
's position, and have not heard since how near to the
Titanic
she was. The messages were delayed. The
Carpathia
was the first to announce her position, and the first to say that she was on her way to assist us. Phillips also thought that the
Frankfurt
was much nearer, because her signals were much stronger.'

Senator Smith: ‘If you had given your position to the
Frankfurt
there might be a different story today?' – ‘Yes, sir.' The witness said that Phillips was on at duty at the time when the
Californian
wireless operator said his warnings were refused by the
Titanic
, which was then working with Cape Race.

‘Was Phillips working with Cape Race at the time of the collision?' – ‘He got through to it about ten minutes before.'

Senator Smith called the attention of witness to Captain Rostron's evidence to the effect that the
Carpathia
did not get the
Titanic
's C.Q.D. until 12.35 on Monday morning, which, he said, showed a discrepancy of 51 minutes between the time the message was sent to the
Titanic
and received by the
Carpathia
.

Witness replied that this discrepancy might be due to difference in clocks. He was not sure of the exact time at which the message was sent.

Mr Boxhall, the Fourth Officer, who has been unwell since he last appeared before the Committee on Monday last, explained that the operator's clock had been set forward fully half an hour at midnight.

Bride, continuing his evidence, said that only ten minutes elapsed after the collision before Captain Smith appeared in the wireless room, and ordered the call for aid to be sent.

Mr Boxhall, Fourth Officer of the
Titanic
, was next examined.

Senator Fletcher asked him if the portholes were closed before or after the collision with the iceberg. Witness replied that he did not know. He heard no orders for portholes to be closed.

He was asked as to the positions of various steamers the
Titanic
heard from on Sunday and as to the position of the icebergs of which the
Titanic
was warned by the
Amerika
. Witness replied, ‘I put down no positions which were south of our track.'

Asked again about the steamer's light seen from the deck of the
Titanic
on the night of the disaster Mr Boxhall said: ‘I am quite positive that they were steamer's lights. She was coming towards us and was about five miles away. I saw those lights after the order to man the lifeboats was given and when I got into my boat after firing rockets she had turned. I could see her stern light.'

The witness explained to the Committee that all ships' rockets were not distress signals. He pointed out that there was a system of rockets for signalling when passing a ship at night, and that those might have been the rockets which passengers on the
Californian
said they had seen on a ship in the distance on Sunday night.

‘Are you sure that the ship you saw from the deck of the
Titanic
was a steamer?' – ‘Yes; it was a steamer on account of the arrangement of the lights.' Mr Boxhall saw the lights on the phantom ship near the
Titanic
disappear to the west some time after he left the
Titanic
in the lifeboat.

Senator Smith: ‘I have evidence to support the belief that the
Californian
was only 14 miles from the
Titanic
. Do you think that you could have seen the lights of the
Californian
?' – ‘I don't know. Five miles is the greatest range that the British Board of Trade requires a ship's lights to show, but we know that they can be seen further on clear nights such as that was. I should think, however, that we could not see the
Californian
's lights that night.'

‘If the
Californian
had fired rocket signals do you think you would have seen them 14 miles away?' – ‘I think not.'

Senator Smith asked the witness many questions regarding the
Titanic
's watertight compartments.

‘They were watertight so far as they extended,' said Mr Boxhall.

‘Were the compartments watertight at the ceiling?' – ‘No, sir.'

‘Would it have made any difference?' – ‘Not in this particular case, as the
Titanic
's compartments were damaged in the collision. Moreover, the compartments need not be watertight at the ceiling, because the water never rises to the space above the surface of the sea.'

Mr Cottam, wireless operator on board the
Carpathia
, was then called. He said that he had received $750 from a New York newspaper for his story of the disaster. He had received no message instructing him to suppress any message containing an account of the disaster.

‘Did you transmit any messages from Mr Ismay to his Liverpool, London, or New York office while you were on the
Carpathia
?' – ‘Yes, sir.'

‘How did you get a message to Liverpool?' – ‘Via an American land station.'

Pressed as to whether he had sent any messages to Liverpool via London direct, the witness said that he remembered despatching one via the
Olympic
on Monday. His recollection as to the contents of the message was hazy, because the rush of work was so great he had little fixed idea as to any individual message.

‘At what time on Monday did Mr Ismay send a message to Mr Franklin about the
Titanic
?' – ‘I don't believe that any was sent on Monday, because I was in touch with no land station on Monday. Some messages were, however, sent through the
Olympic
on Monday. I remember a message from Mr Marconi several days after the accident asking why no news of the disaster had been sent.'

‘Did you answer it?' – ‘No, I had too much official business to do. There was no order from the captain to send news. The captain told me to handle nothing but official and passenger traffic.'

Senator Newlands asked Mr Cottam when he and Mr Bride first received news that they would be paid handsomely for their exclusive stories.

Mr Cottam: ‘When we were docking. I was preparing to go on shore when Bride took the message.'

‘Would it have made any difference if you had received the message earlier?' – ‘Not a bit. We were extremely busy. Besides, we were acting on the captain's orders.' Witness added that the weather during the
Carpathia
's voyage to New York after she had rescued the
Titanic
survivors was most unfavourable for the transmission of wireless messages. It was raining incessantly, and that diffused the current.