Voices from the Titanic

by Geoff Tibballs

  Some of the women complained of the cold, but the members of our own party did not suffer, being provided with plenty of wraps.

  From the distance of a mile or more we heard the explosion and saw the Titanic go down. The lights did not go out all at once. As the ship slowly settled, the rows of lights one after another winked out, disappearing beneath the surface. Finally the ship plunged down bow first and the stern slipped beneath the waves.

  Even then we had hoped that all on board might be saved. It was only after we had been taken aboard the Carpathia, and saw how few of us there were compared with the great company aboard the Titanic, that we got the first glimmer of the appalling reality.

  (New York World, 20 April 1912)

  Mrs J. Stuart White from New York sailed first-class. She left the Titanic in boat No. 8, where her cane, fitted with an electric light, provided much-needed illumination. She was highly critical of the male crew members.

  We were the second boat pushed away from the ship, and we saw nothing that happened after that. We were not near enough. We heard the yells of the steerage passengers as they went down, but we saw none of the harrowing part of it all. The men in our boat were anything but seamen, with the exception of one man. The women all rowed, every one of them. Miss Young rowed every minute. The men could not row. They did not know the first thing about it. Miss Swift, from Brooklyn, rowed every minute, from the steamer to the Carpathia. Miss Young rowed every minute also, except when she was throwing up, which she did six or seven times. Countess Rothes stood at the tiller. Where would we have been if it had not been for our women, with such men as that put in charge of the boat? Our head seaman would give an order and those men who knew nothing about the handling of a boat would say, ‘If you don’t stop talking through that hole in your face there will be one less in the boat.’ We were in the hands of men of that kind. I settled two or three fights between them, and quieted them down. Imagine getting right out there and taking out a pipe and filling it and standing there smoking, with the women rowing.

  (US Inquiry, 2 May 1912)

  BOAT NO. 9

  This was launched on the starboard side at 1.20 a.m. with fiftysix people on board, the increased number reflecting the growing concern on board the sinking Titanic. Among the crew on this boat was saloon steward William Ward.

  I was stationed at No. 7, but they did not want me for that boat. They had sufficient men to man the boat. Then I went aft to No. 9 boat and assisted to take the canvas cover off her. Then we lowered her down to level with the boat deck, and a sailor came along with a bag and threw it in the boat. This man said he had been sent down to take charge of the boat by the captain. The boatswain’s mate, Haines, was there, and he ordered this man out of the boat, and the man got out again.

  A few minutes later, either Purser McElroy or Mr Murdoch said: ‘Pass the women and children that are here into that boat.’ There were several men standing around, and they fell back. There was quite a quantity of women and children helped into the boat. One old lady made a great fuss about it and absolutely refused to get into the boat. She went back to the companionway and would not get into the boat.

  There were several men in the boat then to assist in getting the women in. One woman – a French lady – had already fallen and hurt herself a little. The purser told two more men to get in and assist these women down into the boat. From the rail of the boat it is quite a step down to the bottom of the boat, and in the dark they could not see where they were stepping. Then the purser told me to get into the boat and take an oar. I did so, and we still waited there and asked if there were any more women. There were none coming along.

  Then they took about three or four men into the boat, and the officers that were standing there thought there was quite sufficient in it to lower away with safety, and we lowered down to the water, everything running very smoothly.

  When we lowered boat No. 9 the Titanic was not listing at all. She was down by the head, but not listing. She went very gradually for a while. We could just see the ports as she dipped. We could see the light in the ports, and the water seemed to come very slowly up to them. She did not appear to be going fast, and I was of the opinion then that she would not go. I thought we were only out there as a matter of precaution and would certainly go back to the ship. I was still of the opinion she would float.

  Then she gave a kind of sudden lurch forward, and I heard a couple of reports, more like a volley of musketry than anything else. It did not seem to me like an explosion at all.

  There were four of us rowed all night. There were more men in the boat, but some of them had not been to sea before and did not know the first thing about an oar, or know the bow from the stern. The boat was pretty well packed. We had not room to pull the oars. The women had to move their bodies with us when we were rowing.

  We partially rowed to the Carpathia and she partially came some of the way. We saw her at a distance. She was headed our way. She stopped and slewed around a little, and we surmised that she was then picking up a boat. It was hardly light enough to see at the time. It was just breaking day, but we could see her lights. Then we started to pull towards her. I think we were about the fourth or fifth boat to be picked up.

  (US Inquiry, 25 April 1912)

  BOAT NO. 10

  This was launched from the port side at 1.20 a.m. with fifty-five people on board. Its crew included Able Seaman Frank Evans.

  Mr Murdoch was standing there, and I lowered the boat with the assistance of a steward. The Chief Officer said, ‘What are you, Evans?’ I said, ‘A seaman, sir.’ He said: ‘All right. Get into that boat with the other seamen.’

  I got into the bows of this boat, and a young ship’s baker was getting the children and chucking them into the boat, and the women were jumping. Mr Murdoch made them jump across into the boat. It was about two and a half feet. He was making the women jump across, and the children he was chucking across, along with this baker. He threw them onto the women, and he was catching the children by their dresses and chucking them in. One or two women refused in the first place to jump but, after he told them, they finally went.

  One woman in a black dress slipped and fell. She seemed nervous and did not like to jump at first. When she did jump, she did not go far enough. Her heel must have caught on the rail of the deck, and she fell down and someone on the deck below caught her and pulled her up. Back on the boat deck, she took another jump and landed safely in the boat.

  As this boat was being lowered, this foreigner must have jumped from A deck into the boat. He deliberately jumped across into the boat and saved himself.

  Later we tied up to No. 12. We gave the man our painter and made fast, and we stopped there. The Fifth Officer, Mr Lowe, came over in No. 14 and said: ‘Are there any seamen there?’ We said, ‘Yes, sir.’ He said: ‘You will have to distribute these passengers among these boats. Tie them all together and come into my boat to go over into the wreckage and pick up anyone that is alive there.’ We picked up four persons alive, one of whom died on the way back. There were plenty of dead bodies about us, mostly men.

  We picked up a collapsible boat that had some women and children in it and we sailed to the Carpathia with this collapsible boat in tow. One of the ladies there passed over a flask of whisky to the people who were all wet through.

  (US Inquiry, 25 April 1912)

  Mrs Imanita Shelley, a second-class passenger from Montana, was travelling with her mother, Mrs Lutle Davis Parrish, of Woodford County, Kentucky. Her affidavit read:

  A steward brought Mrs Parrish and Mrs Shelley each a lifebelt and showed them how to tie them on. They were told to go to the top deck, the boat deck. As Mrs Shelley was very weak, it took several minutes to reach the upper deck. Mr and Mrs Isidor Straus, who had known of Mrs Shelley being so ill, met them on the way and helped them to the upper deck, where they found a chair for her and made her sit down.

  After sitting in the chair for about five minutes one of the sailors ran to Mrs Shelley an
d implored her to get in the lifeboat that was then being launched. He informed Mrs Shelley that it was the last boat on the ship, and that unless she got into this one she would have to take her chances on the steamer, and that as she had been so sick she ought to take to the boat and make sure.

  Mrs Straus advised taking to the boats, and, pushing her mother towards the sailor, Mrs Shelley made for the davits where the boat hung. It was found impossible to swing the davits in, which left a space of between four and five feet between the edge of the deck and the suspended boat. The sailor picked up Mrs Parrish and threw her bodily into the boat. Mrs Shelley jumped and landed safely.

  On trying to lower the boat, the tackle refused to work and it took considerable time, about fifteen minutes, to reach the water. On reaching the water, the casting-off apparatus would not work and the ropes had to be cut.

  Just as they reached the water a crazed Italian jumped from the deck into the lifeboat, landing on Mrs Parrish, severely bruising her right side and leg.

  (US Inquiry, 25 May 1912)

  Mrs Daniel Marvin of New York became a widow at eighteen. Married for just five weeks, she and her husband were returning from their honeymoon on the Titanic. Her father-in-law, Henry Norton Marvin, was the president of ‘a moving picture concern’ and had arranged for films to be taken of the wedding which the bride and groom were hoping to keep as souvenirs. Alas the groom never got to see them.

  Dan grabbed me in his arms and knocked down men to get me in the boats. As I was put in the boat, he cried, ‘It’s all right, little girl. You go and I’ll stay a little while. I’ll put on a life preserver and jump off and follow your boat.’ As our boat started off he threw a kiss at me.

  When we reached the deck after the accident we were in darkness. While on the deck I heard at least ten revolver shots. See, one bullet was fired at my cheek. Here are the powder marks.

  The men whom I saw were brave, for they pushed aside others when the cowards made for the boats before the women.

  When we pulled away from the Titanic I think I saw Maj. Butt, whom I knew slightly, standing near where they were loading the boats, with an iron bar or stick in his hand beating back the frenzied crowd who were attempting to overcrowd the lifeboats.

  (US press, 19 April 1912)

  Travelling second-class, Marshall Drew, aged eight, got into the boat with his aunt.

  All was calm and orderly. An officer was in charge. ‘Women and children first,’ he said as he directed the lifeboat to be filled. There were many tearful farewells. We and Uncle Jim said ‘goodbye’. Waiting on deck before this I could hear the ship’s orchestra playing somewhere off to first class.

  The lifeboat was near the stern. I will never forget that as I looked over my right shoulder, steerage was blacked out. It made an impression I never forgot. The lowering of the lifeboat 70ft to the sea was perilous. Davits, ropes, nothing worked properly, so that first one end of the lifeboat was tilted up and then far down. I think it was the only time I was scared.

  Lifeboats pulled some distance away from the sinking Titanic, afraid of what the suction might do. I am always annoyed at artists’ depictions of the sinking of Titanic. I’ve never seen one that came anywhere near the truth. There might have been the slightest ocean swell but it was dead calm. Stars there may have been, but the blackness of the night was so intense one could not see anything like a horizon. As row by row of the porthole lights of the Titanic sank into the sea this was about all one could see. When the Titanic upended to sink, all was blacked out until the tons of machinery crashed to the bow. This sounded like an explosion which of course it was not. As this happened hundreds of people were thrown into the sea. It isn’t likely I shall ever forget the screams of those people as they perished in the water said to be 28 degrees.

  The reader will have to understand that at this point in my life I was being brought up as a typical British kid. You were not allowed to cry. You were a ‘little man’. So as a cool kid I lay down in the bottom of the lifeboat and went to sleep. When I awoke it was broad daylight as we approached the Carpathia. Looking around over the gunwale it seemed to me like the Arctic. Icebergs of huge size ringed the horizon for 360 degrees.

  Passenger Miss Kornelia Andrews, aged sixty-three, from New York State, told reporters of her harrowing experience:

  When we finally did get into a boat we found that our miserable men companions could not row and had only said they could because they wanted to save themselves. Finally I had to take an oar with one of the able seamen in the boat.

  Alongside of us was a sailor, who lighted a cigarette and flung the match carelessly among us women. Several women in the boat screamed, fearing they would be set on fire. The sailor replied: ‘We are going to hell anyway and we might as well be cremated now as then.’

  The most pathetic thing I heard was that on one of the boats, a collapsible lifeboat, holding sixteen to twenty persons, the party were up to their knees in water for six hours, so that one man had his legs frozen and eight died.

  The eight were thrown overboard to lighten the boat and keep it from being swamped.

  (New York World, 20 April 1912)

  Kornelia Andrews’ fifty-one-year-old sister, Mrs Anna Hogeboom, got away in the same boat.

  A little after twelve we heard commotion in the corridor and we made inquiries and they told us we had better put on life preservers. We had only five minutes to get ready. We put our fur coats right on over our night dresses and rushed on deck.

  Our lifeboat was already full, but there was no panic. The discipline in a way was good. No one hurried and no one crowded. We waited for the fourth boat and were slowly lowered 75ft to the water. The men made no effort to get into the boat. As we pulled away we saw them all standing in an unbroken line on the deck.

  There they stood – Major Butt, Colonel Astor, waving a farewell to his wife; Mr Thayer, Mr Case, Mr Clarence Moore, Mr Widener, all multi-millionaires, and hundreds of other men bravely smiling at us all. Never have I seen such chivalry and fortitude.

  Before our boat was lowered they called to some miserable specimens of humanity and said, ‘Can you row?’ and for the purpose of getting in they answered ‘Yes.’ But upon pulling out we found we had a Chinese and an Armenian, neither of whom knew how to row. So there we were in mid-ocean with one able-bodied seaman.

  Then my niece took one oar and assisted the seaman and some of the other women rowed on the other side.

  Scarcely any of the lifeboats were properly manned. Two, filled with women and children, capsized before our eyes. The collapsible boats were only temporarily useful. They soon partially filled with water. In one boat eighteen or twenty persons sat in water above their knees for six hours.

  Eight men in this boat were overcome, died and were thrown overboard. Two women were in this boat. One succumbed after a few hours and one was saved.

  About dawn we saw a ship in the dim distance, seemingly many miles away. This gave us our first hope, but at the same time the wind began to rise and the waves grew large. Our oarsmen and oarswomen were nearly exhausted. Had the wind increased, as it did a few hours afterwards, we would never have escaped. Shortly after eight o’clock the Carpathia reached near enough for us to row to it, we having rowed about nine miles, and being the last lifeboat to reach the rescue ship.

  With our frozen fingers and feet it was difficult to climb up the wet, slippery rope ladder, but a rope fastened around our waists protected us from slipping into the sea.

  (New York World, 20 April 1912)

  Miss Susie Webber from Devon was on her way to Hartford, Connecticut.

  I rushed on deck and saw them lowering the boats. A gentleman standing by kindly handed me into a lifeboat [No. 10], which contained women and children. After it was launched, full of women, accompanied by one sailor, a foreigner jumped from the boat deck and landed in the boat just before it struck the water.

  Our English people were very brave. I am sure they realized the Titanic was going down.


  We rowed away from her with only two men. I was facing the Titanic and could see her going down. I saw the lights go out deck after deck. When the water got into the engine room there was an explosion, and then I saw the leviathan part in the middle. The stern rose high in the air; the bow less high. Then she went down slowly, amid heartrending cries for help of hundreds of doomed men and women.

  We were floating in mid-ocean among the icebergs for six hours. The night was bitterly cold but very calm. At last we saw the lights of the Carpathia coming to our aid; this was a welcome sight. We were taken on her and treated with every kindness, both passengers and crew doing everything they could for the survivors.

  (Western Morning News, April 1912)

  BOAT NO. 11

  This went off from the starboard side at 1.25 a.m. with seventy aboard. There were only three first-class passengers, the rest being second or third. Among the crew was saloon steward Edward Wheelton.

  There were at least a thousand in the water at one time, and most of them died of exposure, but a large number perished when the boilers exploded.

  At one time while we were waiting for rescue in the boats every time we moved the oars they would strike a corpse. Two women died from exposure in our boat while we were floating about waiting for the Carpathia. We buried them over the side of the boat then and there.

  The women in the lifeboats were remarkably calm during the time we were on the water, and the children were very brave. Some women rescued babies which were very small, and a few women voluntarily gave up their lives to protect them.