Voices from the Titanic

by Geoff Tibballs

  The word came that we were to get out of our beds and get the lifebelts on and get up to the upper deck. This was half an hour after the collision. I met a steward and I asked him what number my boat was, and he said No. 16. So I went up to No. 16 boat, and I saw sailors with their bags ready for No. 16 boat. I said to myself, ‘There is no chance there,’ and so I ran back to the port side on the saloon deck with another steward and a woman and two children. The steward had one of the children in his arms, and the woman was crying. I took the child off the woman and made for one of the boats. Then the word came around from the starboard side there was a collapsible boat being launched there and that all women and children were to make for it. But when we got there we saw that it was forward. We saw the collapsible boat taken off the saloon deck, and then the sailors and the firemen that were forward saw the ship’s bow in the water and saw that she was intending to sink her bow. So they shouted that we were to go aft. Word came there was a boat getting launched. We were just turning round and making for the stern end when a wave washed us off the deck, and the child was washed out of my arms.

  (US Inquiry, 25 April 1912)

  Edward Dorking, a nineteen-year-old Englishman travelling third-class, baled out of the sinking ship as she prepared to plunge beneath the waves.

  As the last boat departed I turned to go below to get my life-belt, which was under my bunk. As I passed the engine room, I saw Captain Smith, standing in the doorway, giving orders to the crew. The perspiration was pouring down his face in streams, but he was calm and collected, and as I recollect him now, he appeared like a marble statue after a rain.

  I never reached the life preserver. The water by that time was above my bunk and I had to retreat on deck. All the time the forward part of the boat, where the side had been jammed by the iceberg, was dropping lower and lower into the water, until it became necessary for those remaining on board to grasp something stationary to keep erect.

  How long it was after the last boat left the ship until the Titanic went down, I have no distinct recollection. It seemed like an age to me. As I clung to the ship rail, turning the situation over in my mind, I finally concluded that I would take a chance of jumping into the water and risk being picked up by some of the boats. It seemed certain doom to remain. I sat down on the deck and, removing my shoes and outer garments, I plunged over the rail and shot into the water forty feet below.

  As I struck the chilly water, I received a shock that took my breath away, but as soon as I rose to the surface, I struck out from the ship, with no idea in mind except to get beyond the suction line when the Titanic should go down. I was perhaps twenty yards off when the grand liner suddenly tipped up on its nose, the rear end lifted out of the water exposing the propeller blades, and slid gently forward to its watery grave. The sinking of the ship caused scarcely a ripple on the ocean’s surface.

  It seemed to me that a half hour elapsed from the time I left the ship until an upturned lifeboat with about thirty men and one woman on it passed the spot where I was swimming. There were many others in the same predicament as myself and it was a constant fight to prevent those whose strength was almost spent from grasping me about the neck or by the limbs in a desperate effort to keep from drowning.

  I was fortunate enough to grasp the side of the upturned lifeboat as it floated past me. I clung on with both hands, at the same time warding off two men who had given up their hold on the lifeboat and had grasped me by the legs. When my strength was about giving out, the men on the raft gave me assistance and dragged me over the side to a place of safety.

  We drifted about during the remainder of the night, suffering intensely from cold and exposure. Three of our number died and were thrown overboard, and two others slipped off and failed to get back again.

  It was just about daybreak that our sinking spirits were cheered by the sight of a rocket, which announced that succour was near. An hour later, as the morning light was dawning, we were picked up by a rescue boat. I guess I must have become unconscious then, for when I woke up, my companions were feebly cheering at the sight of the Carpathia standing off about a mile distant.

  One of my companions at the hospital was a lookout, who had been saved from the Titanic. He told me that before the ship struck the iceberg, he had been warning three times of the impending danger. The first time, he said, no attention was paid to the warning; the second time, the result was the same; and the third warning came too late.

  (Bureau County Republican, 2 May 1912)

  Burly Swedish emigrant Ernst Persson was plucked from the freezing waters by collapsible boat ‘B’.

  After the boats had all gone and we were still on the Titanic, a calm settled over everyone. The lights had gone out and only the stars indicated what was going on. When the last boats put away there was some panic among a few to get aboard, but the majority were calm and everyone prepared to meet his fate in his own way.

  The band was playing and kept playing while the vessel sank lower and lower into the water. Suddenly there was a rush of water and the deck slipped away from under me like a bullet and I went down, down, down. It seemed as if I would never stop. I must have gone down a mile, then the progress stopped it and I came to the surface just as I was giving up all hope.

  The ocean was very calm but how cold. Fortunately I always did a great deal of swimming at home and did not mind the frightful chill as much as I might have otherwise. As long as I had come to the surface I felt there must be some hope, and I began to swim with others swimming all around me. But I was fast going and several times I was almost ready to give up when my hand struck something.

  I found it would float and just had strength enough to climb aboard. It appeared to me to be a door. I lay on it for a moment to get back my strength. Then I felt something tugging at my back. It was a boat hook that one of the men in the lifeboat had thrown at me. Another threw an oar and between them they managed to get me on board. How I was ever able to get there I do not know. When they pulled me in a chill came over me and I must have fainted. I knew nothing more until they brought me to on the Carpathia.

  (Boston Post, 22 April 1912)

  Irishman Eugene Daly told the world of his thrilling escape on collapsible boat ‘B’. What it may have lacked in accuracy, it more than made up for in colour.

  After the accident, we were all held down in steerage, which seemed to be a lifetime. All this time, we knew that the water was coming up and up rapidly. Finally some of the women and children were let up, but we had quite a number of hot-headed Italians and other peoples who got crazy and made for the stairs. These men tried to rush the stairway, pushing and crowding and pulling the women down – some of them with weapons in their hands. I saw two dagos shot and some that took punishment from the officers.

  After a bit, I got up on one of the decks and threw a big door over the side. I caught hold of some ropes that had been used setting free a lifeboat. Up this I climbed to the next deck because the stairs were so crowded that I could not get through. I finally got up to the top deck and made for the front. The water was just covering the upper deck at the bridge and it was easy to slide because she had such a tip. I reached a collapsible boat that was fastened to the deck by two rings. It could not be moved.

  During that brief time that I worked on cutting one of those ropes, the collapsible was crowded with people hanging upon the edges. The Titanic gave a lurch downward and we were in the water up to our hips. She rose again slightly, and I succeeded in cutting the second rope which held her stern.

  Another lurch threw this boat and myself off and away from the ship into the water. I fell upon one of the oars and into a mass of people. Everything I touched seemed to be women’s hair.

  As I looked over my shoulder, as I was still hanging to this oar, I could see the enormous funnels of the Titanic being submerged in the water. The poor people that covered the water were sucked down in those funnels, each of which was 25ft in diameter, like flies. I managed to get away and succeeded
in reaching the same boat I had tried to set free from the deck of the Titanic. I climbed upon this, and with the other men, balanced ourselves in water to our hips until we were rescued. People who came up beside us begged to get on this upturned boat. As a matter of saving ourselves we were obliged to push them off. One man was alongside and asked if he could get upon it. We told him that if he did, we would all go down. His reply was: ‘God bless you. Goodbye.’

  Another steerage passenger, Carl Jonsson, a thirty-two-year-old Swedish/American, recounted his escape from the stricken ship.

  People began to run by me towards the stern of the ship, and as I started to run I realized that the boat was beginning to go down very rapidly, and there was quite a decline noticeable in the deck, showing that her nose was being buried. A wave struck me and I went overboard.

  As I rose to the surface I saw a board floating to the top of the water and I seized it. A wave threw me away from the ship and I began to swim, clutching to the board to keep me afloat. The shock seemed to restore my senses, and I began to see objects in the water quite clearly. The air was rent with screams and curses, and there were a lot of men and women in the water trying to get away from the ship to escape the awful suction when she went down.

  There was an overturned lifeboat riding a big wave near me. I was swept towards it, and managed to catch hold of its edge. There were seven or eight of its original passengers clinging to its sides. By this time we were almost half a mile from the ship and we could still see it clearly. It was quite low in the bow and was settling rapidly. Suddenly it seemed to give a great lurch forward. The stern seemed to rise from the water, and the ship plunged head-first beneath the waves.

  For fully a minute as she was going down there was an awful silence everywhere. Not a sound was heard from the lifeboats, which we could now see clustered in a semi-circle a few hundred yards ahead of us, nor was there any sound from the waters behind us, where even then we could see hundreds of dark forms struggling in the water with bits of wreckage and debris.

  At the second that the ship took her final dive there was an awful shriek carried to us from the waters behind, as though all of the poor, drowning wretches had joined in a final death cry of agony.

  (US press, 19 April 1912)

  Yorkshire-born fireman Harry Senior painted a heroic picture of Captain Smith’s final moments.

  When I was awakened by the noise of the collision I thought I was dreaming that I was on a train which had run off the lines, and that I was being jolted about. I jumped out and went on deck. There was a lot of ice about the decks, and I said: ‘Why, we have struck an iceberg. That’s nothing, we’ll go back and turn in.’ About an hour afterwards an order came to man the boats and put lifebelts on. I went on deck again.

  We got up to the hurricane deck to lower some of the collapsible boats, but there was no tackle or anything to lower them by. We had to throw them down to the boat deck and run the risk of their breaking. The ship was pretty near sinking then, and the captain shouted: ‘Each man for himself.’ I had noticed him on the bridge before that. He was pacing up and down, sending up rockets and giving orders.

  I dived over the side, and got on the keel of a boat which floated off overturned. There were thirty-five of us on the keel of that boat. The other boats picked us up.

  While I was swimming I saw the captain in the water. He was swimming with a baby in his arms, raising it out of the water as he swam back to the ship. I also had picked up a baby, but it died from the cold before I could reach the boat.

  (Daily Graphic, 29 April 1912)

  ENGLEHARDT COLLAPSIBLE BOAT ‘A’

  The last collapsible floated off the deck before it could be properly launched. It nevertheless provided a welcome refuge for over a dozen survivors. First-class steward Edward Brown told of the vain attempt to launch the boat and how he – a non-swimmer – had survived in the water with the aid of his lifebelt.

  We got two planks on the bow end of the boat, and we slid it down on to the boat deck. We tried to get it to the davits, and we got it about halfway and then the ship got a list to port, and we had great difficulty. We could not get it up the incline right up to the davits. We made it fast by slackening the falls, but we could not haul it away any further. There were four or five women that I could see there waiting to get into this boat if we got it under the davits. The captain came past us while we were trying to get this boat away with a megaphone in his hand. He said to us: ‘Well, boys, do your best for the women and children, and look out for yourselves.’ He walked on the bridge.

  While we were trying to get the boat up to the davits, the bridge went right under water. I found the water come right up my legs. I jumped into the collapsible boat. When the sea came onto the deck they all scrambled into the boat. Then I cut the fall, and I called out to the men on the forward end of the boat to cut her loose. She would float if we got the falls loose. I cut the rope and then I was washed right out of her. The boat was practically full when the sea came into it and washed everybody out of the boat. The last I saw of the women they were in the water.

  When I got in the water, I was in a whirlpool going round. I had my lifebelt on and I came up to the top. There was no wreckage around then, but a lot of people in the water. They tore my clothing away from me with struggling in the water. I saw a black object. I never swam in my life, but I kept myself up with the lifebelt and made my way the best I could towards it. The black object proved to be a collapsible boat. There were sixteen or seventeen on it, and it was half submerged with its weight of men. I got on the boat, and later we picked up a woman and a very big gentleman. Eventually we were picked up by No. 14 boat and taken to the Carpathia.

  (British Inquiry, 16 May 1912)

  Swedish steerage passenger Gunnar Isidor Tenglin and his friend desperately searched for a lifeboat as the ship started to sink.

  We walked along from one lifeboat to another, but officers and crew were keeping the men back and loading the women and children. I noticed a number of boats that had been loaded on the upper deck stop at the second deck to take on women there. In many of these boats were men, but the officers made them get out and give place to the women.

  The lifeboats all gone, it looked to us as if we were doomed to perish with the ship, when a collapsible lifeboat was discovered. This boat would hold about fifty people and we had considerable trouble getting it loose from its fastenings. The boat was on the second deck and the ship settled the question of its launching as the water suddenly came up over the deck and the boat floated.

  There must have been fully 150 people swimming around or clinging to the boat and we feared it would capsize or sink. We had no oars, or anything else to handle the boat with and were at the mercy of the waves, but the sea was calm. There was no way to sit down in the boat and we stood up knee-deep in ice-cold water while those on the edges pushed the frantic people in the water back to their fates, it being feared that they would doom us all.

  The shock of the cold water and the fright caused many to succumb. I do not know how many died on that lifeboat. One big Swede was kept busy throwing the corpses overboard as we desired to make the boat as light as possible to increase its buoyancy. One woman was stark crazy, her mania taking the form of embracing the men. There were three men insane, but they made no attempt to jump overboard. It seemed to us as if we had been standing up in that boat for a week, when it was in reality only about six hours. I was numbed with the cold. I had no feeling in my hands or feet, as I did not put on my shoes when I left my room, although I had on my overcoat. It could not have been twenty minutes after we launched our life raft from the deck of the Titanic that the big liner sank.

  When we were picked up by the Carpathia there were only twelve of us left. The lifeboats got pretty well separated during the night, as some left from the port side and some from the starboard side of the ship, pulling away in different directions.

  The Carpathia remained on the scene for about two hours, picking up the l
ifeboats and moving slowly about among the wreckage and the ice. It appeared to us as if the ocean was carpeted with dead.

  I saw Captain Smith only once during the voyage and that was the day before the accident. He came into the third cabin quarters and told some of the crew who had been loafing there to keep out, and threatened to impose a fine of $5 on each member of crew who was found among the passengers.

  While I was still on the ship I saw two Swede girls who were in a lifeboat jump overboard when they observed some of their friends who had been left behind. One old man named Lindahl, when he became convinced the boat was sure to sink, said: ‘It’s no use trying to get away. I’m an old man and I will not be missed. I will go down to my berth and wait the end.’ I guess he did as he disappeared in the direction of the sleeping apartments. One big fellow, also a Swede, became literally paralyzed with fright. He stood with one arm extended like a statue, unable to move a muscle. I know of one Swedish woman who, with her four children, was lost. Another woman lost her husband, brother, son and uncle. These folks were all steerage passengers. I think there were more of the crew saved than the steerage people.

  We in the steerage did not know anything about being among icebergs until the Titanic hit one. I lost everything I had. I had about $30 in a suitcase, concealed well, as there had been several robberies among passengers the day before the accident. When we got to New York we got $25 from some relief committee, $5 from a man who was giving away money right and left, and $10 from the Salvation Army. We were also fitted out with clothing. I got a suit of clothes, overcoat and other attire, and a first-class ticket to Burlington, which had been my destination, my ticket having been lost with my other effects.