Voices from the Titanic

by Geoff Tibballs

  (Cork Free Press, 13 May 1912)

  CHAPTER 5

  THE NEWS BREAKS

  TITANIC STRIKES AN ICEBERG, BEGINS TO SINK AT HEAD

  Greatest Liner Afloat on Maiden Voyage Sends Wireless Calls for Help Off Newfoundland – Women Being Taken Off in Boats – Virginian, Olympic and Baltic Racing to the Rescue – Last Messages Faint and Blurred

  Cape Race, N.F., April 14. At 10.25 tonight the White Star steamship Titanic called ‘C.Q.D.’ and reported having struck an iceberg. The steamer said that immediate assistance was required.

  Half an hour afterwards another message came reporting that they were sinking by the head and that women were being put off in the lifeboats.

  The weather was calm and clear, the Titanic’s wireless operator reported, and gave the position of the vessel 41.46 north latitude and 50.14 west longitude.

  The Marconi station at Cape Race notified the Allan Liner Virginian, the captain of which immediately advised that he was proceeding for the scene of the disaster.

  Cape Race, April 15, 2 a.m. The Virginian at midnight was about 170 miles distant from the Titanic and expected to reach that vessel about 10 a.m. Monday.

  The Olympic at an early hour Monday morning was in latitude 40.32 and longitude 61.18 west. She was in direct communication with the Titanic and was making all haste towards her.

  The steamship Baltic also reported herself as about 200 miles east of the Titanic and was making all possible speed towards her.

  The last signals from the Titanic were heard by the Virginian at 12.27 a.m.

  The wireless operator on the Virginian says these signals were blurred and ended abruptly.

  VIRGINIAN GETS FIRST CALL FOR HELP AND SPEEDS TO GIVE NEEDED ASSISTANCE

  Montreal, April 14. – The news of the Titanic disaster was received at the Allan Line offices here in a wireless message from the captain of the steamer Virginian of that line.

  The Virginian sailed from Halifax this morning and at the time the wireless was sent she is reckoned to have been about abeam of Cape Race. She was 900 passengers on board, but can accommodate all of the Titanic’s passengers.

  The message from the Virginian’s captain was sent by wireless to Cape Race, thence by cable to Halifax and then by wire to Montreal.

  The Allan Line officials here expect to hear further news at any moment.

  The Titanic was 1,284 miles east of Sandy Hook at 2.15 Sunday morning.

  This is the giant Titanic’s maiden voyage, and a disaster was narrowly averted when she sailed from Southampton Wednesday last. It was similar to that which befell her sister ship, the Olympic. Capt. E.J. Smith was commander of the Olympic at that time and he is charge of the Titanic.

  The Titanic, with about 1200 passengers aboard, 350 of whom are in the first cabin, was leaving her pier when there was a sound as of a mountain battery being discharged. There was a rush of passengers to the port rail to see what the trouble was.

  It then developed that as she passed out into the stream the 45,000-ton steamship had sucked the water between herself and the quay to so great an extent that the seven huge hawsers which the American liner New York was moored to the pier had been snapped like threads.

  The New York began drifting helplessly, stern first, towards the Titanic, which seemed to act like a magnet. Slowly the New York bore down on the Titanic, which reversed her engines. In a few minutes her headway was stopped and she began to move slowly astern. The tugs Neptune and Vulcan sped to the helpless American liner, caught her with hawsers bow and stern and towed her back to her berth. The tugs’ timely arrival and quick work probably prevented a bad smash between the two liners.

  One assuring feature of the accident to the Titanic is that a large number of ships appear to be within the big liner’s call. Besides the Virginian of the Allan Line, which appears to be the first to have heard the Titanic’s distress, and the White Star liners Baltic and Olympic, both of which were reported on the way to the scene, there is also the Cincinnati of the Hamburg-American Line and the Cunarder Mauretania, the Hamburg-American liner Prinz Adelbert, and the Amerika of the same line, and the North German Lloyd liner Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm, bound from this port to Plymouth, all of which and many smaller liners are shown on today’s steamship chart as in the vicinity of Cape Race.

  TITANIC A MARVEL IN SIZE AND LUXURY

  The Titanic and her sister ship, the Olympic, of the White Star Line are the largest ships afloat in the world, being 100ft longer than their next rival. These sea monsters are at the same time floating mansions of luxury, each capable of holding a townful of people. They are 882½ft long, 92ft in the beam and 94ft in depth, with 45,000 tons register and 66,000 tons displacement.

  With officers and crew numbering 860, the Titanic is capable of carrying 3,000 to 3,500 passengers – cabin and steerage. She was built to be the last word in size, speed, power, and sea luxury, and it would take a powerful imagination to conceive the magnificence and detail for comfort and luxury and pastime on the great ship. Its interior more closely resembles a huge hotel, with heavy balustraded wide stairways, elevators running up and down for nine storeys; its great saloons and restaurants, its miniature theatre, squash and tennis courts, swimming pools and Turkish bath rooms; its great smoking room, card rooms and beautiful music rooms, and even on the top of its 12 decks a miniature golf links.

  Captain Smith, her commander, the admiral of the White Star fleet, was in command of her sister ship, the Olympic, when she made her maiden voyage to New York and also when she collided with the British cruiser Hawke in the Solent last September.

  (New York World, 15 April 1912)

  THE BIGGEST SHIPWRECK IN THE WORLD THE TITANIC COLLIDES WITH AN ICEBERG NEAR CAPE RACE LINERS TO THE RESCUE ALL PASSENGERS SAFELY TAKEN OFF BY LIFEBOATS CRIPPLED VESSEL STEAMING TO HALIFAX

  The biggest ship in the world, the Titanic, has met with disaster on her maiden voyage.

  She collided with an iceberg last evening, 270 miles from Cape Race, and was reported in a sinking condition.

  Not till after two o’clock this afternoon was the tense anxiety in London relieved by the news that all the passengers had been put off in lifeboats, and that the liner Virginian was standing by her. The sea was calm.

  Later, it was reported that the Titanic was still afloat, and making her way to Halifax.

  Only last Wednesday the Titanic, the pride of the White Star Line and the very last word in shipbuilding, sailed majestically from Southampton to New York, crowds of people watching her stately progress. ‘A floating island’, ‘a gorgeous hotel on the waves’, ‘a town in motion’, were some of the admiring phrases bestowed on her.

  This mighty vessel dwarfed the Oceanic and the New York, both huge liners in their day. The very suction caused by her screws caused the seven mooring ropes of the New York to snap like threads.

  So the Titanic proudly left port. But disaster was to come, and that from an unexpected cause. There is a phenomenal amount of ice in the track of westward-bound vessels this spring, and several liners have had narrow escapes.

  Last evening, apparently a little after 10 o’clock American time (three o’clock this morning, English time), the Titanic collided with an iceberg. She was then about 270 miles south-east of Cape Race, Newfoundland.

  The details up to the time of writing are meagre in the extreme. All that is known definitely is that the indispensable wireless apparatus was set in motion, and the terrible signal ‘S.O.S.’ was flashed out in every direction.

  The biggest ship in the world was sinking, and in urgent need of help!

  Thirty minutes after the first wireless message, a second communication reported that the Titanic was sinking bow first, and that the women were being put into the lifeboats.

  (London Evening News, 15 April 1912)

  A COINCIDENCE

  The Olympic’s Collision with the Hawke Recalled

  In design and construction the Titanic is similar to her sister ship the Olympic and it i
s a tragic coincidence that both vessels have met with misfortune.

  The Titanic has a tonnage of 46,382, or 1,004 more than the Olympic. Her length is 582ft with a 92ft beam; and she is luxuriously fitted up with especial regard to the requirements of wealthy Americans.

  The Olympic, it will be remembered, was in collision with the cruiser Hawke soon after leaving port, and sustained such damage that she had to be placed again in the hands of her builders.

  The misfortune that has now befallen the Titanic will cause widespread regret, for the vessel, in the estimation of those who were privileged to view her, was another triumph in British shipping and shipbuilding.

  (Nottingham Evening News, 15 April 1912)

  1500 PERSONS HURLED TO DEATH AS MONSTER LINER TITANIC IS SUNK BY COLLISION WITH MOUNTAIN OF ICE

  Enormous Mass Fatal to World’s Greatest Steamship on Maiden Voyage, Despite Aid by Sister Ships

  WIRELESS CALLS BRING AID TOO LATE

  The greatest marine disaster in the history of the world occurred last Sunday night when the Titanic, of the White Star Line, the biggest and finest of steamships, shattered herself against an iceberg and sank, with 1500 of her passengers and crew in less than four hours.

  Out of nearly 2200 people that she carried only 675 were saved, and most of these were women and children. They were picked up from small boats by the Cunarder Carpathia, which found, when she ended her desperate race against time, a sea strewn with wreckage of the lost ship and the bodies of drowned men and women.

  Among the 1320 passengers of the giant liner were Col. John Jacob Astor and his wife; Isidor Straus; Maj. Archibald W. Butt, aide to President Taft; George W. Widener and Mrs Widener of Philadelphia; Mr and Mrs Henry S. Harper; William T. Stead, the London journalist, and many more whose names are known on both sides of the Atlantic. The news that few besides women and children were saved has caused the greatest apprehension as to the fate of these.

  When the Titanic plunged headlong against a wall of ice at 10.40 p.m. (New York time) on Sunday night, her fate established that no modern steamship is unsinkable, and that all of a large passenger list cannot be saved in a liner’s small boats. The White Star Line believed that the Titanic was practically invulnerable and insisted, until there was no doubting the full extent of the catastrophe, that she could not sink. The great ship was the last word in modern scientific construction, but she found the ocean floor almost as quickly as a wooden ship.

  On her maiden trip, the Titanic, built and equipped at a cost of $10,000,000, a floating palace, found her graveyard. Swinging from the westerly steamship lane at the south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to take the direct run to this port she hurled her giant bulk against an iceberg that rose from an immense field drifted unseasonably from the Arctic. Running at high speed into that grim and silent enemy of seafarers, the shock crushed her bow. From a happy, comfortable vessel she was converted in a few minutes into a ship of misery and dreadful suffering.

  Through rent plates and timbers water rushed so swiftly that her captain, E. J. Smith, the admiral of the White Star fleet, knew there was no hope of saving her. That much the faltering wireless has told us.

  It has been many years since the world was left in such suspense and dread as followed the first faltering calls for help from the crushed Titanic. At 10.30 p.m. on Sunday night, the Virginian, speeding on her way to Glasgow, picked up the White Star steam-ship’s insistent, frantic C.Q.D., the Marconi signal of distress and peril that clears the air of all lesser messages and stops ships at sea full in their tracks.

  Dash by dash and dot by dot, the wireless operator of the Virginian caught the cry for help.

  ‘Have struck an iceberg. Badly damaged. Rush aid.’

  Seaward and landward, J. G. Phillips, the Titanic’s wireless man, was hurling the appeal for help. By fits and starts – for the wireless was working unevenly and blurringly – Phillips reached out to the world, crying the Titanic’s peril. A word or two, scattered phrases, now and then a connected sentence, made up the messages that sent a thrill of apprehension for a thousand miles east, west and south of the doomed liner.

  (New York Call, 16 April 1912)

  LINE’S OFFICIALS BELITTLED DISASTER, REASSURED ALL INQUIRERS UNTIL 7 P.M.

  All day long the most hopeful spirit seemed to prevail in the officers of the White Star Line at No. 9 Broadway. Inquiring friends were reassured, intending passengers on other steamers were booked with smiles and laughter by the clerks, who spoke of the ‘little difficulty of the Titanic’.

  This feeling of confidence, which extended from Vice-President P. S. Franklin down to the door porters, ran high until exactly 7 o’clock.

  Just after seven had struck one of the waiting newspaper men ‘sensed’ that something had occurred. Gloom seemed to have settled over the offices where all had been cheerful before. In an instant there was a rush to the office of Mr Franklin. Instead of being away to dinner, as had been expected, he was at his desk showing great depression.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he was asked by a score of reporters. In reply he only shook his head and looked out of the window into the murky street below.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he muttered, after what seemed an hour of seconds, ‘I regret to say that the Titanic sank at 2.20 this morning.’

  He was alone the next moment, for every one of his callers had rushed to a telephone. When they returned the reporters were armed with additional information obtained from the Marconi Wireless Company. But it was some time before Mr Franklin could be induced to talk for publication.

  Through a representative he sent out, piecemeal, the news that had reached him in the telegram from Capt. Haddock of the Olympic, which had already been reported by the Marconi Press Agency.

  At first Mr Franklin would only admit that the Titanic had sunk and that the Carpathia was bound for New York with the ‘survivors’. Then he was forced to say that so far as he knew but 675 of the 2200, or thereabouts, aboard had been saved. Finally he sent for the newspaper men and made this statement.

  ‘As far as we know the rumours from Halifax that three steamers had passengers on board from the Titanic – the Virginian, the Parisian and the Carpathia, are true.’

  (New York World, 16 April 1912)

  ANXIOUS CROWD CLAMOURS AT OFFICES HERE FOR NEWS

  Crowds of distraught inquirers after news besieged the offices of the White Star Line at No. 9 Broadway until early this morning. Each answer that the officers of the I.M.M. had less information by far than the newspapers added another to the company of those that waited, hoping against hope that news might come. From 9 o’clock on all the officers of the company were present in Vice-President Franklin’s office. There were many weeping and hysterical women in the throng.

  Vincent Astor, accompanied by N. Biddle and W. A. Dobbyns, Col. Astor’s secretary, drove to the offices in an automobile at 9.30.

  He was asked if he had received any word from his father and Mrs Astor.

  ‘Nothing, except what I have read in the newspapers,’ he replied.

  As he entered the offices of the company he heard a rumour that was current, but which was not confirmed, to the effect that his father, John Jacob Astor, had been drowned, but that Mrs Astor had been saved.

  Young Astor hurried to the private office of Vice-President Franklin, where he remained for fifteen minutes in conference with that official. When he left the offices and entered his automobile he was weeping.

  Mr Astor and Col. Astor’s secretary were asked if they had received any news relative to Col. Astor and Mrs Astor. They declined to answer.

  Sylvester Byrnes, secretary to Isidor Straus, reached the offices of the steamship company shortly before 10 o’clock and made inquiry relative to Mr and Mrs Isidor Straus, who were on the Titanic. He was informed by the officials of the company that no detailed report had been received relative to the identity of the passengers reported saved.

  Mr Byrnes said Jesse Straus left New York late yesterday after-
noon for Halifax in the hope of meeting his parents.

  Another who made inquiry was Miss Wheelock, of No. 317 Riverside Drive, who requested information relative to the safety of her brother-in-law and sister, Dr and Mrs D. W. Marvin, whom, she said, were returning from a honeymoon trip.

  Vice-President Franklin last night said that knowing Capt. Smith as he has for many years, and being familiar with his record as a seaman, he is certain that if any passengers in the Titanic were drowned Capt. Smith remained on board assisting in the rescues and went down with the ship while at his post of duty.

  (New York World, 16 April 1912)

  WEALTH OF PASSENGERS IN SALOON $500,000,000

  The combined wealth of the first cabin passengers totals more than $500,000,000. Among those on board and their estimated wealth are the following:

  Mr and Mrs John Jacob Astor $150,000,000

  Mr and Mrs G. D. Widener $50,000,000

  Benjamin Guggenheim $95,000,000

  C. M. Hays, president of the Grand Trunk railway $1,000,000

  Henry B. Harris of New York and Boston $3,000,000

  Frederick M. Hoyt $1,000,000

  Bruce Ismay, chairman and managing director of the White Star Steamship Company $40,000,000

  Mrs Isidor Straus, wife of Isidor Straus, the New York merchant $50,000,000

  Washington A. Roebling $25,000,000

  VALUE OF A NATION REPRESENTED BY TRAVELLERS OF THE TITANIC – MANY MULTI-MILLIONAIRES

  Untold wealth was represented among the passengers of the Titanic, there being on board at least six men, each of whose fortunes might be reckoned in tens of millions of dollars. A rough estimate of the total wealth represented in the first-class passenger list would each over half a billion dollars.

  The wealthiest of the list is Col. John Jacob Astor, head of the famous house whose name he bears, and who is reputed to be worth $150 million. He is connected with most of the large corporations of the country and for years has had direct control of the vast estate left by his father, the late William Astor. Mr Astor was returning on the Titanic from a tour of Egypt with his bride, who was Miss Madeline Force, the 19-year-old daughter of Mr and Mrs William H. Force. They were married in Providence on September 9.