Titanic: A Survivor's Story

by Gracie, Archibald

  How he sank and finally reached the upset boat is quoted accurately from the newspaper report from this same source given in my personal narrative. He continues as follows:

  As often as we saw other boats in the distance we would yell, ‘Ship ahoy!’ but they could not distinguish our cries from any of the others, so we all gave it up, thinking it useless. It was very cold, and the water washed over the upset boat almost all the time. Towards dawn the wind sprung up, roughening the water and making it difficult to keep the boat balanced. The wireless man raised our hopes a great deal by telling us that the Carpathia would be up in about three hours. About 3.30 or 4 o’clock some men at the bow of our boat sighted her mast lights. I could not see them as I was sitting down with a man kneeling on my leg. He finally got up, and I stood up. We had the Second Officer, Mr. Lightoller, on board. He had an officer’s whistle and whistled for the boats in the distance to come up and take us off. Two of them came up. The first took half and the other took the balance, including myself. In the transfer we had difficulty in balancing our boat as the men would lean too far over, but we were all taken aboard the already crowded boats and taken to the Carpathia in safety.

  One of these boats was No. 4, in which his mother was.

  1 British Report (p. 38) puts this boat first to leave port side at 12.55. Lightoller’s testimony shows it could not have been the first.

  2 ‘An English girl (Miss Norton) and I rowed for four hours and a half.’ – Mrs. Meyer in New York Times, April 14th, 1912.

  3 British Report (p. 38) puts this boat second on port side at 1.10. Notwithstanding Seaman Fleet’s testimony (Am. Inq., p. 363), I think she must have preceeded No. 6.

  4 By the testimony of the witness and Steward Crawford it appears that Mr. and Mrs. Straus approached this boat and their maid got in, but Mr. Straus would not follow his wife and she refused to leave him.

  5 British Report (p.38) says third at 1.20. I think No. 6 went later, though Buley (Am. Inq., p. 604) claims No. 10 as the last lifeboat lowered.

  6 British Report (p. 38) says this was the fourth boat lowered on port side at 1.25 a.m.

  7 British Report (p. 38) says this was the fifth boat on the port side, lowered at 1.30.

  8 Undoubtedly reference is here made to the same Japanese described in an account attributed to a second-class passenger, Mrs. Collyer, and which follows Crowe’s testimony.

  9 British Report (p. 38) gives this as the sixth boat lowered from the port side at 1.35 a.m.

  10 British Report (p. 38) gives this as the seventh boat lowered on the port side at 1.45 a.m.

  11 Probably the same officer, Murdoch, described by Maj. Peuchen, p. 80, this chapter.

  12 British Report (p. 38) says this was the eighth and last lifeboat that left the ship and lowered at 1.55 a.m.

  13 Picked up from sea.

  14 Picked up from sea but died in boat.

  15 I agree with this statement though other testimony and the British Report decide against us. The difference may be reconciled by the fact that the loading of this boat began early, but the final lowering was delayed.

  16 British Report (p. 38) puts this as the last boat lowered at 2.05.

  17 The interval of time can then be approximated as nearly a half hour, that we remained on the ship after the lifeboats left.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  STARBOARD SIDE: WOMEN FIRST, BUT MEN WHEN THERE WERE NO WOMEN

  I know of the conditions existing on the port side of the ship from personal knowledge, as set forth in the first five chapters describing my personal experience, while the previous chapter VI is derived from an exhaustive study of official and of other authoritative information relating to the same side from experiences of others. I have devoted an equal amount of study to the history of what happened on the starboard side of the ship, and the tabulated statements in this chapter are the outcome of my research into the experiences of my fellow passengers on this side of the ship where I was located only during the last half hour before the ship foundered, after all passengers on the port side had been ordered to the starboard in consequence of the great list to port, and after the departure of the last boat ‘D,’ that left the ship on the port side. During this last half hour, though it seemed shorter, my attention was confined to the work of the crew, assisting them in their vain efforts to launch the Engelhardt boat ‘B’ thrown down from the roof of the officers’ house. All the starboard boats had left the ship before I came there.

  Many misunderstandings arose in the public mind because of ignorance of the size of the ship and inability to understand that the same conditions did not prevail at every point and that the same scenes were not witnessed by every one of us. Consider the great length of the ship, 852 feet; its breadth of beam, 92.6 feet; and its many decks, eleven in number; counting the roof of the officers’ house as the top deck, then the Boat Deck, and Decks A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and, in the hold, two more. Bearing this in mind I illustrated to my New York friends, in answer to their questions, how impossible it would be for a person standing at the corner of 50th Street and Fifth Avenue to know just what was going on at the corner of 52nd Street and Madison Avenue. Therefore, when one survivor’s viewpoint differs from that of another, the explanation is easily found.

  Consideration must also be taken of the fact that the accident occurred near midnight, and though it was a bright, starlit night, and the ship’s electric lights shone almost to the last, it was possible to recognize only one’s intimates at close quarters.

  My research shows that there was no general order from the ship’s officers on the starboard side for ‘Women and children first.’ On the other hand, I have the statements of Dr Washington Dodge, John B. Thayer, Jr., and Mrs. Stephenson, also the same of a member of the crew testifying before the British Court of Inquiry, from which it appears that some sort of a command was issued ordering the women to the port side and the men to the starboard, indicating that no men would be allowed in the port boats, and only in the starboard side boats after the women had entered them first. If such were the orders, they were carried out to the letter. Another point of difference, especially conspicuous to myself, is the fact that on the starboard side there appears to have been an absence of women at the points where the boats were loaded, while on the port side all the boats loaded, from the first up to the last, found women at hand and ready to enter them. It was only at the time of the loading of the last boat ‘D,’ that my friend, Clinch Smith, and I ran up and down the port side shouting: ‘Are there any more women?’ This too is the testimony of Officer Lightoller, in charge of loading boats on the port side.

  BOAT NO. 71

  No disorder in loading or lowering this boat.

  Passengers: Mesdames Bishop, Earnshaw, Gibson, Greenfield, Potter, Snyder, and Misses Gibson and Hays, Messrs Bishop, Chevre, Daniel, Greenfield, McGough, Marechal, Seward, Sloper, Snyder, Tucker.

  Transferred from Boat No. 5: Mrs. Dodge and her boy; Messrs Calderhead and Flynn.

  Crew: Seamen: Hogg (in charge), Jewell, Weller.

  Total: 28.

  Incidents

  Archie Jewell, L.O. (Br. Inq.):

  Was awakened by the crash and ran at once on deck where he saw a lot of ice. All went below again to get clothes on. The boatswain called all hands on deck. Went to No. 7 boat. The ship had stopped. All hands cleared the boats, cleared away the falls and got them all right. Mr. Murdoch gave the order to lower boat No. 7 to the rail with women and children in the boat. Three or four Frenchmen, passengers, got into the boat. No. 7 was lowered from the Boat Deck. The orders were to stand by the gangway. This boat was the first on the starboard side lowered into the water. All the boats were down by the time it was pulled away from the ship because it was thought she was settling down.

  Witness saw the ship go down by the head very slowly. The other lifeboats were further off, his being the nearest. No. 7 was then pulled further off and about half an hour later, or about an hour and a half after this boat was lowered, a
nd when it was about 200 yards away, the ship took the final dip. He saw the stern straight up in the air with the lights still burning. After a few moments she then sank very quickly and he heard two or three explosions just as the stern went up in the air. No. 7 picked up no dead bodies. At daylight they saw a lot of icebergs all around, and reached the Carpathia about 9 o’clock. This boat had no compass and no light. (The above, given in detail, represents the general testimony of the next witness.)

  G.A. Hogg, A.B. (Am. Inq., p. 577):

  He had forty-two when the boat was shoved from the ship’s side. He asked a lady if she could steer who said she could. He pulled around in search of other people. One man said: ‘We have done our best; there are no more people around.’ He said: ‘Very good, we will get away now.’ There was not a ripple on the water; it was as smooth as glass.

  Mrs. H.W. Bishop, first-class passenger (Am. Inq., p. 998):

  The captain told Colonel Astor something in an undertone. He came back and told six of us who were standing with his wife that we had better put on our life belts. I had gotten down two flights of stairs to tell my husband, who had returned to the stateroom for the moment, before I heard the captain announce that the life belts should be put on. We came back upstairs and found very few people on deck. There was very little confusion – only the older women were a little frightened. On the starboard side of the Boat Deck there were only two people – a young French bride and groom. By that time an old man had come upstairs and found Mr. and Mrs. Harder, of New York. He brought us all together and told us to be sure and stay together – that he would be back in a moment. We never saw him again.

  About five minutes later the boats were lowered and we were pushed in. This was No. 7 lifeboat. My husband was pushed in with me and we were lowered with twenty-eight people in the boat. We counted off after we reached the water. There were only about twelve women and the rest were men – three crew and thirteen male passengers; several unmarried men – three or four of them foreigners. Somewhat later five people were put into our boat from another one, making thirty-three in ours. Then we rowed still further away as the women were nervous about suction. We had no compass and no light. We arrived at the Carpathia five or ten minutes after five. The conduct of othe crew, as far as I could see, was absolutely beyond criticism. One of the crew in the boat was Jack Edmonds, (?) and there was another man, a Lookout (Hogg), of whom we all thought a great deal. He lost his brother.

  D.H. Bishop, first-class passenger (Am. Inq., p. 1000):

  There was an officer stationed at the side of the lifeboat. As witness’s wife got in, he fell into the boat. The French aviator Marechal was in the boat; also Mr. Greenfield and his mother. There was little confusion on the deck while the boat was being loaded; no rush to boats at all. Witness agrees with his wife in the matter of the counting of twenty-eight, but he knows that there were some who were missed. There was a woman with her baby transferred from another lifeboat. Witness knows of his own knowledge that No. 7 was the first boat lowered from the starboard side. They heard no order from any one for the men to stand back or ‘women first,’ or ‘women and children first.’ Witness also says that at the time his lifeboat was lowered that that order had not been given on the starboard side.

  J.R. McGough’s affidavit (Am. Inq., p. 1143):

  After procuring life preservers we went back to the top deck and discovered that orders had been given to launch the lifeboats, which were already being launched. Women and children were called for to board the boats first. Both women and men hesitated and did not feel inclined to get into the small boats. He had his back turned, looking in an opposite direction, and was caught by the shoulder by one of the officers who gave him a push saying: ‘Here, you are a big fellow; get into that boat.’

  Our boat was launched with twenty-eight people in all. Five were transferred from one of the others. There were several of us who wanted drinking water. It was unknown to us that there was a tank of water and crackers also in our boat until we reached the Carpathia. There was no light in our boat.

  Mrs. Thomas Potter, Jr. Letter:

  There was no panic. Everyone seemed more stunned than anything else…. We watched for upwards of two hours the gradual sinking of the ship – first one row of light and then another disappearing at shorter and shorter intervals, with the bow well bent in the water as though ready for a dive. After the lights went out, some ten minutes before the end, she was like some great living thing who made a last superhuman effort to right herself and then, failing, dove bow forward to the unfathomable depths below.

  We did not row except to get away from the suction of the sinking ship, but remained lashed to another boat until the Carpathia came in sight just before dawn.

  BOAT NO. 52

  No disorder in loading or lowering this boat.

  Passengers: Mesdames Cassebeer, Chambers, Crosby, Dodge and her boy, Frauenthal, Goldenberg, Harder, Kimball, Stehli, Stengel, Taylor, Warren, and Misses Crosby, Newson, Ostby and Frolicher Stehli.

  Messrs: Beckwith, Behr, Calderhead, Chambers, Flynn, Goldenberg, Harder, Kimball, Stehli, Taylor.

  Bade goodbye to wives and daughters and sank with ship: Captain Crosby, Mr. Ostby and Mr. Warren.

  Jumped from deck into boat being lowered: German Doctor Frauenthal and brother Isaac, P. Mauge.

  Crew: 3rd Officer Pitman. Seaman: Olliver, Q.M.; Fireman Shiers; Stewards, Etches, Guy. Stewardess-——.

  Total: 41.

  Incidents

  H.J. Pitman, 3rd Officer (Am. Inq., p. 277, and Br. Inq.):

  I lowered No. 5 boat to the level with the rail of the Boat Deck. A man in a dressing gown said that we had better get her loaded with women and children. I said: ‘I wait the commander’s orders,’ to which he replied: ‘Very well,’ or something like that. It then dawned on me that it might be Mr. Ismay, judging by the description I had had given me. I went to the bridge and saw Captain Smith and told him that I thought it was Mr. Ismay that wanted me to get the boat away with women and children in it and he said: ‘Go ahead; carry on.’ I came along and brought in my boat. I stood in it and said: ‘Come along, ladies.’ There was a big crowd. Mr. Ismay helped get them along. We got the boat nearly full and I shouted out for any more ladies. None were to be seen so I allowed a few men to get into it. Then I jumped on the ship again. Mr. Murdoch said: ‘You go in charge of this boat and hang around the after gangway.’ About thirty (Br. Inq.) to forty women were in the boat, two children, half a dozen male passengers, myself and four of the crew. There would not have been so many men had there been any women around, but there were none. Murdoch shook hands with me and said: ‘Goodbye; good luck,’ and I said: ‘Lower away.’ This boat was the second one lowered on the starboard side. No light in the boat.

  The ship turned right on end and went down perpendicularly. She did not break in two. I heard a lot of people say that they heard boiler explosions, but I have my doubts about that. I do not see why the boilers would burst, because there was no steam there. They should have been stopped about two hours and a half. The fires had not been fed so there was very little steam there. From the distance I was from the ship, if it had occurred, I think I would have known it. As soon as the ship disappeared I said: ‘Now, men, we will pull toward the wreck.’ Everyone in my boat said it was a mad idea because we had far better save what few I had in my boat than go back to the scene of the wreck and be swamped by the crowds that were there. My boat would have accommodated a few more – about sixty in all. I turned No. 5 boat around to go in the direction from which these cries came but was dissuaded from my purpose by the passengers. My idea of lashing Nos. 5 and 7 together was to keep together so that if anything hove in sight before daylight we could steady ourselves and cause a far bigger show than one boat only. I transferred two men and a woman and a child from my boat to No. 7 to even them up a bit.

  H.S. Etches, steward (Am. Inq., p. 810):

  Witness assisted Mr. Murdoch, Mr. Ismay, Mr. Pitman and Quartermaster
Olliver and two stewards in the loading and launching of No. 7, the gentlemen being asked to keep back and the ladies in first. There were more ladies to go in No. 7 because No. 5 boat, which we went to next, took in over thirty-six ladies. In No. 7 boat I saw one child, a baby boy, with a small woollen cap. After getting all the women that were there they called out three times – Mr. Ismay twice – in a loud voice: ‘Are there any more women before this boat goes?’ and there was no answer. Mr. Murdoch called out, and at that moment a female came up whom he did not recognize. Mr. Ismay said: ‘Come along; jump in.’ She said: ‘I am only a stewardess.’ He said: ‘Never mind – you are a woman; take your place.’ That was the last woman I saw get into boat No. 5. There were two firemen in the bow; Olliver, the sailor, and myself; and Officer Pitman ordered us into the boat and lowered under Murdoch’s order.

  Senator Smith: What other men got into that boat?