Mr. Rowe: No, sir.
Senator Burton: If Chief Officer Wilde had spoken to them would you have known it?
Mr. Rowe: I think so, because they got in the after part of the boat where I was.
Alfred Pearce, pantryman, third-class (Br. Inq.):
Picked up two babies in his arms and went into a collapsible boat on the starboard side under Officer Murdoch’s order, in which were women and children. There were altogether sixty-six passengers and five of the crew, a quartermaster in charge. The ship had a list on the port side, her lights burning to the last. It was twenty minutes to two when they started to row away. He remembers this because one of the passengers gave the time.
J.B. Ismay, President International Mercantile Marine Co. of America, New Jersey, U.S.A. (Am. Inq., pp. 8, 960):
There were four in the crew – one quartermaster, a pantryman, a butcher and another. The natural order would be women and children first. It was followed as far as practicable. About forty-five in the boat. He saw no struggling or jostling or any attempts by men to get into the boats. They simply picked the women out and put them into the boat as fast as they could – the first ones that were there. He put a great many in – also children. He saw the first lifeboat lowered on the starboard side. As to the circumstances of his departure from the ship, the boat was there. There was a certain number of men in the boat and the officer called and asked if there were any more women, but there was no response. There were no passengers left on the deck, and as the boat was in the act of being lowered away he got into it. The Titanic was sinking at the time. He felt the ship going down. He entered because there was room in it. Before he boarded the lifeboat he saw no passengers jump into the sea. The boat rubbed along the ship’s side when being lowered, the women helping to shove the boat clear. This was when the ship had quite a list to port. He sat with his back to the ship, rowing all the time, pulling, pulling away. He did not wish to see her go down. There were nine or ten men in the boat with him. Mr. Carter, a passenger, was one. All the other people in the boat, so far as he could see, were third-class passengers.
Examined before the British Court of Inquiry by the Attorney-General, Sir Rufus Isaacs, Mr. Ismay testified:
I was awakened by the impact; stayed in bed a little time and then got up. I saw a steward who could not say what had happened. I put a coat on and went on deck. I saw Captain Smith. I asked him what was the matter and he said we had struck ice. He said he thought it was serious. I then went down and saw the chief engineer, who said that the blow was serious. He thought the pumps would keep the water under control. I think I went back to my room and then to the bridge and heard Captain Smith give an order in connection with the boats. I went to the boat deck, spoke to one of the officers, and rendered all the assistance I could in putting the women and children in. Stayed there until I left the ship. There was no confusion; no attempts by men to get into the boats. So far as I knew all the women and children were put on board the boats and I was not aware that any were left. There was a list of the ship to port. I think I remained an hour and a half on the Titanic after the impact. I noticed her going down by the head, sinking. Our boat was fairly full. After all the women and children got in and there were no others on that side of the deck, I got in while the boat was being lowered. Before we got into the boat I do not know that any attempt was made to call up any of the passengers on the Boat Deck, nor did I inquire.
And also examined by Mr. A.C. Edwards, M.P., counsel for the Dock Workers’ Union. Mr. Ismay’s testimony was taken as follows:
Mr. Edwards: You were responsible for determining the number of boats?
Mr. Ismay: Yes, in conjunction with the shipbuilders.
Mr. Edwards: You knew when you got into the boat that the ship was sinking?
Mr. Ismay: Yes.
Mr. Edwards: Had it occurred to you apart perhaps from the captain, that you, as the representative managing director, deciding the number of lifeboats, owed your life to every other person on the ship?
The President: That is not the sort of question which should be put to this witness. You can make comment on it when you come to your speech if you like.
Mr. Edwards: You took an active part in directing women and children into the boats?
Mr. Ismay: I did all I could.
Mr. Edwards: Why did you not go further and send for other people to come on deck and fill the boats?
Mr. Ismay: I put in everyone who was there and I got in as the boat was being lowered away.
Mr. Edwards: Were you not giving directions and getting women and children in?
Mr. Ismay: I was calling to them to come in.
Mr. Edwards: Why then did you not give instructions or go yourself either to the other side of the deck or below decks to get people up?
Mr. Ismay: I understood there were people there sending them up.
Mr. Edwards: But you knew there were hundreds who had not come up?
Lord Mersey: Your point, as I understand it now, is that, having regard for his position as managing director, it was his duty to remain on the ship until she went to the bottom?
Mr. Edwards: Frankly, that is so, and I do not flinch from it; but I want to get it from the witness, inasmuch as he took it upon himself to give certain directions at a certain time, why he did not discharge his responsibility after in regard to other persons or passengers.
Mr. Ismay: There were no more passengers who would have got into the boat. The boat was being actually lowered away.
Examined by Sir Robert Finley for White Star Line:
Mr. Finley: Have you crossed very often to and from America?
Mr. Ismay: Very often.
Mr. Finley: Have you ever, on any occasion, attempted to interfere with the navigation of the vessel on any of these occasions?
Mr. Ismay: No.
Mr. Finley: When you left the deck just before getting into the collapsible boat, did you hear the officer calling out for more women?
Mr. Ismay: I do not think I did; but I heard them calling for women very often.
Mr. Edwards: When the last boat left the Titanic you must have known that a number of passengers and crew were still on board?
Mr. Ismay: I did.
Mr. Edwards: And yet you did not see any on the deck?
Mr. Ismay: No, I did not see any, and I could only assume that the other passengers had gone to the other end of the ship.
From an address (Br. Inq.) by Mr. A. Clement Edwards, M.P., Counsel for Dock Workers’ Union:
What was Mr. Ismay’s duty?
Coming to Mr. Ismay’s conduct, Mr. Edwards said it was clear that the gentleman had taken upon himself to assist in getting women and children into the boat. He had also admitted that when he left the Titanic he knew she was doomed, that there were hundreds of people in the ship, that he didn’t know whether or not there were any women or children left, and that he did not even go to the other side of the Boat Deck to see whether there were any women and children waiting to go. Counsel submitted that a gentleman occupying the position of managing director of the company owning the Titanic, and who had taken upon himself the duty of assisting at the boats, had certain special and further duties beyond an ordinary passenger’s duties, and that he had no more right to save his life at the expense of any single person on board that ship than the captain would have had. He (Mr. Edwards) said emphatically that Mr. Ismay did not discharge his duty at that particular moment by taking a careless glance around the starboard side of the Boat Deck. He was one of the few persons who at the time had been placed in a position of positive knowledge that the vessel was doomed, and it was his clear duty, under the circumstances, to see that someone made a search for passengers in other places than in the immediate vicinity of the Boat Deck.
Lord Mersey: Moral duty do you mean?
Mr. Edwards: I agree; but I say that a managing director going on board a liner, commercially responsible for it and taking upon himself certain functions, had a special moral obl
igation and duty more than is possessed by one passenger to another passenger.
Lord Mersey: But how is a moral duty relative to his inquiry? It might be argued that there was a moral duty for every man on board that every women should take precedence, and I might have to inquire whether every passenger carried out his moral duty.
Mr. Edwards agreed that so far as the greater questions involved in this case were concerned this matter was one of trivial importance.
From address of Sir Robert Finlay, K.C., M. P., Counsel for White Star Company (Br. Inq.):
It has been said by Mr. Edwards that Mr. Ismay had no right to save his life at the expense of any other life. He did not save his life at the expense of any other life. If Mr. Edwards had taken the trouble to look at the evidence he would have seen how unfounded this charge is. There is not the slightest ground for suggesting that any other life would have been saved if Mr. Ismay had not got into the boat. He did not get into the boat until it was being lowered away.
Mr. Edwards has said that it was Mr. Ismay’s plain duty to go about the ship looking for passengers, but the fact is that the boat was being lowered. Was it the duty of Mr. Ismay to have remained, though by doing so no other life could have been saved? If he had been impelled to commit suicide of that kind, then it would have been stated that he went to the bottom because he dared not face this inquiry. There is no observation of an unfavorable nature to be made from any point of view upon Mr. Ismay’s conduct. There was no duty devolving upon him of going to the bottom with his ship as the captain did. He did all he could to help the women and children. It was only when the boat was being lowered that he got into it. He violated no point of honor, and if he had thrown his life away in the manner now suggested it would be said he did it because he was conscious he could not face this inquiry and so he had lost his life.
ENGELHARDT BOAT ‘A‘
Floated off the ship.
Passengers: T. Beattie,17 P.D. Daly, 18 G. Rheims, R.N. Williams, Jr., first-class; O. Abelseth, 19 W.J. Mellers, second-class; and Mrs. Rosa Abbott,† Edward Lindley, † third-class.
Crew: Steward: E. Brown, Firemen: J. Thompson, one unidentified body,* Seaman: one unidentified body.*
An extraordinary story pertains to this boat. At the outset of my research it was called a ‘boat of mystery,’ occasioned by the statements of the Titanic’s officers. In his conversations with me, as well as in his testimony, Officer Lightoller stated that he was unable to loosen this boat from the ship in time and that he and his men were compelled to abandon their efforts to get it away. The statement in consequence was that this boat ‘A’ was not utilized but went down with the ship. My recent research has disabused his mind of this supposition. There were only four Engelhardt boats in all as we have already learned, and we have fully accounted for ‘the upset boat B,’ and ‘D,’ the last to leave the ship in the tackles, and boat ‘C,’ containing Mr. Ismay, which reached the Carpathia’s side and was unloaded there. After all the mystery we have reached the conclusion that boat ‘A’ did not go down with the ship, but was the one whose occupants were rescued by Officer Lowe in the early morning, and then abandoned with three dead bodies in it. This also was the boat picked up nearly one month later by the Oceanic nearly 200 miles from the scene of the wreck.
I have made an exhaustive research up to date for the purpose of discovering how Boat A left the ship. Information in regard thereto is obtained from the testimony before the British Court of Inquiry of Steward Edward Brown, from first-class passenger R.N. Williams, Jr., and from an account of William J. Mellers, a second cabin passenger as related by him to Dr Washington Dodge. Steward Brown, it will be observed, testified that he was washed out of the boat and yet ‘did not know whether he went down in the water.’ As he could not swim, an analysis of his testimony forces me to believe that he held on to the boat and did not have to swim and that boat ‘A’ was the same one that he was in when he left the ship. I am forced to the same conclusion in young Williams’ case after an analysis of his statement that he took off his big fur overcoat in the water and cast it adrift while he swam twenty yards to the boat, and in some unaccountable way the fur coat swam after him and also got into the boat. At any rate it was found in the boat when it was recovered later as shown in the evidence.
I also have a letter from Mr. George Rheims, of Paris, indicating his presence on this same boat with Messrs Williams and Mellers and Mrs. Abbott and others.
Incidents
Edward Brown, steward (Br. Inq.):
Witness helped with boats 5, 3, 1 and C, and then helped with another collapsible; tried to get it up to the davits when the ship gave a list to port. The falls were slackened but the boat could not be hauled away any further. There were four or five women waiting to get into the boat. The boat referred to was the collapsible boat ‘A’ which they got off the officers’ house. They got it down by the planks, but witness does not know where the planks came from. He thinks they were with the bars which came from the other boats; yet he had no difficulty in getting the boat off the house. The ship was then up to the bridge under water, well down by the head. He jumped into the boat then called out to cut the falls. He cut them at the aft end, but cannot say what happened to the forward fall. He was washed out of the boat but does not know whether he went down in the water.20 He had his lifebelt on and came to the top. People were all around him. They tore his clothes away struggling in the water. He could not swim, but got into the collapsible boat ‘A.’ Only men were in it, but they picked up a woman and some men afterwards, consisting of passengers, stewards and crew. There were sixteen men. Fifth Officer Lowe in boat No. 14 picked them up.
O. Abelseth (Am. Inq.):
Witness describes the period just before the ship sank when an effort was made to get out the collapsible boats on the roof of the officers’ house. The officer wanted help and called out: ‘Are there any sailors here?’ It was only about five feet to the water when witness jumped off. It was not much of a jump. Before that he could see the people were jumping over. He went under and swallowed some water. A rope was tangled around him. He came on top again and tried to swim. There were lots of men floating around. One of them got him on the neck and pressed him under the water and tried to get on top, but he got loose from him. Then another man hung on to him for a while and let go. Then he swam for about fifteen or twenty minutes. Saw something dark ahead of him; swam towards it and it was one of the Engelhardt boats (‘A’). He had a life-preserver on when he jumped from the ship. There was no suction at all. ‘I will try and see,’ he thought, ‘if I can float on the lifebelt without help from swimming,’ and he floated easily on the lifebelt. When he got on boat ‘A’ no one assisted him, but they said when he got on: ‘Don’t capsize the boat,’ so he hung on for a little while before he got on.
Some were trying to get on their feet who were sitting or lying down; others fell into the water again. Some were frozen and there were two dead thrown overboard. On the boat he raised up and continuously moved his arms and swung them around to keep warm. There was one lady aboard this raft and she (Mrs. Abbott) was saved. There were also two Swedes and a first-class passenger. He said he had a wife and child. There was a fireman also named Thompson who had burned one of his hands; also a young boy whose name sounded like ‘Volunteer.’ He and Thompson were afterwards at St. Vincent’s Hospital. In the morning he saw a boat with a sail up, and in unison they screamed together for help. Boat A was not capsized and the canvas was not raised up, and they could not get it up. They stood all night in about twelve or fourteen inches of water21 – their feet in water all the time. Boat No. 14 sailed down and took them aboard and transferred them to the Carpathia, he helping to row. There must have been ten or twelve saved from boat A; one man was from New Jersey, with whom he came in company from London. At daybreak he seemed unconscious. He took him by the shoulder and shook him. ‘Who are you?’ he said, ‘let me be; who are you?’ About half an hour or so later he died.
In a
recent letter from Dr Washington Dodge he refers to a young man whom he met on the Carpathia, very much exhausted, whom he took to his stateroom and gave him medicine and medical attention. This young man was a gentleman’s valet and a second cabin passenger. This answers to the description of William J. Mellers, to whom I have written, but as yet have received no response. Dr Dodge says he believes this young man’s story implicitly: He, Mellers, ‘was standing by this boat when one of the crew was endeavoring to cut the fastenings that bound it to the vessel just as the onrush of waters came up which tore it loose. It was by clinging to this boat that he was saved.’
R.N. Williams, Jr., in his letter writes me as follows:
I was not under water very long, and as soon as I came to the top I threw off the big fur coat I had on. I had put my lifebelt on under the coat. I also threw off my shoes. About twenty yards away I saw something floating. I swam to it and found it to be a collapsible boat. I hung on to it and after a while got aboard and stood up in the middle of it. The water was up to my waist.22 About thirty of us clung to it. When Officer Lowe’s boat picked us up eleven of us were alive; all the rest were dead from cold. My fur coat was found attached to this Engelhardt boat ‘A’ by the Oceanic, and also a cane marked ‘C. Williams.’ This gave rise to the story that my father’s body was in this boat, but this, as you see, is not so. How the cane got there I do not know.
Through the courtesy of Mr. Harold Wingate of the White Star Line in letters to me I have the following information pertaining to boat ‘A’:
One of the bodies found in this boat was that of Mr. Thompson Beattie. We got his watch and labels from his clothes showing his name and that of the dealer, which we sent to the executor. Two others were a fireman and a sailor, both unidentified. The overcoat belonging to Mr. Williams I sent to a furrier to be re-conditioned, but nothing could be done with it except to dry it out, so I sent it to him as it was. There was no cane in the boat. The message from the Oceanic and the words ‘R.N. Williams, care of Duane Williams,’ were twisted by the receiver of the message to ‘Richard N. Williams, cane of Duane Williams,’23 which got into the press, and thus perpetuated the error.
Titanic: A Survivor's Story Page 20
