MURDOCK SHOOTS HIMSELF.
Murdock, the first officer, who was on the bridge in charge of the Titanic when she struck the iceberg, shot himself when convinced the vessel was doomed. The report that Captain Smith shot himself is contradicted by survivors, who say they saw him swept from the ship as she went down.
The Titanic settled into the sea gently. The greater part of her bulk was under water when she slipped beneath the waves. No trace of suction was felt by those in lifeboats only a few hundred yards away.
Colonel John Jacob Astor died a hero and went down with the ship. Had he leaped into the water as she made her final plunge, he might have been picked up by one of the lifeboats, but he remained on the deck and was swept under by the drawing power of the great bulk, bound for the bottom.
All the officers who died and most of the members of the crew upheld the traditions of heroism held sacred by seamen. They did their duty to the end and died with their ship. Not a man in the engine room was saved; not one of them was seen on deck after the collision. They remained at their posts, far down in the depths of the stricken vessel, until the waves closed over what was at once their pride and their burial casket.
A boiler explosion tore the Titanic apart shortly before she sank. This occurred when the sea water, which had been working its way through the forward compartments, invaded the fireroom. After the explosion the Titanic hung on the surface, upheld only by the water-tight compartments, which had not been touched by the collision.
Although the officers of the Titanic had been warned of the proximity of ice, she was steaming at the rate of twenty-three knots an hour when she met her end. The lookouts in the crow’s nest saw an iceberg ahead and telephoned the bridge. The vessel swung slightly in response to her rudder, and the submerged part of the iceberg tore out her plates along the starboard quarters below the water.