HELPED RESCUE EMPRESS PASSENGERS
Another officer said he was awakened in his bunk by the clanging of bells in the engine room, and, hastily going on deck, noticed the ship was going astern. The collision followed almost immediately. He said he helped to lower one of the boats and started to pick up the passengers.
“It was no trouble to get a boat-load of them,” he said. “Altogether some sixty were saved on the first trip. So heavily was the boat loaded she all but sank on her return to the Storstad.”
As far as this officer could tell four other life-boats were lowered from the Storstad, and most of those saved in the first trip belonged to the crew of the Empress. He could not account for this beyond the supposition that they were better able to endure shock and exposure than were the passengers.
Asked if he noticed the siren of the Empress sounding, he replied that he had heard nothing, but would not say that the Empress did not sound her siren.