Sinking of the "Titanic"

by Jay Henry Mowbray

“There were ten oars to each lifeboat,” the sailors said. “The women seized the sweeps and helped us to get the boats clear of the ship. We got away about 100 yards from the ship and waited to see what would happen. The liner was sinking fast, but the lights continued to shine through the black night.

“The end came at 2.30 on Monday morning. The lights on the ship did not go out until ten minutes before the liner sank. The inrushing seas reaching the after fires produced an explosion, which sundered the big liner. The forward half of the Titanic dived gently down. The after part of the ship stood on end and then disappeared.

“The force of the explosion blew, it seemed to us watching from the lifeboats, scores of passengers and sailors into the air.”

That there were stout hearts on the Titanic, even in the last moments of an unprecedented catastrophe, that refused to quail was proven by the rough seamen’s further testimony.

“The band on the promenade deck,” they declared, “played ‘Abide With Me’ and ‘Eternal Father, Strong to Save,’ and other hymns as the ship sank.”

The Titanic sank at 2.30, almost at the spot where she collided with the mountain of ice.

It was an hour later when the Carpathia was sighted by the thinly-clad occupants of the lifeboats and it was 4.30 before the first of the Titanic’s passengers set foot on the deck of the Cunarder. It was 8 o’clock on Monday morning, April 15, before the last of the half-clad suffering passengers of the Titanic were taken aboard the Carpathia, a not difficult feat, as the sea continued smooth.

The Carpathia’s run from the Newfoundland banks to New York was uneventful except for the burial at sea of five persons. Four of the five, according to the sailors, were consigned to the deep at about 4 P. M. on Monday, April 15. One of the four was a sailor, one a fireman and two male passengers of the third class.

TELEPHONE CALL DOUBTED.

The alleged negligence of Murdock, the first officer of the watch, who is blamed, as stated above, by some of the sailors for the wreck in not responding immediately to a telephone call from the lookout giving warning of the iceberg ahead, is doubted by a naval man who has had a long experience on transatlantic liners.