Sinking of the "Titanic"

by Jay Henry Mowbray

Outside of great naval battles no tragedy of the sea ever claimed so many victims as did the loss of the Titanic. The pitiful part of it is that all on board the Titanic might have been saved had there been a sufficient number of lifeboats aboard to accommodate the passengers and crew.

Only sixteen lifeboats were launched, one of these, a collapsible boat, the last to be launched, was overturned, but was used as a raft and served to save the lives of many men and women.

Many women went down with the ship—steerage women, unable to get to the upper decks where the boats were launched; maids, who were overlooked in the confusion; cabin passengers, who refused to desert their husbands, or who reached the decks after the last of the lifeboats was gone and the ship was settling for her final plunge to the bottom of the Atlantic.

Confidence in the ability of the Titanic to remain afloat led many of the passengers to death. The theory that the great ship was unsinkable remained with hundreds who had entrusted themselves to the gigantic hulk long after the officers knew that the vessel could not long remain above the surface.

That so many of the men passengers and members of the crew were saved, while such a large majority of females drowned was due to the fact that the women had not appeared about the lifeboats in sufficient numbers to fill them when they first were launched. Dozens of male survivors assert they were forced into the first boats lowered against their will by officers who insisted that the boats should go overboard filled to their capacity.

From a rather calm, well ordered sort of leaving of passengers over the side when the disaster was young the departure of survivors became a riot as the last boats were lowered and it was apparent that the Titanic would sink.

Steerage passengers fought their way to the upper decks and struggled with brutal ferocity against cabin passengers who were aimlessly trying to save themselves. Officers of the ship shot down men who sought to jump into already overcrowded boats. The sound of the pistol shots mingled with the strains of “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” played by the ship’s orchestra as the Titanic took her final plunge.

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.