John Thompson, a fireman of the Titanic, suffering with a broken arm at St. Vincent’s hospital, may be an important witness at the senatorial investigation into the wreck at Washington. Thompson comes from Liverpool, and he asserts that the Titanic was out “to beat all records on maiden trips.”
“From Queenstown out,” Thompson is quoted as saying, “all the firemen had been talking of the orders we had to fire her up as hard as we possibly could. We were to make as quick a passage as possible, the orders ran, and we were to beat all records on our maiden trip. I heard that these orders came from the engineering departments, but, bless you, we men didn’t have time to talk about where those orders came from.
“We were carrying full pressure. From the time we left Queenstown until the moment of the shock we never ceased to make from seventy-four to seventy-seven revolutions. During that whole Sunday we had been keeping up the seventy-seven.”
Chicago Inter Ocean, Tuesday, April 23, 1912, p. 2, c. 3
