OTHER STATEMENTS BY SURVIVORS : The Times

NEW YORK APRIL 19

The following further statements have been made by survivors:- Mr A.H.Barkworth, of Tranby House, East Yorkshire, said he was sitting in the smoking room when the boat struck the iceberg. He saw Mr W.T.Stead on deck. He described how the forecastle was full of powdered ice. He noted the foremast was listing heavily to starboard. As Captain Smith was telling the women to put on their lifebelts he went down to his cabin and changed his clothes. All the boats had left his deck. He put on his lifebelt and fur coat and jumped overboard. While he was swimming hard to get away he was struck by wreckage and a huge wave passed over his head. Swimming about, he found a boat which was rather crowded. He clutched at it and was helped on board. After that they helped another man in. Two men died after being helped into the small boat.

George Rheims, of New York, who was on the Titanic with his brother-in-law, Mr Joseph Holland, a London resident, said that none seemed to know for 20 minutes after the boat struck that anything had happened. Many of the passengers stood round for hours with their lifebelts on. He saw the people getting into the boats. When all the boats had gone he shook hands with his brother-in-law, who would not jump, and leaped over the side of the boat. He swam for a quarter of an hour and reached a lifeboat. It had 18 occupants and was half under water. The people were in the water up to their knees. Seven of them died during the night. Only those who stood all the time remained alive.

Many people seem to have slept through the shock of the collision, and the tale told by Emilio Portaluppi, a second cabin passenger, shows that he was first awakened by the explosion of one of the ship’s boilers. He hurried up to deck one and strapped on a lifebelt. Following the example of others, he then leapt into the sea, and held on to an ice floe, with the help of which he managed to keep afloat until he was seen by those in the lifeboats and rescued.

Mrs Churchill Candee, of Washington, was taken from the Carpathia with both her legs broken and hurried off in an ambulance to the hospital. She received her injuries while getting into the lifeboat. Most of the men saved, she declared, were picked up from the water, having plunged overboard after the lifeboats had been launched.

Mrs Edgar J.Meyer, of New York, highly praised the officers and men of the Titanic. Her husband was among those who went, down with the ship. She said:- We were well away from the steamer when it sank, but we heard the screams of the people left on board. There were about 70 of us widows on board the Carpathia. The captain and the passengers of the Carpathia did all they could for us.

Mrs W.D.Marvin, of New York, who was on her honeymoon trip, was almost prostrated when she learned on reaching the dock that her husband had not been picked up by some other boat:- “As I was put into the boat he cried to me. It’s all right, little girl. You go. I will stay.” As our boat shoved off be threw me a kiss, and that was the last I saw of him.

Mr Edward Beane, of Glasgow, who, with his wife, occupied a second class state room, declares that, 15 minutes after the Titanic hit the iceberg there was an explosion in the engine room, which was followed a few minutes afterwards by a second explosion.

Mr Robert E.Daniel, a young cotton broker, of Philadelphia, said:- I was in my cabin dictating to the stenograph when the ship struck the berg. The shock was not violent. The officers who survived told me afterwards the Titanic slipped up on the iceberg and tore her bottom out. I went on dictating until somebody knocked at my door and cried out that the ship was sinking. I grabbed a life preserver and went to the deck. The 16 boats were filled with passengers, most of them women. Twelve of the boats pulled away from the port side and four from the starboard. There was no panic. Had there been sufficient lifeboats it is my opinion that practically all the passengers would have been saved. Mr Daniel leaped overboard when he discovered that the ship was sinking, and was picked up by one of the boats.

Mr Jacques Futrelle was one of those who parted from his wife and steadfastly refused to accept a chance to enter a lifeboat when he knew that the Titanic was sinking under him. How he met his death is told by Mrs Futrelle, who said:- Jacques is dead, but he died like a hero, that I know. Three or four times after the crash I rushed up to him and clasped him in my arms begging him to get into one of the lifeboats. “For God’s sake go”, he fairly screamed, and tried to push me towards the lifeboat. I could see how he suffered. “It’s your last chance, go” he pleaded. Then one of the ship’s officers forced me into a lifeboat and I gave up all hope that he could be saved.

Mr Simon Senecal, a Montreal merchant, who was a passenger in the Carpathia, said:- After his vessel had rescued boatloads of women be saw a life raft upon which were about 24 persons. Half of these were dead. Several of the Carpathia’s boats went to the raft and took off the living, leaving the dead behind. The water was thick with the bodies of the drowned. The crew of the Carpathia in their work of rescue came across numerous bodies floating in the water. He knew of seven persons who were rescued dying on board the Carpathia. They were buried at sea.

Mr Charles Williams, the racket player of Harrow, who was on his way to New York to defend his title of world’s champion said he left the squash court in the Titanic at 10.30. He was in the smoking room when he first felt the shock. He rushed out and saw an iceberg which seemed to loom over a hundred feet above the deck. It broke up amidships and floated away. Eventually be jumped from the boat deck on the starboard side into the sea, getting as far away from the steamer as possible. He was nine hours in a small boat standing with the water up to his knees before he was picked up. Mr Williams said that the sailors conducted themselves admirably. - Reuter

Courtesy of Stanley C Jenkins

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