Jay Henry Mowbray

“ One grinding crash and the Titanic had received its death blow. Man’s proudest craft crumbled like an eggshell.
Ripped from stem to engine room by the great mass of ice she struck amidships, the Titanic’s side was laid open as if by a gigantic can opener. She quickly listed to starboard and a shower of ice fell on to the forecastle deck.
Shortly before she sank she broke in two abaft the engine room, and as she disappeared beneath the water the expulsion of air or her boilers caused two explosions, which were plainly heard by the survivors adrift. ”

“ They say that not until then did he jump into the ocean to drown in the suction that marked the last plunge of the Titanic.
The plight of the survivors in the boats was pitiful in the extreme. Few of the women or children had sufficient clothing, and they shivered in the bitter cold blasts that came from the great field of ice which surrounded them. The bergs and cakes of drift ice crashed and thundered bringing stark terror to the helpless victims.
Frail women aided with the heavy oars tearing their tender hands until the blood came. ”

“ With ten thousand families on both sides of the Atlantic mourning the untimely death of relatives and friends who went down into the depths from the decks of a brand new ship, widely proclaimed the greatest and the safest that ever ploughed the sea, these are, after all, the most pertinent questions that may be asked by a sorrowing world as it looks to the future rather than the past. ”

“ Sometimes I think that I would have been better dead than to have so much to remember. You see when the crash first came no one realized the awful seriousness of the situation. It was a loud, grinding crash and it shook the boat like a leaf, but we had all become so filled with the idea that the Titanic was a creation greater than the seas that no one was terror-stricken. ”

“ When the last boatload of priceless human life swung away from the davits of the Titanic, it left behind on the decks of the doomed ship hundreds of men who knew that the vessel’s mortal wound spelt Death for them also. ”

“ HARDER TO GO THAN TO STAY.
To many of those who went it was harder to go than to stay there on the vessel gaping with its mortal wounds and ready to go down. It meant that tossing on the waters they must wait in suspense, hour after hour even after the lights of the ship were engulfed in appalling darkness, hoping against hope for the miracle of a rescue dearer to them than their own lives.
It was the tradition of Anglo-Saxon heroism that was fulfilled in the frozen seas during the black hours of that Sunday night. The heroism was that of the women who went, as well as of the men who remained. ”

“ The great force of the ship’s sinking was unaided by any violence of the elements, and the suction, into so great as had been feared, rocked but mildly the group of boats now a quarter of a mile distant from it.
Sixteen boats were in the forlorn procession which entered on the terrible hours of rowing, drifting and suspense. Women wept for lost husbands and sons. Sailors sobbed for the ship which had been their pride. Men chocked back tears and sought to comfort the widowed. ”

“ I can even picture the ocean, the day and all the surroundings, because, as many will recall, it was just off Sable Island that La Bourgogne went to her grave on July 4, 1898, the same day that all America was rejoicing over its victory in the Spanish-American War.
I have the most heartfelt sympathy for the bereaved, unfortunate survivors of this last terrible wreck. It has always seemed to me a great mistake to compel women and children to be saved first. How much better it would be to save entire families than to have so many widows and children. ”

“ He was a hero because he kept cool, and was the only man who did. The heroes of the Titanic can not be counted. They all kept their heads, so far as is known, but their only reward was the knowledge that they had not been cowards in the face of death.
Standing in a circle in the engine room of the Titanic as she went down, with hands clasping those of their comrades and all praying, the gallant thirty-three engine men of the wounded vessel met their death. ”

“ Mellors and Barkworth, both declare there were three distinct explosions before the Titanic broke in two, and bow section first, and stern part last, settled with her human cargo into the sea.
Her four whistles kept up a deafening blast until the explosions, declare the men. The death cries from the shrill throats of the blatant steam screechers beside the smokestacks so rent the air that conversation among the passengers was possible only when one yelled into the ear of a fellow unfortunate. ”

“ It is a narrative filled with heroism unparalleled—bravery and heroism performed by American business men. They were men of millions who had everything to live for and yet, in that crisis at sea, they worked coolly, steadfastly to save women and children. Then they went down with the White Star liner Titanic, the greatest ship afloat.
When the Carpathia came into port carrying the more than 700 survivors of the disaster, the curtain, which had hidden the story of the tragedy since the first word of it was flashed to a startled world, was drawn aside. ”

“ PREFACE. “WE are as near Heaven by sea as by land,” cried Sir Humphrey Gilbert, ere his ship sank with him; and the hundreds who perished in the ocean within reach of the exultant welcome and the festal preparation of the shore have found Paradise as surely, and in giving “the last full measure of devotion” have gone as brave men would wish to go. ”

“ Whenever men speak of tragedies of the sea, the story of La Bourgogne, the French Line steamship, which was sunk in collision with the British ship Cormartyshire, is always recalled. The conduct of the French sailors upon that occasion is held up as a shining example of what the behavior of a crew should not be. It even appears more reprehensible in the light of comparison with the heroism and noble sacrifices of the male passengers and crew who went down with the Titanic.
There were 584 persons drowned in the wreck, and only one woman was saved. ”

“ In the same breath the survivors exalted the heroism of the missing men of the first cabin, who had stood calmly waiting for their turn—the turn which, because of scarcity of boats and shortness of time, never came for most of them.
“God knows I’m not proud to be here!” said a rich New York man. “I got on a boat when they were about to lower it and when, from delays below, there was no woman to take the vacant place. I don’t think any man who was saved is deserving of censure, but I realize that, in contrast with those who went down, we may be viewed unfavorably.” ”

“ But these men stood aside—one can see them—and gave place not merely to the delicate and the refined, but to the scared woman from the steerage with her toddler by her side, coming through the very gate of Death and out of the mouth of Hell to the imagined Eden of America. ”

“ The revolver which the sailors say snuffed out Murdock’s life was not the only weapon that rang out above the shrieks of the drowning. Officers of the Titanic, upon whom devolved the duty of seeing that the “unwritten law” of the sea—“women and children first”—was enforced, were, according to the recital of the members of the great liner’s crew, forced to shoot frenzied male passengers, who, impelled by the fear of death, attempted to get into the lifeboats swinging from their davits. ”

“ Men and women appeared to be stunned all day Monday, the full force of the disaster not reaching them until Tuesday night. After being wrapped up in blankets and given brandy and hot coffee, their first thoughts were for their husbands and those at home. Most of them imagined that their husbands had been picked up by other vessels and then began flooding the wireless rooms with messages. We knew that those who were not on board the Carpathia had gone down to death, and this belief was confirmed Monday afternoon when we received a wire from Mr. Marconi himself asking why no news had been sent. ”

“ In the presence and under the shadow of so overwhelming a tragedy I am overcome with feelings too deep for words. The White Star Line will do everything humanly possible to alleviate the sufferings of the survivors and the relatives of those who were lost.
“The Titanic was the last word in ship building. Every British regulation had been complied with and her masters, officers and crew were the most experienced and skillful in the British service. ”

“ Had Harold Cotton, Marconi operator on the Carpathia, gone to bed Sunday night at his usual time, the Carpathia would have known nothing of the Titanic’s plight, and the lifeboats, without food or water, might have been the scenes of even greater tragedy than the great death ship itself. ”

“ He said that when the Carpathia, on the morning after the disaster, steamed through a lot of the Titanic’s floating wreckage, he was surprised to note great quantities of broken bits of cork, such as are used in life preservers. He was astonished also that he did not see a larger number of floating bodies.
“I have always supposed,” said Major Peuchen, who is an experienced yachtsman, “that a life preserver in good condition would sustain a dead body as well as a live one.” ”

“ Finally, off in the distant horizon, a sailor in the leading boat, discerned smoke. “We are saved,” went up the cry, and the rescue came just in time, for before the Carpathia had taken aboard the occupants of the last frail craft the waves were increasing in height, kicked up by the wind that had increased with the rising of the sun.
All were tenderly cared for on the Cunard liner. The regular passengers willingly gave up their cabins to their unfortunate refugees, medical aid was forthcoming, and nothing left undone that could relieve the distress. ”

“ Who was receiving the message, those in the boats did not know, and they would least of all have supposed that a Mediterranean ship in the distant South Atlantic track would be their rescuer.
As the screams in the water multiplied, another sound was heard, strong and clear at first, then fainter in the distance. It was the melody of the hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” played by the string orchestra in the dining saloon. Some of those on the water started to sing the words, but grew silent as they realized that for the men who played the music was a sacrament soon to be consummated by death. ”

“ In the meantime, however, those upon the sinking ship, who knew that they had only a few hours at most to live, lived up to the most splendid example of Anglo-Saxon courage. As the ship sank lower those on board climbed higher, prolonging life to the last minute. Frenzied search was made of every part of the decks by those who hoped that the sailors had overlooked a life raft or small boat which might be used. ”

“ The result of the tragedy must be that aroused public opinion will compel the formulation of new and drastic regulations, alike by the British Board of Trade and by the Federal authorities, providing not merely for the adequate equipment of every ship with salvatory apparatus but for rigorous periodical inspection of the appliances and a constant drill of the crew.{vii}
Let there be an end of boasting about the supremacy of man to the immitigable laws and forces of nature. ”

“ In the construction of the Titanic no limit of cost circumscribed their endeavor, and when this vessel took its place at the head of the line every modern improvement in shipbuilding was supposed to have been realized; so confident were they that both owner and builder were eager to go upon the trial trip; no sufficient tests were made of boilers or bulkheads or gearing or equipment, and no life-saving or signal devices were reviewed; officers and crew were strangers to one another and passengers to both. ”

“ The first blush of poignant grief will pass from those who survive and were bereft. But always will they sense in its fullest meaning this greatest of all sacrifice. Ever must it remain as a reassuring knowledge of the love, and faithfulness, and courage, of the Man, and of his care for the weak.
“Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friend.{viii}”
Hymn for Survivors of the Titanic. ”

“ Shortly after the Titanic crashed into the iceberg, said the doctor, Mr. Thayer had collected his wife, his son and his wife’s maid and gotten them in line for a lifeboat. Realizing that there was not enough room for the men, Mr. Thayer forced his wife and her maid into the boat and then tried to get his son in also.
The lad, however, refused to desert his father. Stepping back, he made room for some one else, said to have been a grown man, and grasping his father’s hand, said he “guessed he would stick by dad.” ”

“ The captain seemed to straighten out his shoulders and his face was set with determination.
“‘Get back there, you cowards,’ he roared. ‘Behave yourself like men. Look at these women. Can you not be as brave as they?’
“The men fell back, and from that moment there seemed to be a spirit of resignation all over the ship. Husbands and wives clasped each other and burst into tears. Then a few minutes later came the order for the women and children to take to the boats. ”

“ The ship first went down up to the stern, but righted up.{175} Then the bow arose above the water almost like a porpoise. The ship went slowly down. We saw the captain on his bridge.
We saw the water come up and up until it almost reached him. Then we heard a pistol shot. Many people thought that he had shot himself, but it was simply his last call for help. He went down with his boat.
It had been just forty minutes after the collision that La Bourgogne took her final dive. Then suddenly men, women and children, some of them still alive, were spouted out like sticks in a boiling volume. ”

“ Any one attending a burial at sea will most surely lose the common impression of the awfulness of a grave in the mighty deep. The wild Atlantic may rage and toss, the shipwrecked mariners cry for mercy, but far below in the calm untroubled depth they rest in peace. ”

“ I can still see those husbands kissing their wives and telling them good-bye. I can see the sailors standing by so calm and brave. The sight of those good men who gave their lives for others will always be with me. Words can’t tell the tale of their sacrifice.
“The hours we spent in that small boat after those heroic men went down were hours of torture. When we got on the Carpathia we were treated with the utmost consideration.
“I saw Mr. Ismay when he came on board. He was trembling from head to foot and kept saying, ‘I’m Ismay, I’m Ismay’.” ”

“ By the time the boats were filled the water had entered the engine-room and the ship was drifting helplessly. About 2 o’clock Captain Smith, who had been standing upon the bridge with a megaphone to his mouth, again went to the wireless cabin.
“Men,” he said to Phillips and Bride, with a break in his voice, “you have done your full duty. You can do no more. Abandon your cabin, for it is now every man for himself.” ”

“ After floating about for four hours we were taken on board the steamer that was bound for Naples—but she is now taking us to New York.
“It is terrible to see the people who have lost their families and friends—one lady has lost $15,000 worth of clothing, and no one has saved anything. Many of the passengers have only their night clothes with coats over them.
“I shall never forget the sight of that beautiful boat as she went down, the orchestra playing to the last, the lights burning until they were extinguished by the waves. It sounds so unreal, like a scene on the stage. ”

“ The inadequacy of the Titanic’s lifeboat appliances is not disputed. Steamship companies are already vying with one another to correct in this respect the admitted shortcomings of the past. The sole excuse offered is that collision bulkheads, watertight compartments and other like devices have been regarded until now as making the marvelous vessels of the present day “their own best lifeboats.” The Titanic and many of her sister ships of the ocean fleets have been called “unsinkable.” ”