TRAGEDY OF TITANIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1082, 20 September 1930, Page 26

TRAGEDY OF TITANIC

Stricken Liner Sank Within Sight of Another Vessel, Whose Radio Man was Asleep GRIM STORY OF DISASTER

When fate stages a tragedy. . . . The largest liner in the world had sped across the Atlantic through the live-long day. Two thousand two hundred people were on hoard her. An April Sunday provided space for reflection (o many of the ship’s company. They had spout, four lull days at sea since their wonderful new liner —as safe as an hotel on land, and how much bigger and better served!—had left Southampton on her first ocean voyage, moving away with such an enormous pull in the narrow waters that big ships had strained and broken their moorings. Nearer and nearer they were now getting to New York, and first-class passengers were already sending messages through the Cape wireless. After church services in the evening followed a round of games and jolity. And so, singly and in groups, the passengers on many decks made their way to bed. This Sunday night was very cold and calm. In the wireless room the first operator was occupied in tapping Ms message to Cape Race. Earlier in the evening a warning had come through of a field of ice floating down on the path of transatlantic shipping. At 11 o’clock another warning was received from a ship now not many miles ahead. It was acknowledged, and tho other operator was asked, being so near, to avoid jamming the distant communications with Cape Race. On the bridge the liner was being navigated at full speed ahead, but a sharp look-out was being kept for ice. At 20 minutes to 12 an iceberg ahead was reported from the “crow's nest.” The ship's course was turned southward. and in a few minutes the iceberg swept past on the starboard — right-hand side, with a slight tearing shock. . . . HULL RIPPED OPEN The side of the Titanic was ripped open from foremast to stern. Her double bottom, her divided length, her proud boast of being unsinkahle, could avail her nothing Six compartments, six separate floating vessels, had been opened to the sea with a shock that was so slightly felt that an officer off duty went on deck, looked around and turned in, as he thought, for the night. Half an hour passed before it was known for certain that the Titanic must sink within a short time. That was soon after midnight. Her decklights had been extinguished and her engines stopped, and the great ship lay helpless, awaiting her doom. Hope of rescue of the greater number of her 1,348 passengers and S6O crew—most of them sleeping as peacefully as in bed at home—depended on outside assistance. Her 20 lifeboats could not carry very many of them. Her wireless operator had ceased sending telegrams to Cape Race, and was now broadcasting insistent calls for rescue as far as they would reach. Replies were not long in coming—from the Carpathia. which was IS miles away; from the Frankfort. 140 miles away, and eve A from the Olympic, which was 560 miles away. CARPATHIA RACES TO RESCUE The Carpathia was steaming at full speed to the rescue, but she could not hope to cover 50 miles in less than three and a-half hours. The Titanic could not last so long. Where was the boat ahead whose warning of ice had been so near and strong an hour before? That question was answered when the ship’s officers set about planning the rescue from an unbelievably sinking ship of a larger crowd than had ever been at sea before. For first one officer, then another, sighted a ship’s lights only a few miles away in the night.

i Here, indeed, was hope and sus- | pense. The Morse lamp was tried, hut Ino reply. Rockets were fired. The ship was thought to be approaching. ■lf so, not a soul would be lost. But jit was not so. Fifteen hundred i people were to shriek and drown withj in view of those quietly burning lights. ! The vessel that had sent the warnj ing about ice was the Californian, al ship of 6.000 tons, on this voyage not : carrying passengers. She had stopped at half-past ten with a field of ice! looming ahead, and it was half an hour , later when the wireless operator spoke : with the Titanic, giving warning of ice. and being asked in return not : to jam the communications with Cape Race. At half-past eleven he turned in, 1 after being on duty for 16i hours. The Californian carried only one wireless : man. i About this time the third officer on ■ the bridge sighted an oncoming vessel which stopped within a. few miles 1 i ten minutes later. Her deck lights | went out, and it was thought that it she was a passenger vessel (which the captain of the Californian doubted I her passengers had gone to bed. What : ship she was could not be guessed j —only the Titanic was known to be I in the vicinity. ; The third officer went off watch at ! a quarter-past 12 and, curiously sur-, | prising, went and woke up the wirej less operator to ask what ships he had got. “Only the Titanic,” was the • j sleepy reply. The third officer put. the headphones ! on and heard nothing. And he went off to his cabin, and the wireless • operator turned and fell asleep again • AN AGONY OF SUSPENSE What an agony of suspense over- . hung that wireless cahfn when the | third officer put on the headphones! ! A tired man was prompted to be just ! a little curious about a ship that had stopped in the night. But with that ! gesture the great. Spirit of Tragedy 1 had done. The wireless headphones were drowsily taken off. . . . Sleep , took charge. That the ship in sight was the i Titanic, doomed and sinking; that the wireless operator who an hour before was tapping telegrams to Cape Race was now insistently sending a call for rescue over the ocean that was throbbing unheard on the Californian’s aerial —these things went unknown to two -tired men. An officer and ail apprentice on watch on the bridge were interested iu the only vessel to be seen. They tried to speak with her by Morse lamp, but did not observe any reply. Around two o’clock in the morning funny things happened. The ship’s lights appeared to dip, rockets were seen, and then the lights went slowly from view, as though the ship was steaming away to the south-west. That was all. At that, moment, and for an hour afterwards, the cries from 1,500 drowning people lost themselves in despair. For two hours the Titanic had been in the death-throes. While the lifeboats were being got ready, every effort: was made to attract the notice of the Californian—those two who were fated not to see the tragedy so near to them. Tho passengers were called. Men made way for women and children. Lifebelts were handed around. The great bows of the ship, which had cleaved the ocean for four days with such arrogant speed, dipped. And then the shadow of death overhung the vessel. Women paled, aud some began to whimper. Men screwed up their courage and jested. In the wireon his hey, intermittently passing word with the Carpathian operator. The boats were lowered, and the ship leaned over. A wife would not leave her husband, and they both stayed to meet death together. Boats were got away one by one. Passengers collected on the decks, and sang hymns in this weird and bitterly colil morning. LAST TRAGIC SCENE I A small party of foreigners made a. rush for i boat, and the captain had i for a single moment to call an angry note with a revolver. The ship’s or- ! chestra went for their instruments, and in the last tragic scene played “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” The propellers lifted out, of the water, and all the lights but the mastlights and red and green side-lights went out. And while the lifeboats ! were strenuously pulling away, the great ship, carrying twice as many as I got away, lurched sideways and for- ! wards and sank into the ocean. All the while the lights of the Californian burned serenely iu the distance. An hour later, and stillness reigned over the grave of the victims. The survivors, in lifeboats and on wreckage, and strong men keeping themselves alive in lifebelts in spite of the cold, were drifting over a wide area. The Carpathia drew near, and the work of rescue began. It was taken up during that day and evening by the Frankfort aud the Olympia. Seven hundred and twelve people were saved, and 1,503 # perished, among them the captain and lijs two chief oificers.— ‘Sunday Dispatch.*' i