See the publications presented by the Racine Journal-News, April 18, 1912 on the Titanic and the Lowel Sun, Apr. 18, 1954 on the Sultana Maritime disasters
STORY OF TITANIC
DESTRUCTION IS
VIVID IN HORROR—TOLD BY WIRELESS
WELLFLETT, Mass.; April
18—Wireless communication was established late last night for the .first time
with-'the Carpathla the Cunard liner' bearing survivors of the Titanic disaster
to New York. Alter the Wellflett station had 'received the first' authentic
news of 'the-, sinking of the/giant. White Star liner Sunday night, the
wireless waves were lost and up to the. present time had not been
re-established.
'During the time when the Wellflett
station was receiving news from the Carpathla the following facts wore made
known:
John Jacob Astor, Major Archibald
Butt, Isador Straus, Charles M. Hays and William T. Stead are not among those
on the Carpathia.
A scene of terrible panic
prevailed on the Titanic when she crashed into the Iceberg at 10:52 Sunday
night. A dance was. being held by the first cabin passengers and scores of women,
clad only In thin evening dresses, too frantic to even gather their wraps and
furs, were lowered Into
the lifeboats to the surface of
the ice-covered sea. . '
Practically, all of the
survivors, with the exception of the members of the crew, were In a serious
condition. Many of the women were hysterical and some in a state of mental
collapse. Conditions aboard the Carpathia were described as those which would
be unbearable under any othe circumstances.
The ship's medical supplies were
inadequate for the treatment of more than a few of the most serious cases.
There were not enough clothes to go round and the survivors were suffering from
the cold.
Victims
under Care of Physician
The great liner was rent almost in
two by the impact with the .iceberg. She went to the bottom with nearly all her
crew and almost all the men passengers. The only survivors of the wreck are those
who were picked up by the Carpathia. Beyond that list there is no hope, The Carpathia
found no other ships on the scene. Fishing craft may have arrived later and searched
the waters, but they were too late to find any living thing. The crew and
passengers of the Carpathla, lining the rails, saw a desolate expanse of water,
broken only by the floating bodies of half a dozen victims, and what wreckage
had come to the surface far enough away to have escaped the suction of the
sinking liner drifted twenty lifeboats, filled with agonized women and children
and a few men passengers, besides some members of the crow who had been lowered
away to man
Many of the women and all of the
children were in their night clothes and but few of them had overwraps of any
description. As the Carpathia is plowing the Atlantic on her way to New
York, many of these women, are under care of physicians, In a pitiable state of
mental and physical exhaustion.
Passengers
Killed By the Crash
Tho iceberg was not sighted until
the Titanic was dead upon it. Captain Smith ordered the engines reversed, but
It was then too late to avoid the crash.
Several passengers were killed on
the Titanic by the impact and- many more were badly hurt, a number having limbs
and arms broken. One hundred and fifty members of the crew, asleep in the crew
quarters, ,were crushed by the buckling steel plates of the hull and bow and
hurled beneath
the masses of Ice and debris
hurled upon them. The liner, rushing- along with even her reduced speed, bore
such a momentum that she was carried over the sunken "spines" of the
Iceberg, the plates from her bottom being ripped off and more than half of the thirty-two
waterproof bulkhead compartments being flooded. Captain Smith on the bridge,
was the first to realize the danger, He still, however, did not realize the
fact that the "unsinkable $10,000,000" Titanic would be at the bottom
of the sea in less than four hours.
As a precautionary measure the
captain ordered the wireless "S. O, S," the call of distress at sea, to,be
sounded. This was the call picked up by the Carpathla, the Carmania and later the
Olympic, But before further details of the crash could be sent out to the
distant liners the surging waters flooded the engine and dynamo rooms, cutting
off the power for the wireless and leaving the Titanic isolated on the ocean.
Sea
Calm When Crash Came
From the few details which the Carpathia's
operator was able to transmit to Wellflett the sea was .perfectly calm when
the-accident happened. On every side stretched a great white expanse of broken
ice and it was through this mass that the Titanic steamed to her doom. From
the-estimates of the survivors the operator conjectured that the vessel was
steaming at the rate of ten miles an hour. Considering the ship's equipment of engines,
this 'was approximately at the rate of half her full speed.
This indicates that, although
Captain Smith was hoping to establish, a record on the vessel's maiden trip, he
had confined his efforts at spurting to unobstructed water and was cognizant of
the danger which the captain of
the French liner La Touraine reports he pointed out to him. -It also indicates that,
as usual, the great bulk of the iceberg was below the surface.
The night was dark and a low haze
spread over the 'ocean, making it impossible to discern objects ahead. How many
icebergs were shrouded in this mist will never be known. But it is certain that
the greatest of them and of the kind that mariners call a "blue bird"
stood directly in the path of the Titanic. . . . . .
Survivors Praise
Captain and Crew
Of exactly what orders were given
from the bridge there is no report, but the Carpathia's operator said that the
survivors had only, words of praise for the conduct of Captain Smith and his
crew. .Captain Smith, it Is believed, was on the bridge with the lookout when
the vessel struck. There
was no need to sound a muster
call for the crew. 'The crash brought every man to the deck. Neither was, there
any cause for the enforcement of the law of the sea that when men disregard the
.rule of "women and children first" they shall be clubbed back. The
Wellflett dispatches confirm' the supposition that a large number of the crew,
peacefully sleeping In the forecastle head, were instantly crushed to death. '
Survivors stated .'that after
they pulled away from the vessel in the lifeboats and. looked back only the
black, outline of the Titanic was visible through the fog. All the lights had
been extinguished when the inrush of water reached the dynamo room. The
lifeboats escaped the sinking ship only to fight another life battle against'
the floating lee.
At midnight last' night the
Carpathia was estimated to be 350 miles from New York, She is expected to reach
there late tonight. Proceeding toward her under :full steam are the United
States scout cruisers Chester and-Salem and the Chicago Examiner press boat,
Mary Scully.
Captain
Smith Remains On Bridge
The Carpathia was the first liner
to arrive at the scene of the wreck. All' she found were the lifeboats, loaded
with their half frozen occupants, and a sea covered .with wreckage and debris.
Those in the lifeboats say the last man they, saw on the wreck was Captain
Smith himself, standing 'on his bridge .and shouting his last orders through a
megaphone.
When the Carpathia arrived on the
scene of the wreck a number of bodies were seen floating in the ocean. They were
those of either passengers or members of the crew who had clung to pieces of
wreckage and had perished in the 'freezing water, No effort was made to recover
any of them,
the Carpathia's officers deciding
to devote all their time to rescuing those victims who were scattered to the
four winds in lifeboats. As far as is known, 'all the lifeboats were found.
When Captain Smith, according to 'a
story obtained from the Carpathia's survivors,, realized that the great ship
was doomed he ordered the crew to load the lifeboats with women and children and
lower them away, The lifeboats were rocked and swayed by the rolling of the
ship and the
task of disembarking was
extremely difficult.
Titanic
Moving Slowly In Mist
Definite information has been
obtained that the Titanic was proceeding at a speed of only eleven miles,
'instead of twenty, when the iceberg was struck. Icefields' and Icebergs
abounded on all sides and Captain Smith, personally on the bridge and in
command, was cautiously' feeling his way through the floating cakes, A low,
gray colored mist hanging over the ocean rendered it practically impossible to
see more than a cable's length in front 'of the monster liner,
'The Carpathia, bearing the
survivors to New York, was making good speed when wireless communication was
cut off and at the present rate will dock in New York tonight, probably by 9
o'clock.
This information was received at
10 o'clock from the scout cruiser Salem. That vessel reported that she had been
in Communication with the scout cruiser Chester and that vessel received the
message from the Carpathla.
The wireless communication was
broken off after the Carpathla had stated her progress. The Salem asked the
Chester not to attempt to take the names of the third-class passengers saved,
as the weather was bad and there was more important matter waiting to be
transmitted by wireless.
Wellfiett has not been able to
pick up the Carpathla since 9 o'clock last night owing to the bad weather
reported -by the cruisers Salem and Chester.
Every wireless station along the
coast Is calling the Carpathia without cessation, but none has been able to reach
.her.
As soon as the survivors learned
that the Chester had been reached they flooded the station with reassuring
messages to friends and relatives. These messagss were sent to the Chester, to
be relayed by Sable Island, From the fact that this station's communication
with the Carpathia. was broken off it is doubted whether the messages filed by
the passengers have reached their destination.
___________________________________
(E. T’s Note)
(The Titanic was not the worst maritime
disaster as reported in the Lowel Sun on April 18, 1954. On April 27, 1865, the steamboat Sultana, some seven
miles north of Memphis, Tennessee; It was the worst maritime disaster in U.S.
history)
_______________________________________________________________
The Sinking of
the Sultana by
Don Terrio
What was the
greatest maritime disaster? History has forgotten this river tragedy.
ASK almost anyone to name the
greatest ship disaster in history and he'll probably reply: "The Titanic"
or "The Lusitcmia." Chances are he's never even heard of
the steamship Sultana, which blew up on the Mississippi River on April
27, JP-65, killing 1,700 men, women, and children.
The Sultana, a
side-wheeler built for the lower-river cotton trade, was running her regular schedule
from New Orleans to St. Louis when she took aboard 2,134 Union soldiers at Vicksburg,
Mississippi, the evening of April 24.
They were emaciated and weak but
happy. After months in Confederate prisons, they were returning North in, a
prisoner exchange. Just after dark on April 26, the Sultana docked at Memphis,
where a leak in one of her four boilers was repaired. It was several hours
before she swung into the river to take on coal from a barge.
The chilly night was dark and
starless. At 2 a.m. the. Sultana passed around a bend 8 miles north of
Memphis. Suddenly, dock watchers and Memphis citizens who were still awake
heard a dull roar several miles away. Aboard the gunboat U.S.S. Grosbeak, Mate
William Floyd asked the quartermaster to look through his telescope and report
what he made of a bright glare In the sky.
The quartermaster replied:
"A large steamer on fire, sir." Floyd pounded on the door of the
captain's cabin, shouting:
"The Sultana is ablaze up river, sir!"
The Grosbeak put out Into
the river, together with other boats from Memphis, but there was no hope for
the Sultana. The roaring explosion aboard the side-wheeler had untold
tons of force as hot steam burst .Its Iron bonds. Several hundred men were
hurled outward, together with hot coal, huge pieces of a boiler, and the
afterdeck.
The terrific blast ripped a great
hole upward through the cabin and hurricane decks, tore out forward stairways,
and left the upper works a complete wreck. The tall twin smokestacks crashed
down, pinning men beneath them. Flames broke out on the lower deck.
The floor of the main cabin,
where officers were sleeping, dropped at the fore end, making an inclined plane
which poured men and cots into the flames in a tangled heap.
"Don't jump! We'll try to
run ashore!" the mate shouted. But scores leaped overboard.
Women still in their night
clothes ran shrieking from the cabins, carrying children. Others prayed
quietly, then leaped overboard.
Several hundred men were still in
the bow of the boat, which hadn't been reached by the
flames. Then the wind veered,
sending a solid mass of fire against them. Preferring death
by drowning to being burned
alive, most of them jumped Into the water. Some survivors floated downriver as
far as Memphis. There were men and women on planks, barrels, window shutters,
sections of railing, doors, bales of hay, horse troughs, and other wreckage.
Rescue boats went up and down the river, picking up survivors and taking them
to Memphis hospitals.
Even though no other ship
disaster claimed as many lives, few history books record the Sultana's story. Historians lost sight of it among
more Important events—Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox on April 9, Lincoln's
assassination on April 14, and Johnston's surrender to Sherman on April 26,
near where Durham, North Carolina, now stands.
ejt
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