“Positively not. No one thought such an accident could happen. It was undreamed of. I think it would be absurd to try to hold some individual responsible. Every precaution was taken; that the precautions were of no avail is a source of the deepest sorrow. But the accident was unavoidable.”
J. B. Boxhall, the fourth officer, was then questioned.
“Were there any drills or any inspection before the Titanic sailed?” he was asked.
“Both,” said the witness. “The men were mustered and the life-boats lowered in the presence of the inspectors from the Board of Trade.”
“How many boats were lowered?”
“Just two, sir.”
“One on each side of the ship?”
“No, sir. They were both on the same side. We were lying in dock.”
The witness said he did not know whether the lowering tackle ran free or not on that occasion.
“In lowering the life-boats at the test, did the gear work satisfactorily?”
“So far as I know.”
In lowering a life-boat, he said, first the boat has to be cleared, chocks knocked down and the boat hangs free. Then the davits are screwed out to the ship’s side and the boat lowered.
At the time of the tests all officers of the Titanic were present.
Boxhall said that under the weather conditions experienced at the time of the collision the life-boats were supposed to carry sixty-five persons. Under the regulations of the British Board of Trade, in addition to the oars, there were in the boats water breakers, water dippers, bread, bailers, mast and sail and lights and a supply of oil. All of these supplies, said Boxhall, were in the boats when the Titanic left Belfast. He could not say whether they were in when the vessel left Southampton.
“Now,” repeated Senator Smith, “suppose the weather was clear and the sky unruffled, as it was at the time of the disaster, how many would the boat hold?”
“Really, I don’t know. It would depend largely upon the people who were to enter. If they did as they were told I believe each boat could accommodate sixty-five persons.”
Boxhall testified to the sobriety and good habits of his superior and brother officers.
Boxhall said he went down to the steerage, inspected all the decks in the vicinity of where the ship had struck, found no traces of any damage and went directly to the bridge and so reported.
“The captain ordered me to send a carpenter to sound the ship, but I found a carpenter coming up with the announcement that the ship was taking water. In the mail room I found mail sacks floating about while the clerks were at work. I went to the bridge and reported, and the captain ordered the life-boats to be made ready.”
Boxhall testified that at Captain Smith’s orders he took word of the ship’s position to the wireless operators.
“What position was that?”
“Forty-one forty-six north, fifty fourteen west.”
“Was that the last position taken?”
“Yes, the Titanic stood not far from there when she sank.”
After that Boxhall went back to the life-boats, where there were many men and women. He said they had been provided with life-belts.
{illust. caption = THE EFFECTS OF STRIKING AN ICEBERG
(1) Shows normal….}
“After that I was on the bridge most of the time sending out distress signals, trying to attract the attention of boats ahead,” he said. “I sent up distress rockets until I left the ship, to try to attract the attention of a ship directly ahead. I had seen her lights. She seemed to be meeting us and was not far away. She got close enough, so she seemed to me, to read our Morse electric signals.”
“Suppose you had a powerful search light on the Titanic, could you not have thrown a beam on the vessel and have compelled her attention?”
“We might.”
H. J. Pitman, the third officer of the ship, was the first witness on April 23d. By a series of searching questions Senator Fletcher brought out the fact that when the collision occurred the Titanic was going at the greatest speed attained during the trip, even though the ship was entering the Grand Banks and had been advised of the presence of ice.
Frederick Fleet, a sailor and lookout man on the Titanic, followed Pitman on the stand. Fleet said he had had five or six years’ experience at sea and was lookout on the Oceanic prior to going on the Titanic. He was in the crow’s nest at the time of the collision.
Fleet stated that he had kept a sharp lookout for ice, and testified to seeing the iceberg and signaling the bridge.
Fleet acknowledged that if he had been aided in his observations by a good glass he probably could have spied the berg into which the ship crashed in time to have warned the bridge to avoid it. Major Arthur Peuchen, of Toronto, a passenger who followed Fleet on the stand, also testified to the much greater sweep of vision afforded by binoculars and, as a yachtsman, said he believed the presence of the iceberg might have been detected in time to escape the collision had the lookout men been so equipped.
It was made to appear that the blame for being without glasses did not rest with the lookout men. Fleet said they had asked for them at Southampton and were told there were none for them. One glass, in a pinch, would have served in the crow’s nest.
The testimony before the committee on April 24th showed that the big steamship was on the verge of a field of ice twenty or thirty miles long, if she had not actually entered it, when the accident occurred.
The committee tried to discover whether it would add to human safety if the ships were fitted with search lights so that at night objects could be seen at a greater distance. The testimony so far along this line had been conflicting. Some of the witnesses thought it would be no harm to try it, but they were all skeptical as to its value, as an iceberg would not be especially distinguishable because its bulk is mostly below the surface.
One of the witnesses said that much dependence is not placed upon the lookout, and that those lookouts who used binoculars constantly found them detrimental.
Harold G. Lowe, fifth officer of the Titanic, told the committee his part in the struggle of the survivors for life following the catastrophe. The details of this struggle have have already been told in a previous chapter.
In great detail Guglielmo Marconi, on April 25th, explained the operations of his system and told how he had authorized Operator Bride of the Titanic, and Operator Cottam, of the Carpathia, to sell their stories of the disaster after they came ashore.
In allowing the operator’s to sell their stories, said Mr. Marconi, there was no question of suppressing or monopolizing the news. He had done everything he could, he said, to have the country informed as quickly as possible of the details of the disaster. That was why he was particularly glad for the narratives of such important witnesses as the operators to receive publication, regardless of the papers that published them.
He repeated the testimony of Cottam that every effort had been made to get legitimate dispatches ashore. The cruiser Chester, he said, had been answered as fully as possible, though it was not known at the time that its queries came from the President of the United States. The Salem, he said, had never got in touch with the Carpathia operator.
Senator Newlands suggested that the telegrams, some signed by the name of Mr. Sammis and some with the name of Marconi, directing Cottam to “keep his mouth shut” and hold out for four figures on his story, was sent only as the Carpathia was entering New York harbor, when there was no longer need for sending official or private messages from the rescuing ship. There had been an impression before, he said, that the messages had been sent to Cottam when the ship was far at sea, when they might have meant that he was to hold back messages relieving the anxiety of those on shore.
