IN ADDITION TO LACK OF LIFEBOATS, CREWS DID NOT KNOW HOW TO MANAGE THOSE THEY HAD—ALSO FIRE RAGED IN COAL BUNKERS FROM THE START—INEXPERIENCED CREW
There was some criticism among the survivors of the Titanic crew’s inability to handle the lifeboats. “The crew of the Titanic was a new one, of course,” declared Mrs. George N. Stone of Cincinnati, “and had never been through a lifeboat drill, or any training in the rudiments of launching, manning and equipping the boats. Scores of lives were thus ruthlessly wasted, a sacrifice to inefficiency. Had there been any sea running, instead of the glassy calm that prevailed, not a single passenger would have safely reached the surface of the water. The men did not know how to lower the boats; the boats were not provisioned; many of the sailors could not handle an oar with reasonable skill.”
Albert Major, steward of the Titanic, admitted that there had been no boat drills and that the lifeboats were poorly handled.
“One thing comes to my mind above all else as I live over again the sinking of the Titanic,” he said. “We of the crew realized at the start of the trouble that we were unorganized, and, although every man did his best, we were hindered in getting the best results because we could not pull together.
“There had not been a single boat drill on the Titanic. The only time we were brought together was when we were mustered for roll call about 9 o’clock on the morning we sailed. From Wednesday noon until Sunday nearly five days passed, but there was no boat drill.”
The White Star liner Titanic was on fire from the day she sailed from Southampton. Her officers and crew knew it, for they had fought the fire for days.
This story, told for the first time on the day of landing by the survivors of the crew who were sent back to England on board the Red Star liner Lapland, was only one of the many thrilling tales of the first—and last—voyage of the Titanic.
“The Titanic sailed from Southampton on Wednesday, April 10, at noon,” said J. Dilley, fireman on the Titanic, who lives at 21 Milton Road, Newington, London, North, and who sailed with 150 other members of the Titanic’s crew on the Lapland.
“I was assigned to the Titanic from the Oceanic, where I had served as a fireman. From the day we sailed the Titanic was on fire, and my sole duty, together with eleven other men, had been to fight that fire. We had made no headway against it.
“Of course, sir, the passengers knew nothing of the fire. Do you think, sir, we’d have let them know about it? No, sir.
“The fire started in bunker No. 6. There were hundreds of tons of coal stored there. The coal on top of the bunker was wet, as all the coal should have been, but down at the bottom of the bunker the coal had been permitted to get dry.
“The dry coal at the bottom of the pile took fire, sir, and smoldered for days. The wet coal on top kept the flames from coming through, but down in the bottom of the bunker, sir, the flames was a-raging.
“Two men from each watch of stokers were told off, sir, to fight that fire. The stokers, you know, sir, work four hours at a time, so twelve of us was fighting flames from the day we put out of Southampton until we hit the iceberg.
“No, sir, we didn’t get that fire out, and among the stokers there was talk, sir, that we’d have to empty the big coal bunkers after we’d put our passengers off in New York and then call on the fireboats there to help us put out the fire.
“But we didn’t need such help. It was right under bunker No. 6 that the iceberg tore the biggest hole in the Titanic, and the flood of water that came through, sir, put out the fire that our tons and tons of water had not been able to get rid of.
“The stokers were beginning to get alarmed over it, but the officers told us to keep our mouths shut—they didn’t want to alarm the passengers.”
Another story told by members of the Titanic’s crew, was of a fire which is said to have started in one of the coal bunkers of the vessel shortly after she left her dock at Southampton, and which was not extinguished until Saturday afternoon. The story, as told by a fireman, was as follows:
“It had been necessary to take the coal out of sections 2 and 3 on the starboard side, forward, and when the water came rushing in after the collision with the ice the bulkheads would not hold because they did not have the supporting weight of the coal. Somebody reported to Chief Engineer Bell that the forward bulkhead had given way and the engineer replied: ‘My God, we are lost.’
“The engineers stayed by the pumps and went down with the ship. The firemen and stokers were sent on deck five minutes before the Titanic sank, when it was seen that they would inevitably be lost if they stayed longer at their work of trying to keep the fires in the boilers and the pumps at work. The lights burned to the last because the dynamos were run by oil engines.”