by Tim Maltin
J. Joughin, head baker (Br. Inq.):
Chief Officer Wilde shouted to the stewards to keep the men passengers back, but there was no necessity for the order as they were keeping back. The order was splendid. The stewards, firemen and sailors got in line and passed the ladies in; and then we had difficulty to find ladies to go into the boat. No distinction at all as to class was made. I saw a number of third-class women with their bags, which they would not let go.
The boat was let down and the women were forcibly drawn into it. The boat was a yard and a half from the ship’s side. There was a slight list and we had to drop them in. The officer ordered two sailors and a steward to get in.
BOAT NO. 126
No male passenger in this boat
Passengers: Miss Phillips.
Bade good-bye to his daughter and sank with the ship: Mr. Phillips.
Women and children: 40.
Crew: Seamen Poigndestre (in charge), F. Clench. Later, Lucas and two firemen were transferred from boat “D.”
Jumped from deck below as boat was lowered: 1 Frenchman.
Total: 43.
Transfers were made to this boat first from Engelhardt “D” and second, from Engelhardt upset boat “B,” so that it reached the Carpathia’s side with seventy, or more.
Incidents
F. Clench, A. B. (Am. Inq., p. 636):
The second officer and myself stood on the gunwale and helped load women and children. The chief officer passed them along to us and we filled three boats, No. 12 first. In each there were about forty or fifty people. After finishing No. 16 boat, I went back to No. 12. “How many men (crew) have you in this boat?” the chief officer said, and I said, “Only one, sir.” He looked up and said: “Jump into that boat,” and that made a complement of two seamen. An able seaman was in charge of this boat. (Poigndestre.) We had instructions to keep our eye on No. 14 and keep together.
There was only one male passenger in our boat, and that was a Frenchman who jumped in and we could not find him. He got under the thwart, mixed up with the women, just as we dropped into the water before the boat was lowered and without our knowledge. Officer Lowe transferred some of his people into our boat and others, making close on to sixty, and pretty full up. When Mr. Lowe was gone I heard shouts. I looked around and saw a boat in the way that appeared to be like a funnel; we thought it was the top of a funnel. (It was Engelhardt overturned boat “B.”) There were about twenty on this, and we took off approximately ten, making seventy in my boat.
John Poigndestre, A. B. (Br. Inq., p. 82):
Lightoller ordered us to lay off and stand by close to the ship. Boat “D” and three lifeboats made fast to No. 12. Stood off about 100 yards after ship sank. Not enough sailors to help pick up swimmers. No light. Transfer of about a dozen woman passengers from No. 14 to No. 12. About 150 yards off when Titanic sank. No compass.
BOAT NO. 147
No male passenger in this boat
Passengers: Mrs. Compton, Miss Compton, Mrs. Minahan, Miss Minahan, Mrs. Collyer, Miss Collyer.
Picked up out of sea: W. F. Hoyt (who died), Steward J. Stewart, and a plucky Japanese.
Women: 50.
Volunteer when crew was short: C. Williams.
Crew: Fifth Officer Lowe, Seaman Scarrot, 2 firemen, Stewards Crowe and Morris.
Stowaway: 1 Italian.
Bade good-bye and sank with ship: Dr. Minahan, Mr. Compton, Mr. Collyer.
Total: 60.
Incidents
H. G. Lowe, Fifth Officer (Am. Inq., 116):
Nos. 12, 14 and 16 were down about the same time. I told Mr. Moody that three boats had gone away and that an officer ought to go with them. He said: “You go.” There was difficulty in lowering when I got near the water. I dropped her about five feet, because I was not going to take the chance of being dropped down upon by somebody. While I was on the Boat Deck, two men tried to jump into the boat. I chased them out.
We filled boats 14 and 16 with women and children. Moody filled No. 16 and I filled No. 14. Lightoller was there part of the time. They were all women and children, barring one passenger, who was an Italian, and he sneaked in dressed like a woman. He had a shawl over his head. There was another passenger, a chap by the name of C. Williams, whom I took for rowing. He gave me his name and address (referring to book), “C. Williams, Racket Champion of the World, 2 Drury Road, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Middlesex, England.”
As I was being lowered, I expected every moment that my boat would be doubled up under my feet. I had overcrowded her, but I knew that I had to take a certain amount of risk. I thought if one additional body was to fall into that boat, that slight additional weight might part the hooks, or carry away something; so as we were coming down past the open decks, I saw a lot of Latin people all along the ship’s rails. They were glaring more or less like wild beasts, ready to spring. That is why I yelled out to “look out,” and let go, bang! right along the ship’s side. There was a space I should say of about three feet between the side of the boat and the ship’s side, and as I went down I fired these shots without any intention of hurting anybody and with the positive knowledge that I did not hurt anybody. I fired, I think, three times.
Later, 150 yards away, I herded five boats together. I was in No. 14; then I had 10, 12, collapsible “D” and one other boat (No. 4), and made them tie up. I waited until the yells and shrieks had subsided for the people to thin out, and then I deemed it safe for me to go amongst the wreckage; so I transferred all my passengers, somewhere about fifty-three, from my boat and equally distributed them among my other four boats. Then I asked for volunteers to go with me to the wreck, and it was at this time that I found the Italian. He came aft and had a shawl over his head, and I suppose he had skirts. Anyhow, I pulled the shawl off his face and saw he was a man. He was in a great hurry to get into the other boat and I got hold of him and pitched him in.
Senator Smith: Pitched him in?
Mr. Lowe: Yes; because he was not worth being handled better.
Senator Smith: You pitched him in among the women?
Mr. Lowe: No, sir; in the forepart of the lifeboat in which I transferred my passengers.
Senator Smith: Did you use some pretty emphatic language when you did this?
Mr. Lowe: No, sir: I did not say a word to him.
Then I went off and rowed to the wreckage and around the wreckage and picked up four people alive. I do not know who these live persons were. They never came near me afterwards either to say this or that or the other. But one died, Mr. W. F. Hoyt, of New York. After we got him in the boat we took his collar off so as to give him more chance to breathe, but unfortunately, he died. He was too far gone when we picked him up. I then left the wreck. I went right around, and, strange to say, I did not see a single female body around the wreckage. I did not have a light in my boat. Then I could see the Carpathia coming up and I thought: “Well, I am the fastest boat of the lot,” as I was sailing, you see. I was going through the water four or five knots, bowling along very nicely.
By and by, I noticed a collapsible boat, Engelhardt “D.” It looked rather sorry, so I thought: “Well, I will go down and pick her up and make sure of her.” This was Quartermaster Bright’s boat. Mrs. H. B. Harris, of New York, was in it. She had a broken arm. I had taken this first collapsible (“D”) in tow and I noticed that there was another collapsible (“A”) in a worse plight than this one that I had in tow. I got to her just in time and took off, I suppose, about twenty men and one lady. I left three male bodies in it. I may have been a bit hard-hearted in doing this. I thought: “I am not here to worry about bodies; I am here to save life and not bother about bodies.” The people on the raft told me these had been dead for some time. I do not know whether any one endeavored to find anything on their persons that would identify them, because they were all up to their ankles in water when I took them
off.
Joseph Scarrot, A. B. (Br. Inq., pp. 29, 30): I myself took charge of No. 14 as the only sailorman there. The Chief Officer ordered women and children to be taken in. Some men came and tried to rush the boat. They were foreigners and could not understand the orders I gave them, but I managed to keep them away. I had to use some persuasion with a boat tiller. One man jumped in twice and I had to throw him out the third time. I got all the women and children into the boat. There were fifty-four women and four children—one of them a baby in arms. There were myself, two firemen, three or four stewards and Mr. Lowe, who got into the boat. I told him the trouble I had with the men and he brought out his revolver and fired two shots and said: “If there is any more trouble I will fire at them.” The shots fired were fired between the boat and the ship’s side. The after fall got twisted and we dropped the boat by the releasing gear and got clear of the ship. There were four men rowing. There was a man in the boat who we thought was a sailor, but he was not. He was a window cleaner. The Titanic was then about fifty yards off, and we lay there with the other boats. Mr. Lowe was at the helm. We went in the direction of the cries and came among hundreds of dead bodies and lifebelts. We got one man, who died shortly after he got into the boat. One of the stewards tried to restore him, but without avail. There was another man who was calling for help, but among the bodies and wreckage it was too late for us to reach him. It took half an hour to get to that man. Cannot say exactly, but think we got about twenty off of the Engelhardt boat (“A”).
E. J. Buley, A. B. (Am. Inq., p. 605):
(After his transfer from No. 10 to No. 14.) Then, with Lowe in his boat No. 14, I went back to where the Titanic sank and picked up the remaining live bodies. We got four; all the others were dead. We turned over several to see if they were alive. It looked as if none of them were drowned. They looked as if frozen. The lifebelts they had on were that much (indicating) out of the water, and their heads lay back with their faces on the water. They were head and shoulders out of water, with their heads thrown back. In the morning, after we had picked up all that were alive, there was a collapsible boat (“A”) swamped, which we saw with a lot of people up to their knees in water. We sailed over to them. We then picked up another boat (“D”) and took her in tow. I think we were about the seventh or eighth boat alongside the Carpathia.
F. O. Evans, A. B. (Am. Inq., p. 677):
So from No. 10 we got into his (Lowe’s) boat, No. 14, and went straight over towards the wreckage with eight or nine men and picked up four persons alive, one of whom died on the way to the Carpathia. Another picked up was named J. Stewart, a steward. You could not hardly count the number of dead bodies. I was afraid to look over the sides because it might break my nerves down. We saw no other people in the water or heard their cries, other than these four picked up. The officer said: “Hoist a sail forward.” I did so and made sail in the direction of the collapsible boat “A” about a mile and a half away, which had been swamped. There were in it one woman and about ten or eleven men. Then we picked up another collapsible boat (“D”) and took her in tow to the Carpathia. There were then about twenty-five people in our boat No. 14, including the one who died.
One of the ladies there passed over a flask of whisky to the people who were all wet through. She asked if anybody needed the spirits, and these people were all soaking wet and nearly perished and they passed it around among these men and women. It took about twenty minutes after we sighted the Carpathia to get alongside of her. We saw five or six icebergs—some of them tremendous, about the height of the Titanic—and field ice. After we got on the Carpathia we saw, at a rough estimate, a twenty-five mile floe, sir, flat like the floor.
F. Crowe, steward (Am. Inq., p. 615):
I assisted in handing the women and children into boat No. 12, and was asked if I could take an oar. I said: “Yes,” and was told to man the boat, I believe, by Mr. Murdoch. After getting the women and children in we lowered down to within four or five feet of the water, and then the block and tackle got twisted in some way, causing us to have to cut the ropes to allow the boat to get into the water. This officer, Lowe, told us to do this. He was in the boat with us. I stood by the lever—the lever releasing the blocks from the hooks in the boat. He told me to wait, to get away and cut the line to raise the lever, thereby causing the hooks to open and allow the boat to drop in the water.
There was some shooting that occurred at the time the boat was lowered. There were various men passengers, probably Italians or some foreign nationality other than English or American, who attempted to “rush” the boats. The officers threatened to shoot any man who put his foot into the boat. An officer fired a revolver, but either downward or upward, not shooting at any one of the passengers at all and not injuring anybody. He fired perfectly clear upward and downward and stopped the rush. There was no disorder after that. One woman cried, but that was all. There was no panic or anything in the boat.
After getting into the water I pushed out to the other boats. In No. 14 there were fifty-seven women and children and about six men, including one officer, and I may have been seven. I am not quite sure. I know how many, because when we got out a distance the officer asked me how many people were in the boat.
When the boat was released and fell I think she must have sprung a leak. A lady stated that there was some water coming up over her ankles. Two men and this lady assisted in bailing it out with bails that were kept in the boat for that purpose. We transferred our people to other boats so as to return to the wreck and see if we could pick up anybody else. Returning to the wreck, we heard various cries and endeavored to get among them, and we were successful in doing so, and picked up one body that was floating around in the water. It was that of a man and he expired shortly afterwards. Going further into the wreckage we came across a steward (J. Stewart) and got him into the boat. He was very cold and his hands were kind of stiff. He recovered by the time that we got back to the Carpathia.
A Japanese or Chinese young fellow that we picked up on top of some wreckage, which may have been a sideboard or table that was floating around, also survived.8 We stopped (in the wreckage) until daybreak, and we saw in the distance an Engelhardt collapsible boat (“A”) with a crew of men in it. We went over to the boat and found twenty men and one woman; also three dead bodies, which we left. Returning under sail we took another collapsible boat in tow (boat “D”) containing fully sixty people, women and children.
I did not see the iceberg that struck the ship. When it came daylight and we could see, there were two or three bergs around, and one man pointed out that that must have been the berg, and another man pointed out another berg. Really, I do not think anybody knew which one struck the ship.
Mrs. Charlotte Collyer, third-class passenger, in The Semi-Monthly Magazine, May, 1912:
A little further on we saw a floating door that must have been torn loose when the ship went down. Lying upon it, face downward, was a small Japanese. He had lashed himself with a rope to his frail raft, using the broken hinges to make the knots secure. As far as we could see, he was dead. The sea washed over him every time the door bobbed up and down, and he was frozen stiff. He did not answer when he was hailed, and the officer hesitated about trying to save him.
“What’s the use?” said Mr. Lowe. “He’s dead, likely, and if he isn’t there’s others better worth saving than a Jap!”
He had actually turned our boat around, but he changed his mind and went back. The Japanese was hauled on board, and one of the women rubbed his chest, while others chafed his hands and feet. In less time than it takes to tell, he opened his eyes. He spoke to us in his own tongue; then, seeing that we did not understand, he struggled to his feet, stretched his arms above his head, stamped his feet and in five minutes or so had almost recovered his strength. One of the sailors near to him was so tired that he could hardly pull his oar. The Japanese bustled over, pushed him from his seat, took his oar and worked like a hero
until we were finally picked up. I saw Mr. Lowe watching him in open-mouthed surprise.
“By Jove!” muttered the officer, “I’m ashamed of what I said about the little blighter. I’d save the likes o’ him six times over if I got the chance.”
Miss Minahan’s affidavit (Am. Inq., p. 1109):
After the Titanic went down the cries were horrible. Some of the women implored Officer Lowe of No. 10 to divide his passengers among the three other boats and go back to rescue them. His first answer to these requests was: “You ought to be d——glad you are here and have got your own life.” After some time he was persuaded to do as he was asked. As I came up to him to be transferred to the other boat, he said: “Jump, G—d d—n you, jump.” I had shown no hesitancy and was waiting until my turn. He had been so blasphemous during the hours we were in his boat that the women in my end of the boat all thought he was under the influence of liquor. (Testimony elsewhere shows that Officer Lowe is a teetotaler.) Then he took all the men who had rowed No. 14, together with the men from other boats, and went back to the scene of the wreck. We were left with a steward and a stoker to row our boat, which was crowded. The steward did his best, but the stoker refused at first to row, but finally helped two men who were the only ones pulling on that side. It was just four o’clock when we sighted the Carpathia, and we were three hours getting to her. On the Carpathia we were treated with every kindness and given every comfort possible.
The above affidavit being of record shows Officer Lowe in an unfortunate, bad light. There is no doubt of it that he was intemperate in his language only. In all other respects he was a first-class officer, as proven by what he accomplished. But I am glad that I have the account of another lady passenger in the same boat, which is a tribute to what he did. I met Officer Lowe in Washington the time that both of us were summoned before the U. S. Court of Inquiry, and I am quite sure that the only point against him is that he was a little hasty in speech in the accomplishment of his work.