Crewman Describes Wreck of the Titanic

by Rick Bromer

In the spring of 1912, when he was twenty-two years old, an Englishman named Harold Bride landed a job as assistant wireless operator aboard the passenger ship Titanic

The ship was brand new, the pride of the White Star Line. The Titanic was nearly as long as three football fields -882.5 feet - and she was designed to be unsinkable. Her hull was divided into sixteen watertight compartments, and she would float unless five of those compartments were punctured and flooded.

Harold Bride believed that the Titanic was the safest ship ever built. He joined the vessel in time to serve on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City.

When the Titanic steamed away from the dock at Southampton on April 10, 1912, she carried 2207 passengers and crewmen. She carried only twenty lifeboats, sufficient to rescue just 1178 of those aboard; but this number of lifeboats seemed more than adequate, considering the character of the ship.

On the great ship's maiden voyage, many rich and glamorous people sailed as passengers aboard the Titanic. Harold Bride might have enjoyed gawking at the celebrities, but he never got a chance; he worked such long hours that he seldom left the wireless cabin.

The radiotelegraph was a novelty, and the passengers kept the wireless operators busy with an endless stream of trivial personal messages to be sent ashore from mid-Atlantic. There were only two wireless men aboard the Titanic, and to stay on top of their work they had to keep sending twenty-four hours a day.

On the afternoon of Sunday, April 14, the wireless apparatus broke down. Bride and his boss, First Wireless Operator George Phillips, worked seven hours to fix it, while a huge pile of unsent "wish-you-were-here" messages was delivered to their radio cabin. By the time the equipment was repaired, night had fallen -a dark, calm, moonless night.

Both wireless operators were exhausted, but there was much work to do. Turning to Harold Bride, Phillips told him, "You turn in, boy, and get some sleep." Bride gratefully retreated to the sleeping quarters of the wireless cabin, where he collapsed on a bed.
The weary Phillips kept tapping out messages to the receiving station at Cape Race, Newfoundland. At 11 p.m. he was suddenly interrupted by a message from the Leyland liner Californian, bound from London to Boston. The Californian's operator was broadcasting a warning that ice had drifted into the shipping lanes.
The Californian was only ten miles away from the Titanic, so the warning came in loud and clear. It came in too loud for Phillips, who was wearing headphones with the volume turned up high. The code signals stunned his ears like exploding artillery shells. Infuriated by the racket, Phillips tapped out an angry reply on his key: "Shut up, shut up! I am busy; I am working Cape Race!"
Forty minutes later the Titanic struck an iceberg. The 66,000-ton Titanic was steaming at 22 1/2 knots when the impact occurred. The ship did not collide head-on with the iceberg; she merely sideswiped an underwater spur of ice. This light, grazing blow slit a long gash in the Titanic's belly, and water began pouring into five of the vessel's watertight compartments.
If the ice had punctured only four of her watertight compartments, the Titanic would have kept her ability to swim. But with five compartments flooding, she was doomed.
In the wireless cabin, Harold Bride woke up. He would later recall:

"I was conscious of waking up and hearing Phillips sending to Cape Race. I read what he was sending. It was a traffic matter.
"I remembered how tired he was and got out of bed to relieve him. I didn't even feel the shock [as the Titanic struck the iceberg]. I hardly knew it had happened until after the captain had come to us. There was no jolt whatsoever.
"I was standing by Phillips telling him to go to bed when the captain put his head into the cabin.
"'We've struck an iceberg,' the captain said, 'and I'm having an inspection made to tell what it has done for us. You better get ready to send out a call for assistance. But don't send it until I tell you.'
"The captain went away and in ten minutes, I should estimate the time, he came back. We could hear a terrible confusion outside, but there was not the least thing to indicate that there was any trouble. The wireless was working perfectly.
"'Send the call for assistance,' said the captain, barely putting his head in the door.
"'What call should I send?' Phillips asked.
"'The regulation international call for help. Just that.'
"Then the captain was gone. Phillips began to send 'C.Q.D.' He flashed away at it and we were joking while he did so. All of us made light of the disaster.
"We joked that way while he flashed signals for about five minutes. Then the captain came back.
"'What are you sending?' he asked.
"'C.Q.D.' Phillips replied.
"The humor of the situation appealed to me. I cut in with a little remark that made us all laugh, including the captain. 'Send S.O.S.,' I said. 'It's the new call, and it may be your last chance to send it.'
"Phillips with a laugh changed the signal to 'S.O.S.'"

Phillips must have expected that he would quickly contact the Californian, whose wireless operator had so recently blasted his ears with code signals. But the operator of the Californian had just gone to bed for the night, after switching off his equipment.
While he waited for a reply to his S.O.S., Phillips swapped jokes with Harold Bride, who later recalled:

"We said lots of funny things to each other in the next few minutes. We 'picked up' [contacted by wireless] first the steamship Frankfurt. We gave her our position and said we had struck an iceberg and needed assistance. The Frankfurt operator went away to tell his captain."

Bride and Phillips stopped telling jokes when they noticed that the Titanic was starting to sink. According to Bride, "We could observe a distinct list forward."
Soon after he made this alarming observation, Bride was cheered by a lucky event: Phillips contacted a second potential rescue ship, the White Star liner Carpathia. Bride recalled:

"The Carpathia answered our signal. We told her our position and said we were sinking by the head. Her operator went to tell his captain, and in five minutes returned [to his radiotelegraph] and told us that the captain of the Carpathia was putting about and heading for us.
"Our captain had left us at this time and Phillips told me to run and tell him what the Carpathia had answered. I did so, and I went through an awful mass of people to his cabin. The decks were full of scrambling men and women. I saw no fighting, but I heard of it.
"I came back and heard Phillips giving the Carpathia fuller directions. Phillips told me to put on my clothes. Until that moment I forgot that I was not dressed.
"I went to my cabin and dressed. I brought an overcoat to Phillips. It was very cold. I slipped an overcoat upon him while he worked.
"Every few minutes Phillips would send me to the captain with little messages. They were merely telling how the Carpathia was coming our way and gave her speed.
"I noticed as I came back from one trip that they were putting off women and children in lifeboats. I noticed that the list forward was increasing.
"Phillips told me the wireless was growing weaker. The captain came and told us our engine rooms were taking water and that the dynamos might not last much longer. We sent that word to the Carpathia.
"I went on deck and looked around. The water was pretty close up to the boat deck. There was a great scramble aft, and how poor Phillips continued to work through it I don't know.
"He was a brave man. I learned to love him that night and I suddenly felt a great reverence to see him standing there sticking to his work while everybody else was raging about. I will never live to forget the work of Phillips during the last awful fifteen minutes.
"I thought it was about time to look about and see if there was anything detached that would float. I remembered that every member of the crew had a special life belt and ought to know where it was. I remembered mine was under my bunk. I went and got it. Then I thought how cold the water was.
"I remembered I had some boots and I put those on, and an extra jacket, and I put that on. I saw Phillips standing out there still sending away, giving the Carpathia details of how we were doing.
"We picked up the Olympic and told her we were sinking down by the head and were about all down. As Phillips was sending the message I strapped the life belt to his back. I had already put on his overcoat.
"I wondered if I could get him into his boots. He suggested with a sort of laugh that I look out and see if all the people were off in the boats, or if any boats were left, or how things stood.
"I saw a collapsible boat near a funnel and went over to it. Twelve men were trying to boost it down to the boat deck. They were having an awful time. It was the last boat left. I looked at it longingly a few minutes. Then I gave them a hand, and over she went. They all started to scramble in on the boat deck, and I walked back to Phillips. I said the last raft had gone.
"Then came the captain's voice: 'Men, you have done your full duty. You can do no more. Abandon your cabin. Now it's every man for himself. You look out for yourselves. I release you. That's the way of it at this kind of a time. Every man for himself.'
"I looked out. The boat deck was awash. Phillips clung on sending and sending. He clung on for about ten minutes, or maybe fifteen minutes after the captain had released him. The water was then coming into our cabin.
"While he worked something happened I hate to tell about. I was back at my room getting Phillips's money for him, and as I looked out the door I saw a stoker, or somebody from below decks, leaning over Phillips from behind. Phillips was too busy to notice what the man was doing. The man was slipping the life belt off Phillips's back.
"The stoker was a big man, too. As you can see, I am very small. I don't know what it was I got hold of. I remembered in a flash the way Phillips had clung on--how I had to fix that life belt in place because he was too busy to do it. I knew that this man from below decks had his own life belt and should have known where to get it. I suddenly felt a passion not to let that man die a decent sailor's death. I wished he might have stretched rope or walked a plank. I did my duty. I hope I finished him. I don't know. We left him on the cabin floor of the wireless room and he was not moving.
"From aft came the tunes of the band. It was a ragtime tune, I don't know what...Phillips ran aft and that was the last I ever saw of him alive.
"I went to the place I had seen the collapsible boat on the boat deck, and to my surprise I saw the boat and the men still trying to push it off. I guess there wasn't a sailor in the crowd. They couldn't do it. I went up to them and was just lending a hand when a large wave came awash of the deck.
"The big wave carried the boat off. I had hold of an oarlock and I went off with it. The next I knew I was in the boat.
"But that was not all. I was in the boat and the boat was upside down and I was under it. And I remember I realized I was wet through, and that whatever happened I must not breathe, for I was underwater.
"I knew I had to fight for it and I did. How I got out from under the boat I do not know, but I felt a breath of air at last.
"There were men all around me--hundreds of them. The sea was dotted with them, all depending on their life belts. I felt I simply had to get away from the ship. She was a beautiful sight then.
"Smoke and sparks were rushing out of her funnel. There must have been an explosion, but we heard none. We only saw the big stream of sparks. The ship was gradually turning on her nose, just like a duck does that goes down for a dive. I had only one thing on my mind--to get away from the suction. The band was still playing. I guess all of the band went down.
"They were playing 'Autumn,' then. I swam with all my might. I suppose I was a hundred and fifty feet away when the Titanic--on her nose, with her after-quarter sticking straight in the air--began to settle, slowly.
"When at last the waves washed over her rudder there wasn't the least bit of suction I could feel. She must have kept going just so slowly as she had been.
"I forgot to mention that, besides the Olympic and the Carpathia, we [contacted by wireless] some German boat, I don't know which, and told them how we were. We also [contacted] the Baltic. I remembered those things as I began to figure out what ships would be coming toward us.
"I felt, after a little while, like sinking. I was very cold. I saw a boat of some kind near me and put all my strength into an effort to swim to it. It was hard work. I was all done [exhausted] when a hand reached out from the boat and pulled me aboard. It was our same collapsible. The same crowd was on it.
"There was just room for me to roll on the edge. I lay there not caring what happened. Somebody sat on my legs. They were wedged in between slats and were being wrenched. I had not the heart to ask the man to move. It was a terrible sight all around--men swimming and sinking.
"I lay where I was, letting the man wrench my feet out of shape. Others came near. Nobody gave them a hand. The bottom-up boat already had more men than it would hold and it was sinking.
"At first the larger waves splashed over my clothing. Then they began to splash over my head and I had to breathe when I could.
"As we floated around on our capsized boat and I kept straining my eyes for a ship's lights, somebody said, 'Don't the rest of you think we ought to pray?' The man who made the suggestion asked what the religion of the others was. One was a Catholic, one a Methodist, one a Presbyterian.
"It was decided that the most appropriate prayer for all was the Lord's Prayer. We spoke it over in chorus with the man who first suggested that we pray as the leader.
"Some splendid people saved us. They had a right-side-up boat, and it was full to its capacity. Yet they came to us and loaded us all into it. I saw some lights off in the distance and knew a steamship was coming to our aid.
"I didn't care what happened. I just lay and gasped when I could and felt the pain in my feet. At last the Carpathia was alongside and the people were being taken up a rope ladder. Our boat drew near and one by one the men were taken off of it.
"One man was dead. I passed him and went up the ladder, although my feet pained terribly. The dead man was Phillips. He had died on the raft from exposure and cold, I guess. He had been all in from work before the wreck came. He stood his ground until the crisis had passed, and then he collapsed, I guess.
"But I hardly thought that then. I didn't think much of anything. I tried the rope ladder. My feet pained terribly, but I got to the top and felt hands reaching out to me. The next I knew a woman was leaning over me in a cabin and I felt her hand waving back my hair and rubbing my face.
"I felt somebody at my feet and felt the warmth of a jolt of liquor. Somebody got me under the arms. Then I was hustled down below to the hospital. That was early in the day I guess. I lay in the hospital until near night when they told me the Carpathia's wireless man was getting 'queer,' and could I help.
"After that I was never out of the wireless room, so I don't know what happened among the passengers. I saw nothing of Mrs. Astor or any of them. I just worked wireless. The splutter never died down. I knew it soothed the hurt and felt like a tie to the world of friends and home.
"How could I then take news queries? Sometimes I let a newspaper ask a question and got a long string of stuff asking for particulars about everything. Whenever I started to take such a message I thought of the poor people waiting for their messages to go--hoping for answers to them.
"I shut off the inquirers, and sent my personal messages. And I feel I did the right thing."

Harold Bride's statements were recorded by a reporter for the New York Times, who interviewed him at the dock on April 19, 1912. At the conclusion of the interview, Bride said:

"The ambulance man is waiting with a stretcher, and I guess I have got to go with him. I hope my legs get better soon."
"The way the band kept playing was a noble thing. I heard it first while still we were working wireless, when there was a ragtime tune for us, and the last I saw of the band, when I was floating out in the sea with my life belt on, it was still on the deck, playing 'Autumn.' How they ever did it I cannot imagine."
"That and the way Phillips kept sending after the captain told him his life was his own, and to look out for himself, are two things that stand out in my mind over all the rest."

SOURCES:
The New York Times. April 19, 1912.
A Night To Remember. by Walter Lord. Henry Holt & Co. New York. 1955.