How I was Saved from the TITANIC (Coronet Magazine, 1951)
Without a doubt the most glam passenger to survive the TITANIC disaster was the fashion designer Lady Duff-Gordon (1863 – 1935). Attached is her account that describes the pandemonium she witnessed on deck, the screams heard as TITANIC began her plunge and the sun coming up the next morning:
"I shall never forget the beauty of that April dawn, stealing over the cold Atlantic, lighting up the icebergs till they looked like giant opals. As we saw other boats rowing alongside, we imagined that most passengers on the TITANIC had been saved, like us; not one of us even guessed the appalling truth..."
| The Sinking of an Ocean Queen ('48 Magazine, 1948) This tight little essay was written some 64 years after the TITANIC sinking by the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Hanson W.Baldwin (1903 - 1991). He succinctly pieced together the events of that day (April 12, 1912) and clearly indicated that there was plenty of blame to go around for the tremendous loss of life; not simply the Grand Poobahs in the senior positions (Captain Smith and Bruce Ismay) but the small fries as well (such as Second Radio Operator Harold McBride). By the second page, Baldwincommences with an hour by hour break-down of the events on-board TITANIC until she made her final plunge into the deep:"12:30 a.m. The word is passed: 'Women and children in the boats'. Stewards finish waking passengers below; life-preservers are tied on; some men smile at the precaution. "'The TITANIC is unsinkable.'" |
| The TITANIC Disaster (The Nation, 1912) Not long after the Titanic disaster was made known, there were many rumors and half truths that had to be sorted out and recognized as such in order to fully understand the full scope of the catastrophe; the editors of THE NATION printed this article which contributed to that effort:"...two terrible, damning facts stand out: the first, that the ship was speeding through an ice-field of the presence of which its officers were fully aware; the second, is that every life could readily have been saved had there been boats and rafts enough to keep people afloat in a clear, starry night on an exceptionally smooth Atlantic sea. Both these facts are indisputable." "As for the lifeboats, these expensive affairs that could cost the large sum of $425.00 apiece - there were but twenty of them in addition to a few rafts..." |